E.D. Spoerke
Sandia National Laboratories,
United States
Keywords: Long-Duration Energy Storage, Use Cases, Market
Summary:
Grid-scale energy storage continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, but the vast majority of installed capacity is limited to 4 hours or less and is largely dominated by aggressive growth of Li-ion systems. With significant electrical load growth and increased renewables penetration both rapidly approaching, larger, longer-duration systems are going to be important. Expanding the national fleet of installed systems to include safer, highly reliable, and cost-effective storage with durations greater than 10 hours, however, will require re-evaluating how energy storage will be used on the grid. The growing community of storage implementers will need to understand how such Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) can add value and generate revenue for energy storage stakeholders. Here, I will highlight prospective LDES use cases and discuss challenges and opportunities that the industry faces as emerging LDES technologies work to enter a highly competitive market.