| | JUNE 20218CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONBy Sean Halloran, Vice President of Wellsite Technology at Ensign Energy ServicesGrid flexibility is a critical piece of today's energy landscape. It is becoming clear that in markets with a high percentage of renewable power, making sure that clean energy is available when and where it is needed, often referred to as `resource adequacy' (RA), is becoming a central issue in evolving utility markets. Nowhere is this more evident than in California, with the recent decision to give the state's two largest utilities an expanded role in the procurement plan for grid reliability and it's affect on how renewable resources are able to participate in the state's RA requirements. Energy storage has the opportunity to play a significant role in meeting the RA needs of grid operators, whether they have mandated RA requirements like California or there is a market-based approach to capacity like ERCOT.The idea behind RA is simple enough, grid operators want to make sure that there is enough power capacity to meet demand despite potential changes to that demand related to weather, power plant maintenance or grid emergencies. RA is a form of insurance that can de-risk the operation of the grid by essentially paying or otherwise incentivizing power producers to have additional generation capacity on standby. California's RA program was developed in response to the crisis of 2000-01 where rolling blackouts and pricing spikes led to customer dissatisfaction and chaotic markets. The state does not run RESOURCE ADEQUACY AND GRID FLEXIBILITY DEPEND ON ANALYTICS FOR ENERGY STORAGEOperation and maintenance (O&M) costs can also be reduced with curated data streams feeding machine learning (ML) algorithms predicting maintenance events
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