Pursuant to legislation passed in 2013, the Minnesota Department of Commerce (Commerce) contracted with Strategen and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to investigate the potential costs and benefits of grid-connected electrical energy storage technology located at the utility customer in the State of Minnesota. The investigation included standalone storage and storage integrated with solar PV, and it considered both residential and commercial customer sites. Four different general
operational use cases for energy storage were identified and investigated, including:

1. Customer controlled for bill savings;

2. Utility controlled for distribution system benefits;

3. Utility controlled for distribution and market benefits; and

4. Shared customer and utility controlled for bill savings and market revenue.

The project team modeled each use case to calculate project lifetime costs and benefits, performed an analysis of key barriers to implementation, and provided recommendations to address key gaps to energy storage implementation. EPRI’s role in this investigation was limited to modeling and objective technical support, and as such did not play a role in providing specific recommendations for regulatory or policy action.