The Vermont-based nonprofit said its report, Jump-Start: How Activists and Foundations Can Champion Battery Storage to Recharge the Clean Energy Transition, should prompt action and support to advance battery storage, either deployed alone or paired with renewables.
The publication surveys 10 areas where batteries are transforming the energy system, from reducing demand charges to replacing peaker plants.
It also proposes 50 actions nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can promote to accelerate rates of battery storage adoption, including investigating new behind-the-meter market opportunities, creating energy resilience plans and funding criticalsolar-plus-storage projects.
“This report is for activists and foundations who want to understand how battery storage can become a new part of their clean energy and climate advocacy,” states the publication. It notes the document is designed to explain the emerging economic, equity and environmental trends for battery storage use across all elements of the energy system.
The publication comes as NGOs increasingly move to embrace battery storage as a key ingredient for future low-carbon scenarios.
In the U.K., for example, the advocacy group Greenpeace lists “giant batteries” as one of four measures, including flexible gas plants, that can help wind power’s capacity to support the grid.
Friends of the Earth, another global environmental group, also cites batteries as part of the equation for an energy system based largely on renewables. Electric cars and batteries will “stockpile electricity for us,” says the group.
Beyond the rhetoric, a robust defense of battery storage has already helped advocacy groups win some battles against the fossil-fuel industry.
As reported in GTM, for example, NRG’s efforts to build the Puente gas plant in Oxnard, California were set back last year after a coalition of clean energy concerns, environmental justice advocates and the city itself touted energy storage as a cleaner alternative.
The California Independent System Operator studied the local grid needs and determined storage and other distributed assets could do the job of the gas plant.
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