Dive Insight:
 
 DOE’s new Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere initiative aims to increase local control, “build resilience f

DOE Invests Half a Billion to De-risk Cheaper Energy Storage

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2022-05-18 06:30:15

Dive Insight: DOE’s new Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere initiative aims to increase local control, “build resilience for communities, minimize power grid disruptions, and help reach President Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said when the initiative was announced at the end of last week.

Today, lithium-ion batteries dominate the energy storage front but their duration to date has been limited to two- to four hours. To keep energy flowing across the grids in the U.S., especially during extreme weather, storage with much longer duration is needed, analysts and grid operators say.

Today, however, renewables across the U.S., including hydropower, make up only about 20% of average supplies and much more is needed, said Dan Shreve, Wood Mackenzie’s Global Head of Energy Storage. Thus, the timing of DOE’s new initiative is good as it allows young startups to “get their technology out in the field and demonstrate its capability to ensure that there is technology readiness when it is required,” Shreve said.

Long-duration storage has the unique opportunity of “balancing higher levels of renewable penetration without having to overbuild on the generation side,” and perhaps also alleviating some “extraordinarily problematic additional transmission buildout,” according to Shreve.

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