Energy storage must present itself as a solution to renewable integration woes: McCarthy
The energy storage industry must craft a better deployment strategy and do more to raise awareness of its role as a solution that will allow for greater integration of renewable energy, Gina McCarthy, national climate adviser for President Joe Biden, said at an industry forum.
Energy storage will need to be a central part of how the grid of the future is designed and how decisions impacting the generation mix are made if the US power system is to be resilient and avoid constant, costly retrofits, McCarthy said at the Energy Storage Association’s energy storage policy forum.
With the Biden administration eyeing 100% clean power by 2035 and net-zero emissions economywide by 2050, McCarthy said much of the technology is already there to meet those goals. The trick, she said, will be to continue with innovation while also deploying existing clean energy technologies at a faster pace.
“And that’s what I think storage needs — a real deployment strategy,” McCarthy told attendees to the virtual conference.
Solutions available now
She added that the challenge the administration faces is that too often conversations about renewable energy turn to the adage that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine.
“We have to explain to the general public that we have answers to this,” she said. “We have storage capacity that makes sure that when we generate energy, we can hold it and release it at the times when we need it. It just has to be built-in with the same kind of thought process and framework that we use for energy generation.”
Asked how energy storage would play into decarbonization goals, she responded that “we have to be smarter than we were before and outline the fact that we have solutions now.”
And with that in mind, she said “the question for the whole-of-government approach is how do we invest in [those solutions] as a federal government, how do we deploy what already exists, how do we move from the coastlines to the engagement in every state in the middle, so they can see not just that climate change is real and the crisis is upon us, but that we have solutions.”
She continued: “Let’s celebrate [those solutions]. Let’s spend money on them. Let’s grow this clean energy future that we all talk about, and let’s do it now.”
Notably, during the Obama administration, McCarthy spearheaded the first-ever national standards for curbing carbon emissions from power plants, although they were ultimately held up in legal challenges, prior to being tapped to lead the Biden White House’s Office of Domestic Climate Policy.
In her new role, she said her office will serve “as orchestra leaders for a very large band,” as it looks at “a combination of policies, practices, program reviews, purchasing power, and frankly just the power of the United States to once again be a leader internationally on climate.”
‘Opportunity of our lifetime’
However, before climate envoy John Kerry “can use his voice internationally, we have to move forward” domestically and that presents “the opportunity of our lifetime to basically restart,” she said.
“And when you start from scratch, where you need to drive millions of jobs into the economy to get the United States on a more stable economic footing, you ought to be thinking about where you want to go, not where we used to be,” McCarthy contended. “Let’s not recreate our fossil fuel-based economy that we know is creating the climate crisis before us. Let’s start investing in clean energy.”
Speaking earlier Feb. 3 at the National Association of State Energy Officials’ energy policy outlook conference, McCarthy commended the states for moving the ball forward during the past four years while there was no federal leadership on climate under the Trump administration.
“So we’re not starting from a place of weakness,” she told state officials participating in the virtual meeting. “We’re starting from, I think, a solid place for us to take off and run, and this administration is all about doing that.”
Encouraged by the late December passage of a bipartisan stimulus package and government funding bill that included many energy provisions, McCarthy was optimistic that there would continue to be areas of common ground upon which lawmakers could advance energy policies.
“If we don’t talk about this as what are we leaving versus where are we heading, I think there’s every opportunity to have these discussions,” even with a divided Congress, she said.
According to McCarthy, the Biden administration’s climate actions should be looked at as an opportunity to rebuild US manufacturing and bring back jobs that have gone to China. And if those efforts allow the US to lead on better battery technology, for instance, the US is going to pull ahead in the world market, she said.
“So this has to be about our common interests of making sure that we are building a strong economy, and that economy is one that we want to hand to our children. And I don’t think there’s anything bipartisan about those issues,” McCarthy asserted.
Source : spglobal
