The Dept. of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Energy Storage Program has announced their release of the Energy Storage Safety Strategic Plan (PDF, 685 kb) to standardize the validation of the safety of grid-scale electrical energy storage projects.
The Strategic Plan addresses the key area of validated energy storage safety, spanning grid-scale, utility, communal, and residential deployments for the increasing array of energy storage technologies. It highlights the key areas of validation techniques, incident preparedness, and safety documentation, and recommends near- and long-term actions to address these needs.
Dr. Imre Gyuk, director of DOE OE and Energy Reliability Energy Storage Program, says, “We want energy storage to reach full acceptance as a component of the electric grid. For this to happen, a number of things must occur: technical feasibility of our technologies, competitive costs and established value, a regulatory framework, and safety. If we don’t have validated safety, we don’t have a product.”