Flow Batteries Could Accelerate U.S. Efforts to Decarbonize, Finds New ITIF Report. DOE Should Focus on Innovative Solutions for Affordable Long-Duration Energy Storage
WASHINGTON—The United States needs a massive build-out of renewable resources to decarbonize its energy system, and affordable long-duration energy storage (LDES) resources would dramatically reduce the cost of such a build-out. Yet today’s dominant lithium-ion battery technology is poorly suited for LDES, because it is only able to discharge at maximum power for a few hours.
One promising solution is “flow batteries,” in which liquid electrolytes are stored outside the power-generating cell. A new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, shows that flow batteries could provide several days of electricity storage. Congress and the Department of Energy should push this technology and others like it forward by accelerating investments in R&D, testing, and demonstration.
“Flow batteries are one of the most promising options among the technologies being explored for LDES,” said Anna Goldstein, Executive Director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who authored the report for ITIF. “This architecture can be implemented using a broad range of chemicals, including some materials that are cheap and highly abundant, but the flow battery industry still remains very small. To scale up, the technology needs to be both low-cost and low-risk.”
The report shows that the most serious barrier for flow batteries is the absence of “first markets” that would rapidly accelerate development and cost reduction. In order for this technology to advance, the Department of Energy (DOE) should push it forward with investments in research, development, testing, and demonstration. The DOE should create a path to R&D funding for universities and companies through a program dedicated to grid-scale storage, while also supporting test facilities and demonstration projects at national labs and elsewhere.
“The race between Li-ion batteries and other technologies to dominate electricity storage is a high-stakes competition for the future of the grid,” adds Goldstein. “Without the policy interventions that we recommend, a crucial window for developing low-cost LDES technologies that would enable a cheap path to decarbonization could close. Immediate federal action is necessary to avoid missing this opportunity.”
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
