Long-Duration Energy Storage

Long-duration energy storage projects are fast-starting, quick-ramping, high-capacity resources that can help balance peak loads and enhance clean-energy resources’ ability to meet the needs of the electric grid. Strategic bulk-storage investments will allow us to park surplus renewable energy for times of low supply, and provide flexibility to the grid without burning fossil fuels. CEERT vigorously advocates for long-duration energy storage at the CAISO and in CPUC procurement rulemakings.

Recent Developments:

CEERT continued our successful advocacy, in coordination with Mark Weideman and Ryan McCarthy, in support of expanded funding for Long-Duration Energy Storage, as reflected by the Governor’s budget including $190 million in new funding for LDES projects. Combined with $140 million in last year’s budget, the state has now amassed a fund of $330 million for these projects. CEERT is also working to develop an understanding of market mechanisms that could be used to support LDES facilities that provide capacity, energy, and ancillary services. Such mechanisms will be a necessary source of revenue in the absence of “off-takers” willing to sign power purchase agreements, since the benefits of LDES accrue to the power system as a whole, rather than a single utility or load-serving entity.

In response to stakeholder and legislator concerns, the proposal for a Central Procurement entity was amended in the Assembly Appropriations Committee to drop pumped hydro or long-duration energy storage from the list of eligible resources. If AB 1373 is heard in the Senate Energy Committee in August, our lobbying affiliate Clean Power Campaign will support the bill as long as it’s amended to include LDES technologies.