DOE intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) seeking applications for financial assistance awards that directs DOE to pursue a competitive pilot demonstration grant program for energy storage projects that are wholly U.S. made, sourced, and supplied. In the anticipated FOA, partnerships between storage technology providers, beneficiary organizations, and resiliency analytics partners will be required.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The DOE plans to make the FOA available by the fall of 2024. If released, the FOA is expected to make up to $15 million available for cost-shared research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) project(s) to support the goals of the DOE to facilitate the large-scale commercial development and deployment innovative storage technologies to support resiliency needs. There are 3 anticipated awards for this opportunity. The awards would be cooperative agreements and would include substantial involvement by the DOE. The DOE plans to contribute up to $5,000,000 for each award, with each award having a period of performance lasting up to 36 months starting from the funding being awarded and ending once the demonstration is operational and has initiated data collection for Rapid Operational Validation Initiative (ROVI). Demonstrations must provide data to the ROVI lab consortium for a minimum of 12 months during system operation.

Expected outcomes and objectives for the anticipated FOA include, but are not limited to:

• Deploy innovative energy storage technology at a host site with identified resiliency needs at the required scale, performance, and technology maturity level appropriate to advance technology towards commercialization.
• Demonstrate the benefits of an innovative energy storage technology being used in the field to the large energy storage end-user and potential investor ecosystem.
• Identify a host site that has a compelling need for a dependable supply of energy based on potential impact if the site were not able to maintain normal operations during a grid outage or other emergency event.
• Learn from industry and community stakeholders the type of criteria they consider crucial for “validation” of a new technology. Can consider these criteria for defining validation objectives for future strategy and activities.
• Conduct analysis on the value of resiliency provided by the energy storage system and use or develop valuation methods could be leveraged by others that are considering similar projects.
• Disseminate results and methods used for quantifying value of energy resiliency to broad set of stakeholders interested in resiliency solutions.
• Demonstrations that that provide community benefits and address workforce considerations.
• Willingness to participate in ROVI data sharing program with national labs.

TECHNOLOGY AREA OF INTEREST

If this planned FOA is released, resulting awards will be made for projects that align with the technology considerations:

Systems must be a bi-directional electricity-in electricity out system with quality performance metrics justified by the applicant based on their intended storage application. Example performance metrics include:

• High Round Trip Efficiency (> 65% AC-AC Efficiency if AC Grid Connected)
• Long Calendar Life (> 10 years of operation before end of life)
• Low Cost (Pathway to < $.05/kWh Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS)6)

Demonstration must have the capability to discharge at least 100 kW of electricity for at least 10 hours at the maximum rated power. Applicants may justify having a lower discharge duration than 10 hours at maximum rated power for this demonstration if they can demonstrate that the project would both:

• Provide additional benefits or value for a similar overall cost to what the 10+ hour system would cost.
• Provide justification that this demonstration would advance the technology’s ability to cost-effectively provide 10+ hours by 2030.