Experts eye government role in expansion of energy storage

A panel of experts called on the federal government to increase its role in the development of energy storage technology, which is being increasingly seen as a method to ensure energy supplies amid natural disasters and other periods of power shortages or outages.

Ben Fowke, president and CEO of electric utility Xcel Energy, told the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during Tuesday’s hearing on expanded development of grid-scale energy storage there are three key areas in need of federal action: research and development, incentives, and support of infrastructure and policies.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the chairman of the committee, asked the experts if the $158 million the Department of Energy (DOE) has requested in next year’s budget to study and help develop energy storage technologies is adequate. George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory, told her the federal government and industry have thus far taken a piecemeal approach to storage technology and need to take a comprehensive view of how energy storage will fit into the electricity grid of the future.

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