Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) installed at primary substations can be used by different participants of power system for handling the emerging uncertainties caused by supply-side variations, demand-side flexibility and grid topology changes. This work presents practical designs for the monitoring system of Grid Interactive ESS (GI-ESS) controller by taking the advantages of synchrophasor measurements technologies. This integration provides GI-ESS controller with real-time situational awareness over the gird status, thus, GI-ESS can participate as a grid support in various cases such as enhancement of voltage and rotor-angle stability, congestion management and island restoration. Furthermore, the achieved wide area situational awareness can simultaneously offer additional revenue streams for ESS utilization by enabling them to provide different power services in the flexibility market. This work also considers various monitoring systems including wide area measurement system, SCADA and substation monitoring system for the proposed GI-ESS control schemes. Finally, assessments for each of the alternatives is presented regarding their offered added values, reliability, implementation challenges and cost.