Politicians Support Clean Energy

Members of both parties embrace their support for renewable energy storage as an asset to improve control of the supply and demand of electricity, prevent costs traditional network features and provide resilience after drastic events.

Supporting the Cause

“Mr. Chairman, renewable energy storage has the capability to fundamentally alter the way we create and use electricity in a way that benefits the nation as a whole, but we must be willing to make the necessary commitments and the necessary investments in this technology for it to do so,” said Rep.

Bobby Rush of Illinois, a Democrat. For a younger industry that generally discusses state-level goals, the event symbolized a maturation in ambition. The goal is to clarify what a federal energy storage policy should appear like in the future. No unified federal storage policy presently exists.

Needing clarify

Increase in funding for federal research of renewable energy storage technology. Investing more money for storage research would be the simplest action for Congress to take.

Create an Investment Tax Credit for energy storage: Storage hasn’t maximized the federal Investment Tax Credit that’s been helpful in solar power. The IRS permits ITC for storage connected to solar, but claiming it dictates engineering and accounting that doesn’t maximize the value of the investment. The tax code incentivizes storage that can only charge from solar, regardless of potential optimization that could come from the network charging at key times.

Create a federal energy storage roadmap: To develop the federal level energy storage roadmap, storage would need to be deemed as useful and fully recognize it’s value. This provides an analysis for the nation in one sweep. The risk is that states wouldn’t like the federal government telling them how to invest in their grids.

The Clean Power Plan, which lets states determine their own paths to a cleaner network. This resulted in a couple dozen attorneys general to sue.
Tone and messenger matter in politics. Instead of prescribing actions, establishing national targets on things like cost and deployment maybe a better choice. A solid model for how a federal road map for energy technology improvement decreased costs and accelerated the industry.

Ensure utilities consider storage in their analysis and planning: This issue gets to the meat of why storage has advanced in some states more than others. When some utilities examine its potential, they find ways to apply it. But in some utilities have yet to thoroughly understand storage against traditional assets.

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