Quickchat | The Growing Need for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Across the Midwest
In this Microgrid Knowledge QuickChat video, Bobby Butler of ELM Microgrid speaks with Editor Rod Walton about energy storage and the growing need for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) across the Midwest, particularly in the MISO (Midwest Independent System Operator) and PJM territories, where tightening reserve margins, accelerating generation retirements, and surging load growth are creating reliability concerns. The two discuss the factors moving battery storage deployment forward and whether policy and market design are evolving quickly enough to prevent a capacity shortfall — and what role storage developers, utilities, and regulators must play.
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Timestamps
- 0:00 | Intro
- 1:13 | Is battery storage more valued right now?
- 3:25 | Can heat waves impact interconnections?
- 4:49 | What are some states doing to meet these issues head-on?
- 6:40 | How bad is it in MISO (Midwest Independent System Operator) and what level of battery storage can make a real impact?
- 8:16 | Why aren’t we appreciating more messaging around battery energy storage systems?
- 10:01 | Do batteries have a role with baseload resources and how?
- 11:50 | What about the challenges for Co-ops and how can they take advantage of the benefits in battery storage?
- 14:35 | How can battery storage provide flexible, dispatchable capacity to bridge the gap between retiring generation and new builds?
- 16:37 | What do you think should happen with policy and market design to build up battery storage and prevent these capacity shortfalls?
- 18:54 | Outro
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About the Author
Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
I’ve spent the last 18 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 36-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.