Government agencies, companies, and organisations in the US have committed to generate an additional 1.3GW of energy storage capacity across the country over the next five years.
According to the US Government, any procurement, deployment, and investment commitments made are expected to result in nearly $1bn.
The federal government has also promised to increase its storage and microgrid capacity at both federal and military bases with the establishment of a new 50MW-100MW grid-scale battery project at California’s naval weapons station Seal Beach, alongside other projects.
In addition, the US General Services Administration (GSA) will issue a request for information about building-level energy storage in a bid to determine possible solutions for emergency back-up, which will enhance resiliency and aid demand response management of peak loads.
Several grid operators, community organisations across different US states, and companies such as Con Edison, Duke Energy, Siemens, NextEra Energy, and Microsoft will carry out various storage projects, set procurement targets, and launch pilot projects and partnerships to enhance energy storage capacity.
Microsoft and Primus Power will launch a pilot programme to enhance energy storage at Microsoft’s datacenters globally, while Southern California Edison (SCE) and RES Americas have decided to procure 580MW and 450MW of energy storage respectively by 2020.
By 2017, Hannon Armstrong will invest up to $100m in commercial scale, battery-based energy storage projects and UniEnergy Technologies (UET) intends to expand its production capacity at a plant near Seattle from 10MW to 100MW every year by 2020.
