Principles of Equitable Policy Design for Energy Storage

The Union of Concerned Scientists and a coalition of stakeholders established six policy principles for energy storage to ensure the transition to clean energy benefits disadvantaged and frontline communities. These principles focus on reducing emissions, improving disaster resilience, promoting local economic development through job training, accelerating renewable energy deployment, protecting consumers from high costs, and ensuring transparent community participation in project planning.

• The principles aim to ensure that energy storage expansion benefits vulnerable residents, including communities of color, low-income residents, tribal communities, and historically disadvantaged communities, without causing harm.
• Policy design should prioritize reducing emissions by using energy storage to replace fossil fuel-fired power plants and pipelines, which improves local air quality for frontline communities.
• Energy storage should be deployed as local, onsite power to increase community resilience against natural and human-caused disasters, maintaining essential services during outages.
• Economic development principles include providing access to Department of Labor certified apprenticeship and job training programs for installation and commissioning to create long-term careers in underinvested communities.
• The framework emphasizes consumer protection by ensuring storage lowers electricity bills and promotes ownership models that provide direct benefits to the community.
• Equitable deployment requires a transparent stakeholder process that empowers community self-determination and incorporates the perspectives of the most affected parties.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (2019). Principles of Equitable Policy Design for Energy Storage. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/05/equitable-policy-storage-principles.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Principles of Equitable Policy Design for Energy Storage. 2019. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/05/equitable-policy-storage-principles.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Principles of Equitable Policy Design for Energy Storage |date=May 2019 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/05/equitable-policy-storage-principles.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientists2019principles, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Principles of Equitable Policy Design for Energy Storage}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2019}, month = may, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2019/05/equitable-policy-storage-principles.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }