Bill Reaugh is the head of power conversion technologies for the engineering advisory firm VDE Americas. Here, we share highlights from a behind-the-scenes PVMI interview, which features Reaugh’s pro tips on utility-scale BESS project risk mitigation.

As variable renewable resources displace dispatchable fossil fuel plants as inputs to the bulk power system, energy storage deployments will provide system operators with a flexible new source of grid-firming capacity. Today, this market trend is most evident in the United States, which leads the world in battery energy storage system (BESS) adoption.