The Importance of Energy Storage

There are many benefits to choosing energy storage, depending on the application and the type of technology selected to meet that application’s requirement. The importance and attractiveness of energy storage as an integral part of the electrical supply, transmission and distribution systems is receiving increasing attention by a wide range of stakeholders including utilities, end-users, grid system operators and regulators.

Diverse Technologies Providing Benefits to the Grid

Energy storage can provide a rich spectrum of benefits to the electric grid, to electricity end-users and to society as a whole. The spectrum of storage benefits can be grouped into six broad application/use categories:

• Electric supply
• Electrical grid operations
• Electrical grid infrastructure
• End-user
• Renewables integration
• Incidental (and other)

Storage benefits are also commonly categorized as being energy-related or capacity-related, and central (bulk power) or locational (distributed).