Dominican regulator SIE authorized Empresa Generadora de Electricidad Itabo to connect a battery energy storage system (BESS) to the national grid.
Itabo submitted the application for the 7.5MW project in August and now has until 23 December to carry out operational tests.
In a resolution approving the interim link, the regulator said that an assessment by the OC grid coordinator concluded that the interconnection meets the requirements.
The auxiliary storage equipment, which will support primary frequency regulation, is located at the utility’s 260MW Itabo coal-fired power plant in Haina, San Cristobal province.
Generator Dominican Power Partners already operates a 10MW BESS.
A study published by the government as part of an energy transition project sponsored by the German cooperation agency GIZ calls for the definition of a regulatory framework for BESS and other complementary (ancillary) services.
SIE’s resolution highlights that “the current regulations do not contain provisions expressly applicable to the processing and commissioning of facilities with the characteristics of a battery system of generation plants for frequency regulation; this implies that, as an exception, a special procedure was developed for the evaluation of this application”.
Meanwhile, SIE granted the state-owned hydroelectric generator Egehid an additional provisional interconnection permit to carry out tests on a 10.8MW capacity increase in the 8MW Hatillo power plant. The extension expires on November 26.
