The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $325 million in grants to 15 projects that support the development of long-term energy storage (LDES) technologies.
“As we build our clean energy future, reliable energy storage systems will play a key role in protecting communities by providing reliable sources of electricity when and where it’s needed most, especially after ‘extreme weather events or natural disasters,’ said Energy Secretary Jennifer. M. Granholm said in a recent DOE press release announcing the funding.
Energy storage technologies support the deployment of renewable energy, as generation systems using variable sources such as wind and solar cannot be turned on or off on demand, unlike generation systems based on fossil fuels.
The DOE said in the press release: “Funded by President Biden’s bipartisan Infrastructure Act, these demonstration projects will increase community control of local electric systems, mitigate the risks associated with grid outages, and help communities to develop reliable and affordable energy systems”.
Based in 17 states and one tribal nation, the projects also support DOE’s goal of reducing the cost of LDES by 90 percent by 2030, the department said.
“The selected projects will feature a range of intraday (10 to 36 hours) and multi-day (36 to 160 hours or more) storage solutions, which can minimize the frequency and duration of power outages caused by events such as severe weather or cyber-attacks on the network.” , the announcement said.
In one of the projects, battery life extension company ReJoule hopes to reuse discarded lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries for energy storage for the power grid. “When electric vehicle batteries are no longer suitable for transportation, the dead battery may still have 70 percent or more of its original capacity,” the DOE explained. “One of the biggest challenges when reusing these batteries is identifying their state of health, as batteries of different capacities cannot easily be used together. To overcome this challenge, ReJoule has patented a rapid way to assess the capacity of the batteries, identify batteries of similar capacities and combine them to create a pack”.
In a similar demonstration project, Smartville Inc. “has secured partnerships for the installation of long-life energy storage systems with lithium-ion batteries totaling more than 7 MWh to provide grid resilience, bill reduction and energy of reservation at senior centers. , low-income multifamily affordable housing complexes, and electric vehicle charging facilities,” the DOE said.
Meanwhile, instead of lithium-ion batteries, Urban Electric Power LLC aims to demonstrate the feasibility of its zinc-manganese dioxide batteries in large-scale systems and LDES. This project supports New York’s goal of deploying 3,000 megawatts of storage by 2030, the DOE said.
Aiming to serve rural communities, another project led by the National Renewables Cooperative Organization is testing vanadium redox flow batteries.
A tailored hospital demonstration project led by the state of California is working on zinc bromide flow batteries. “This long-term energy storage project will be a key demonstration of critical power backup for an acute care hospital in the US and will provide resiliency in a region increasingly at risk of power outages. “significant energy losses due to fires, storms and floods, extreme heat and earthquakes,” the DOE said. “This project will provide a roadmap to facilitate the replacement of diesel generators with cleaner and more cost-effective resources in hospital facilities.”
NextEra Energy Resources LLC has been selected for grants for the 10-hour battery energy storage demonstration using aqueous zinc technology.
Meanwhile, Alliant Energy Corp. aims “to be the first to demonstrate, at a commercial scale, a closed-loop CO2-based energy storage system and could validate the technology for large-scale deployment in the United States,” the DOE said.
Another demonstration project will “develop and deploy a pumped thermal energy storage system to aid local and regional grid resilience and stability, regional carbon footprint reduction and improved reliability of electricity to Alaska’s Railbelt region, while demonstrating LDES’ support for renewable energy.” said
Meanwhile, Xcel Energy’s project can be demonstrated at retiring coal plants.
Selected projects must still be negotiated with the DOE before a funding commitment.
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