Long Duration Energy Storage for California's Clean, Reliable Grid

This Strategen report was developed for the California Energy Storage Alliance with support from the Energy Action Fund.

The study and its modeling assessed the need and opportunity for long duration energy storage (LDES) to enable California’s clean energy objectives through a technology-neutral approach that focused on the grid contribution of storage resources.

Key findings of the study include:

  • By 2045, 45-55 GW of long duration energy storage will be required to support California’s critical grid reliability needs; 2-11 GW of LDES will be required by 2030.

  • By 2045, long-duration energy storage can provide substantial benefits to California’s grid relative to a case where California does not have access to long-duration energy storage. These benefits include:  

    • Enabling the retirement of 10 GW of fossil fueled generation

    • Reducing system capacity costs by $1.5 billion per year from 2031-2045

    • Increasing renewable energy utilization by 17%

    • Reducing in-state use of fossil fuels for electricity generation by 25%

  • Given development and procurement timelines, the timing and magnitude of resource deployment implies need for immediate action. The amount of LDES deployment identified in the base case of the study is over 150 times (15,000% increase) the amount of energy storage deployed in the state over the previous decade, 2010-2020.

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