Issue Brief: Energy Storage

The document examines various energy storage technologies, ranging from established systems like pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage (CAES) to emerging solutions like flow batteries and flywheels. It highlights the critical role of U.S. federal initiatives, specifically Department of Energy (DOE) grants and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders, in reducing financial risks and reforming market access to encourage utility-scale implementation. The brief also details specific U.S. projects and proposed legislation, such as the STORAGE Act, aimed at incentivizing storage to support grid stability and the integration of variable renewable energy.

• Energy storage technologies are essential for mitigating electricity industry challenges, including managing fluctuating demand, ensuring reliability during storms or shortages, and facilitating the integration of variable renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
• Pumped hydroelectric storage is the most established commercial utility-scale technology, with the U.S. having over 22 GW installed and Europe expecting over 15 GW of new facilities by 2020. The world's largest site, Bath County Pumped Storage Station in Virginia, has a rated capacity of 3,003 MW.
• Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is the only other commercial bulk-energy storage plant currently deployed, with operating systems in Alabama and Germany. A second-generation project, the Bethel Energy Center in Texas, is expected to reach 317 MW.
• The DOE's Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), founded in 2012 with a $120 million appropriation, aims to develop battery technology by 2017 that provides five times the energy storage of current lithium-ion technology at one-fifth the cost.
• FERC Order No. 1000 (2011) and Order No. 755 (2011) have been instrumental in storage implementation by reforming transmission planning to allow for storage alternatives and ensuring that technologies providing frequency regulation are compensated based on performance.
• Proposed U.S. legislation, specifically the Storage Technology for Renewable and Green Energy Act of 2013 (STORAGE Act), proposes a 30 percent investment tax credit (ITC) for businesses and homeowners using storage, and a 20 percent ITC (up to $40 million per project) for grid-scale systems.
• Various U.S. projects demonstrate the application of different technologies: the Notrees Wind Farm in Texas uses lead-acid batteries (36 MW capacity), the AES Laurel Mountain Wind Farm in West Virginia uses lithium-ion (32 MW), and the Beacon Power plant in New York uses flywheels (20 MW) for frequency regulation.

APA

Wolkon, B. (2013). Issue Brief: Energy Storage. Environmental and Energy Study Institute. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/issue-brief-energy-storage

Chicago

Wolkon, Ben. Issue Brief: Energy Storage. Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 2013. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/issue-brief-energy-storage.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Wolkon |first1=Ben |title=Issue Brief: Energy Storage |publisher=Environmental and Energy Study Institute |date=6 August 2013 |url=https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/issue-brief-energy-storage |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wolkon2013issue, author = {Wolkon, Ben}, title = {{Issue Brief: Energy Storage}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2013}, month = aug, url = {https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/issue-brief-energy-storage}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }