WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Office of Electricity (OE) today announced a team of six DOE national laboratories to receive a total of $2 million to carry out the Rapid Operational Validation Initiative (ROVI). ROVI will validate the testing of new energy storage systems.

Cost-effective, long-duration, and grid-scale energy storage is essential to modernizing our country’s electric infrastructure in order to reach the Biden-Harris Administration's goals of 100 percent clean energy by 2035, and a net-zero economy by 2050. ROVI supports the DOE-wide Energy Storage Grand Challenge strategy by accelerating the ability to validate storage technology performance. 

“Energy storage is a critical component of the modern grid and validating the performance of new storage systems will help accelerate wide deployment across the nation, supporting a resilient, reliable and clean electricity grid,” said Gene Rodrigues, Assistant Secretary for Electricity. 

The DOE national labs working on ROVI are Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory. In ROVI’s first phase, the lab team will work closely with industry and academia to develop a framework outlining specific flow battery systems data needs, as well as a strategic roadmap to complete the program. 

The data collection framework will eventually augment efforts to collect data from real systems in the field and address critical gaps in data needs. In addition, ROVI will provide an opportunity for project performers to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning for insights about the performance of long-duration energy storage technologies. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) of 2021 appropriated $505 million for the development of grid-scale, long-duration energy storage demonstrations. ROVI will support the performance reporting requirements and commercialization objectives outlined in those BIL programs.

Learn more about OE's energy storage initiatives.