This week, Virginia set one of the largest energy storage procurement targets in the country, and one of the only targets specifically carving out long-duration energy storage. The road from idea to law began in 2024, when the C2ES Regional Clean Economies Initiative hosted a roundtable on long-duration energy storage in Richmond, VA. Since that initial conversation, C2ES has supported the development and final passage of the legislation that will be essential in meeting growing electricity demand and maintaining a reliable, resilient grid.
Why do we need energy storage targets?
As more renewables come online, using energy storage alongside them can help to keep the cheap, clean electrons they generate available when people and businesses need it. They’re also incredibly useful for supporting resilience during natural disasters like winter storms or heat waves that put a strain on our energy infrastructure. And, as our economy electrifies, batteries can help ease the strain they might otherwise have put onto the grid, promoting reliability and affordability.
Enter long-duration energy storage.
Long-duration energy storage (LDES) can be described as an advanced energy storage system that provides longer energy storage than more conventional battery technologies. Rather than using lithium-ion batteries, like most new energy storage projects, these LDES technologies use innovative chemistries like Form Energy’s iron-air battery, Eos Energy’s zinc-powered flow battery, or other kinds of technologies to store huge amounts of energy and discharge it over a longer timeframe.
Due to the nature of their technology, these projects might not always be as cheap or easy to deploy as conventional short-duration storage, so it’s hard for them to compete with these other technologies on paper. However, LDES is important to meeting the long-term needs of our evolving energy system, so it’s crucial to make it possible for utilities, companies, and communities to deploy them.
This is where energy storage targets come in.
When a state makes a commitment to deploy a set amount of energy storage, it sends a signal to the market that there is a long-term opportunity to build storage projects. While the first project might be expensive, as more are built, cost will come down over time. Having a target also puts a plan in motion to integrate storage into the energy system, which can enable greater use of intermittent renewables. To date, thirteen states have energy storage targets, and Virginia joins Massachusetts, New York, and California in setting a long-duration-specific target.
Virginia is right at the heart of the conversation on growing electricity demand. “Data center alley” in Northern Virginia is already home to hundreds of data centers, with plans expanding rapidly as companies race to build out AI capacity. At the same time, the state is also bringing on huge renewable resources like the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project in Virginia Beach, which started sending power to the grid in March. With plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050, rising electricity demand showing no signs of slowing, and increasing severe weather events threatening blackouts, Virginia’s proactive long-duration energy storage target will go a long way in fortifying its energy system in the decades to come.
What’s in the bill?
The new legislation in Virginia does four key things:
- Raises and extends the state’s existing energy storage targets to 16.7 GW by 2045. The bill sets requirements for the state’s two major utilities (Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power) to construct, acquire, or procure energy storage. This is the largest storage target of any state in the country.
- Sets the state’s first long-duration energy storage target, at 4.5 GW by 2045. The bill defines “long-duration” energy storage as “10 hours or more of generation capacity operating at full nameplate capacity.” It also specifies that half of the LDES target should be met by 10-24 hour storage capacity and the other half by 24+ hour storage capacity.
- Commissions a technology demonstration program for LDES resources. The bill directs the State Corporation Commission to set up this demonstration program and evaluate whether the technology is viable to validate the targets set by the bill by 2031.
- Requires the development of model ordinances for localities to regulate energy storage projects. The bill requires the Virginia Department of Energy, working with the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Fire Programs, to develop model ordinances for localities to use to regulate energy storage projects, to be updated every three years. This development will include a work group with representatives not only of these government agencies, but of community and environmental advocates, utilities, and technical experts to support the development of these model ordinances.
We are particularly excited about item #4, the model ordinances. This is a crucial tool that states can employ to provide resources to city and county governments to give them a starting point for determining how to regulate new energy storage projects. C2ES heard from participants in our 2024 LDES roundtable that many of these policymakers and their communities are skeptical of the new technology and don’t know where to start. Having a framework, especially one that is supported by the Department of Fire Programs, can help build trust and capacity among these communities to facilitate projects.
We’re excited to see this development in Virginia and will continue our work supporting policies that accelerate technology development and economic prosperity across the country. Follow our work on batteries in the Southeast through our Regional Clean Economies Initiative, and our continued work on LDES and other clean firm power technologies through our Innovation program.