HOUSTON, TX (March 08, 2023) — The U.S. Department of Energy and partners today announced progress toward a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at accelerating the commercialization of long-duration energy storage (LDES). Parties to the MOU, announced during CERAWeek, are the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), the Edison Electric Institutes’ (EEI’s) Institute for the Energy Transition, EPRI, and the Long Duration Energy Storage Council (LDES Council). As energy firms work to meet U.S. clean energy targets, long-duration energy storage can play a key role.

Energy storage has the potential to accelerate grid decarbonization. While shorter duration energy storage is currently being installed to support current renewable energy generation, long-duration storage technologies can enable grid operators to utilize stored energy to help manage seasonal fluctuations in electricity demand. Cheaper and more efficient storage can make it easier to capture and store renewable clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable, playing an increasingly important role to ensure continued grid stability and reliability.

“Long-duration energy storage represents an opportunity to fill critical gaps in the grid and serve as a foundational platform for clean energy to power our homes, businesses, and vehicles,” said Dr. Vanessa Z. Chan, the U.S. Department of Energy Chief Commercialization Officer, and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions. “I am thrilled to see this important partnership get off to the races to help meet our energy storage needs and secure our clean energy future.”

Under the two-year MOU, partners will collaborate with long-duration energy storage experts on ways to expand the marketplace. Together, they will provide technical assistance and explore solutions to non-technical barriers to deployment to accelerate the development and deployment of diverse LDES technologies.

This memorandum of understanding seeks to:

• Support the development and domestic manufacture of energy storage technologies that can meet all U.S. market demands by 2030, including the DOE’s Long Duration Storage Shot, which establishes a target to reduce the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% for systems that deliver 10+ hours of duration within the decade.
• Facilitate the understanding and dissemination of knowledge about the technological, economic, and resilience benefits afforded by long-duration energy storage.
• Provide access to specific DOE and national lab core competencies in energy storage and energy infrastructure integration for supporting research, development, demonstration, and deployment purposes.
• Convene regulators, electric companies, technology vendors, and the financial community to identify barriers to LDES deployment and potential solutions to those barriers.

“Specifically, this partnership will allow offices within the Department of Energy, including the Office of Electricity and the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations among others, to have extensive milestone-driven activities and engagements with key experts in industry,” said Anna J. Siefken, Senior Advisor for the Office of Technology Transitions. “Today marks a significant upgrade to our efforts to engage on this critically important technology area.”

“Long-duration energy storage is one of the key technologies that the newly launched Institute for the Energy Transition is designed to focus on because LDES can play a key role in the clean energy transition,” said Edison Electric Institute President Tom Kuhn. “It will take close coordination with our critical partners to accelerate the commercialization of LDES and to address the technical, economic, regulatory, and policy barriers to deployment.”

“Strengthening U.S. electric grid reliability and resilience on the path to decarbonization rests on advancing energy storage to balance intermittent renewables,” said EPRI President and CEO Arshad Mansoor. “This collaborative will harness the collective strengths of leaders in industry, government, and R&D to accelerate the development and deployment of LDES technologies essential to a reliable, equitable, and affordable clean energy future.” 

“Long-duration energy storage is critical to meet local, regional and global net-zero decarbonization goals,” said Long Duration Energy Storage Council Executive Director Julia Souder. “LDES complements rapid renewable growth by offering flexibility, reliability, affordability and security. This partnership allows us to work together to accelerate the various markets and contracts even faster to deploy diverse LDES technologies. We appreciate the leadership of the U.S. DOE, EEI, and EPRI in collaborating to bring the importance of LDES to the forefront of the clean energy transition.”