This report is one in a series of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Storage Futures Study (SFS) publications. The SFS is a multiyear research project that explores the role and impact of energy storage in the evolution and operation of the U.S. power sector. The SFS is designed to examine the potential impact of energy storage technology advancement on the deployment of utility-scale storage and the adoption of distributed storage, and the implications for future power system infrastructure investment and operations. The research findings and supporting data will be published as a series of publications. The table on the next page lists the planned publications and specific research topics they will examine under the SFS. This report, uses cost-driven scenarios from NREL’s Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model as a starting point to examine the operational impacts of grid-scale storage deployment and relationships between this deployment and the contribution of variable renewable energy. Commercial production cost modeling software is used to evaluate hourly operation of five scenarios that reach between 210 gigawatts (GW) and 930 GW of installed storage by 2050. Storage plays an important role in these power systems between now and 2050—by storing the lowest-marginal cost generation (often, overgeneration from solar or wind plants) and generating energy during the highest net load periods of the day and year. Storage helps with the integration of variable renewable energy and by providing an important resource to provide continued reliable power.
