Last Monday NAATBatt hosted a meeting of the DES white paper working group in Detroit.  The DES white paper group consists of leading advanced battery manufacturers, electric utilities, auto makers, electric power equipment companies and national laboratories working with KEMA, an energy consulting firm, to produce a white paper outlining the importance of distributed energy storage (DES) technology to U.S. energy policy.  Among other things, the white paper will show that DES systems are necessary to enable the integration of high levels of renewable energy and electric vehicles onto the grid and are critical to ensuring the grid’s stability and reliability.  NAATBatt expects to publish the white paper later this year.  

Yet while DES technology is promising, it is moving toward actual commercial deployment only at a glacial pace. The slow pace of DES’ rollout was of grave concern to many in the working group.  The barriers to DES deployment—high costs, limited operational experience, and unsupportive regulatory schemes—are real and, in some respects, daunting.  The group spent much of its time discussing those barriers and how best to address them.

A central theme of the working group’s discussion was the need for more demonstration projects for DES technology.  But many in the group voiced concerned about the agonizingly slow pace of the demonstration projects that have been funded to date.  Large demonstration projects can take as long as six years to complete.  Several participants questioned the value of such projects in light of the fact that DES has so many diverse applications and that energy storage technology itself is changing so rapidly.  Death by demonstration project is a specter that hangs over many in the U.S. energy storage industry today.

Several participants noted that things seem to work differently in China.  In China, projects appear typically to move from concept to full construction within one year.  The ability to move quickly was noted as one of the major reasons why American companies seek to locate operations in China.  The “China clock”, as one participant called it, has major advantages for business, particularly businesses that rely on new and quickly evolving technology.

Although the white paper will contain many suggestions about how the U.S. can more effectively deploy DES technology, one of the suggestions will be that the U.S. and the U.S. Department of Energy start living on the China clock.  While much money has been spent demonstrating grid-connected energy storage technology over the past few years, the pace of development has been far too slow.  The slow pace threatens the survival of many American firms that have invested heavily (and often with substantial government co-investment) in energy storage technology.

A better approach is needed to the design of demonstration projects in the grid-connected energy storage area.  Demonstration projects are critical to the development and eventual commercial deployment of DES technology.  But there need to be more of these projects and they need to be more diverse.  Most importantly, they need to be awarded, constructed and completed more quickly.

In short, we need to adopt the China clock.  Smaller, more numerous, more diverse and more rapid demonstration projects are the key to developing DES technology and realizing the advantages it holds for the grid.  Money for DES demonstration projects is good, and more money is better.  But what is really needed is a sense of urgency.  Time to completion must become a major focus for government-funded demonstration projects going forward.  We must learn to push the time envelope and to push it consistently as a matter of practice, just as they do in China.

Photo by toomanymornings.com