Collaborative Research: Ensuring Sustainable Energy Storage Operations in the US Electricity Grid

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This research project investigates the environmental effects of energy storage operations in the United States using life-cycle assessments and electricity system engineering-economic modeling. The first objective of the proposed work is to understand the climate, health and environmental effects of operating energy storage devices on the electricity grid. The second objective is to propose new electricity system policies that allow the economic benefits of storage to be captured without causing inadvertent system emissions. Energy storage deployments are expected to increase rapidly in the coming years, but the environmental consequences of their operation phase are generally unknown. The effort will build on the researchers' prior work on the topic and will estimate the emissions effects of several different energy storage technologies providing energy arbitrage, renewable energy integration, and frequency regulation services. In addition, project activities include the participation of both graduate and undergraduate research assistants, through an undergraduate summer research program. The public is being engaged on the research topic through development of a freely-distributed "Emissions and Renewables" expansion to the popular board game, Power Grid.This research project is utilizing electricity system modeling approaches, marginal emissions factors, and emissions-related damage estimation tools. The analysis also includes an evaluation of a variety of likely policy interventions that can improve the environmental footprint of energy storage, including performance standards and alternative operational strategies. As part of this work, existing concepts are being coupled in new ways, combining energy storage operational models with marginal emissions factors to estimate climate, health and environmental impacts. Part of this effort involves developing new forecasts of marginal emissions factors for use in both this research project and by others examining the expected effects of future changes to the electricity grid. Finally, policy or market limitations on new energy storage, which have not been considered up to now, are an integral part of the research effort. Energy storage will be rapidly adopted in the coming decades. Policies that ensure sustainable development of these technologies are needed before large-scale deployment occurs, and the results of this work could be used directly in the formation of new policy.