A report released today by the national nonprofit Clean Energy Group (CEG) sets out actions that activists and foundations can take to accelerate the clean energy transition with battery storage. The free report provides an in-depth look at 10 major areas where battery storage has begun to transform the energy system, including lowering customer electricity bills, allowing for greater clean energy equity, replacing polluting peaker plants, and supporting the buildout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
This new comprehensive report is titled “Jump-Start, How Activists and Foundations Can Champion Battery Storage to Recharge the Clean Energy Transition.”
The report proposes over 50 specific actions to accelerate the rate of battery storage adoption, which could facilitate greater solar deployment, reduce emissions, increase technology access to the poor, and improve the efficiency of the electric grid. The report is supported by over 250 up-to-date citations to the current literature in the field.
Clean Energy Group has been working on battery storage issues for the past five years from a non-profit perspective. During that time, CEG, which does not take any corporate contributions, has provided groups as diverse as state and federal policymakers, cities, low-income community groups, industry, environmental advocates, foundations, and investors with free information to help them understand how energy storage delivers social benefits.
The report should prompt more action and support to advance battery storage, either deployed alone or paired with renewables, to meet environmental, equity, economic development, and public safety goals.
“This is a hopeful report, but it’s also cautionary,” says report lead author and CEG President Lewis Milford. “The bottom line is this: if clean energy, environmental justice and climate activists and their funders do not develop a strategic focus on battery storage, they will miss what could be this generation’s greatest clean energy opportunity.”
