US govt, firms commit to at least 1.3 GW of energy storage projects

The White House on Thursday announced commitments by government agencies and US companies and organisations that would result in at least 1.3 GW of energy storage capacity in the next five years.

A Summit on Scaling Renewable Energy and Storage with Smart Markets yesterday gathered together regulators, power and energy groups and municipalities seeking to promote smart electricity markets and greater grid integration of renewables and flexible resources such as energy storage. The procurement, deployment, and investment commitments made are expected to lead to some USD 1 billion (EUR 889m) in investments in energy storage, the White House said in a Fact Sheet available here.

The federal government is committing to boost its storage and microgrid capacity at federal and military bases. That plan includes a new 50-100 MW grid-scale battery project at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in California, and other projects and activities at Navy and Air Force sites.

Also, the US General Services Administration (GSA) is to issue a Request for Information about building-level energy storage. It wants to explore possible storage solutions for emergency back-up, enhancing resiliency, and for aiding in demand response management of peak loads.

Grid operators, community organisations and companies like Siemens, Duke Energy, Con Edison, NextEra Energy and Microsoft in several US states will undertake storage projects, set procurement targets or launch pilot projects and partnerships. Microsoft and Primus Power, for example, are announcing a pilot programme to advance energy storage at Microsoft’s datacenters globally. Meanwhile, Southern California Edison (SCE) and RES Americas commit to procuring at least 580 MW and 450 MW of energy storage, respectively, by 2020.

Hannon Armstrong is to to invest up to USD 100 million in commercial scale, battery-based energy storage projects by 2017. UniEnergy Technologies (UET), on the other hand, commits to a tenfold increase in its manufacturing capacity at a plant near Seattle from 10 MW (40MWh) per year today to 100 MW (400MWh) per year by 2020.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.889)

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