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IPFS News Link • Obama Administration

FACT SHEET: Obama Administration Announces Federal And Private Sector Actions...

• https://www.technocracy.news

President Obama believes in the need to transition to a cleaner, more reliable, and affordable 21st century power grid. Under his leadership, transformations in how we produce and consume electricity are decreasing carbon pollution, scaling up renewable energy, and generating savings on consumers' energy bills. Since 2009, renewable energy generation has increased at a record pace, while costs have decreased dramatically.  Building on this progress, smart electricity market reforms, enhanced transparency, and flexible energy resources such as storage and demand response have the potential to further accelerate the development of a cleaner and smarter grid.  In fact, in 2015 alone, the United States doubled the installed capacity of advanced energy storage to 500 megawatts (MW) and deployment of this key resource is projected to continue to expand.

With this dynamic progress as the backdrop, today the White House is hosting a Summit on Scaling Renewable Energy and Storage with Smart Markets.  The Summit brings together regulators, power companies, municipalities, and energy developers that are leading efforts to promote smart electricity markets and greater grid integration of renewable energy and flexible resources such as energy storage.

The Administration is announcing new executive actions and 33 state and private sector commitments that will accelerate the grid integration of renewable energy and storage.  Together, these announcements are expected to result in at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years. These actions include:

A new report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers on the technical and economic considerations and opportunities relating to the grid integration of renewable energy resources.

The federal government committing to increasing its storage and microgrid capacity through programs that will make our federal and military bases more resilient and provide funding for microgrids in rural communities.

The U.S. Department of Energy promoting access to and standardization of energy data.

Sixteen developers and power companies in at least eight states announcing new storage procurement and deployment targets for the next five years.

Investors announcing $130 million in new funding commitments for energy storage.

In aggregate, these new procurement, deployment, and investment commitments announced today could lead to approximately $1 billion in investments in energy storage.

Power companies and developers committing to deploy smart water heaters, smart meters, and demand response programs.

Federal Executive Actions on Smart Markets and Energy Storage

White House Council of Economic Advisers is releasing a report titled "Incorporating Renewables into the Grid: Expanding Opportunities for Smart Markets and Energy Storage."  One of the report's key findings is that current and projected levels of variable renewable energy resources are opening up opportunities for technologies such as energy storage and demand response to ensure the reliable and cost-effective supply of electricity.  The report also finds that wholesale market reforms are already helping to enable these technologies to participate in some markets.  Ongoing cost reductions and advancements in communication infrastructure are expected to further enhance the potential for these technologies going forward.

Increasing the Federal Government's Storage Capacity: U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announces that it intends to issue a Request for Information about building-level energy storage to explore a number of possible storage solutions, in particular for emergency back-up (potentially to replace diesel generators), for enhancing resiliency, and for aiding in demand response management of peak loads.

Making Our Military Facilities More Resilient: The Navy's Renewable Energy Program Office (REPO) and U.S. Air Force announce the following new projects and activities:

U.S. Navy:

A new 50-100 MW grid-scale battery project that will be developed by a third-party developer at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in California.

A new 7 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) system with a 6 MW (18 MWh) battery system that will be developed by a third-party developer on the local grid at Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) in California.  The project will serve NBVC during electric outages, covering over 65% of the base's peak loads for up to 3 hours.

A battery second use (B2U) pilot project in Indiana with Naval Support Activity Crane, Duke Energy, and other stakeholders.  The project will repurpose the Navy's fleet of decommissioned submarine batteries into distributed energy resources to serve mission-critical loads.  If the battery fleet is repurposed rather than recycled, the Navy's overall battery capacity is projected to grow to 44 MWh by 2019.

U.S. Air Force

The Air Force's Resilient Energy Demonstration Initiative (REDI) announces the release of a Request for Information to energy developers and technology companies to provide energy assurance services to critical facilities at Beale Air Force Base (AFB) in California.  Concurrently, the REDI program is announcing the launch of a new energy assurance collaboration with industry at Beale AFB.  The REDI program, which develops and deploys innovative energy resilience technologies and business models, will create a comprehensive energy assurance plan for Beale AFB by the end of 2016.

The Air Force Research Laboratory and the Hawaii Air National Guard announce the launch of the design phase of a new distributed energy microgrid project at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The project will demonstrate the ability to integrate and demonstrate multiple renewable energy and energy storage technologies, and provide the ability to power critical mission assets during energy disruptions.

The Air Force announces the launch of the Forward Operating Base of the Future project at Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA). The project will integrate renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy storage technologies into a simulated deployed environment. The project is expected to reduce the amount of fuel required to power forward operating bases by more than 85%.

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