Investment in energy storage in the US has gradually built up momentum, but what will really take it into the mainstream – and when? A panel of financiers discuss their opinions and experiences in this panel session.

Experts, technology providers and energy system stakeholders discuss how the need for long-duration energy storage can be met, in this panel discussion from the Energy Storage Summit USA hosted earlier this year by our publisher Solar Media.

The Americas region is on track to leapfrog Asia-Pacific in terms of deployed energy storage by 2025, before accounting for more than half of global capacity by the end of the decade, new analysis from Wood Mackenzie suggests.

California’s goal of reaching 100% emissions-free retail electricity by 2045 is achievable, but will require huge deployments of long-duration energy storage, especially from 2030 onwards.

While interconnection queues for America’s electric transmission and distribution operators are “swelling up” with growing numbers of energy storage projects, some of the big challenges ahead include enabling fair market participation for both standalone storage and storage paired with generation.

The opening up of independent system operator (ISO) services as a result of FERC 841 has led to a “huge difference” in storage dispatch strategy for merchant markets with concurrent bidding now the typical strategy.

The challenges of explosion prevention – with flammable gases needing to be vented “very rapidly” – in the event of a battery fire have been highlighted at this week’s Energy Storage Summit USA.

The energy storage industry should be well prepared to deal with failure in lithium-ion battery systems so that thermal runaway in a single battery cell never becomes a fire or explosion.

The business case for a range of long-duration storage technologies needs to be addressed to help the US reach its decarbonisation targets, according to the Department of Energy’s director of energy storage research Dr Imre Gyuk.