Storage Futures Study: The Challenge of Defining Long-Duration Energy Storage

Technical Report · Mon Nov 01 04:00:00 EDT 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1832215· OSTI ID:1832215

Denholm, Paul ^[1]; Cole, Wesley ^[1]; Frazier, A. Will ^[1]; Podkaminer, Kara ^[1]; Blair, Nate ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

This document explores the definition of "long duration" as applied to energy storage. Given the growing use of this term, a uniform definition could aid in communication and consistency among various stakeholders. There is large and growing use of the ARPA-E definition of greater than 10 hours. However, the term "long-duration energy storage" is often used as shorthand for storage with sufficient duration to provide firm capacity and support grid resource adequacy. The actual duration needed for this application varies significantly from as little as a few hours to potentially multiple days. This leads to the unsatisfying conclusion that there cannot be a simple, uniform, and static definition of long duration storage that captures its ability to provide firm capacity and also aids consistent communication.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Wind Energy Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Water Power Technologies Office; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Strategic Programs Office. Strategic Priorities and Impact Analysis
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1832215
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP-6A40-80583; MainId:53972; UUID:f46f0b56-8e86-47c3-9b75-e012484a6d4b; MainAdminID:63236
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
25 ENERGY STORAGE
U.S. power sector
distributed storage
energy storage
long duration
utility-scale storage