by Shane Henson — January 10, 2014—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released its Grid Energy Storage 2013 report discussing the United States’ future electricity needs, the benefits of grid energy storage, the challenges that must be addressed to enable broader grid energy storage use, and the efforts of the DOE and other entities to meet those challenges.
As the report notes, by some estimates, the United States will need somewhere between 4 and 5 tera kilowatt-hours of electricity annually by 2050, making modernizing the electric grid and effective energy storage a major concern for the DOE and all stakeholders.
Those planning and implementing grid expansion to meet this increased electric load face growing challenges in balancing economic and commercial viability, resiliency, cyber-security, and impacts to carbon emissions and environmental sustainability, says the DOE.
Energy storage systems (ESS) will reportedly play a significant role in meeting these challenges by improving the operating capabilities of the grid as well as mitigating infrastructure investments. ESS can address issues with the timing, transmission, and dispatch of electricity, while also regulating the quality and reliability of the power generated by traditional and variable sources of power. ESS can also contribute to emergency preparedness.
The report sets out potential options to improve energy storage. It also presents a number of specific actions that could help maintain both scientific advancements and a pipeline of project deployments. Actions include:
- Achieving cost-competitive energy storage technology through research, resolving economic and performance barriers, and creating analytical tools for design, manufacturing, innovation and deployment;
- Validating the reliability and safety of energy storage technologies through research and development, creating standard testing protocols, independently testing protocols against utility requirements, and documenting the performance of installed systems;
- Establishing an equitable regulatory environment by conducting public-private evaluations of grid benefits, exploring technology-neutral mechanisms for monetizing grid services, and developing industry and regulatory agency-accepted standards for siting, grid integration, procurement and performance evaluation; and
- Achieving industry acceptance through field trials and demonstrations and use of industry-accepted planning and operational tools to incorporate storage onto the grid.
