PNNL

Abstract

Through the lens of energy storage deployment, stakeholders can imagine more broadly how improvements and investments in the grid can respond to local social and health challenges. Fossil-fuel power plants generate greenhouse gas emissions and health-affecting criteria pollutants, and plants are often disproportionately located in disadvantaged communities. This has resulted in an energy system that places increased health and environmental burdens on vulnerable populations. This report discusses how a strategic integration of energy storage in power plant decommissioning plans can mitigate these negative effects while providing energy system, environmental, and societal co-benefits. The report examines three fossil-fuel power plant decommissioning strategies to assess the role of energy storage in enabling an equitable clean energy transition future. The analysis showed how storage could enable reduction of fossil-fuel sources from the grid while enabling increased renewable energy integration into the electric grid. The report offers recommendations for future work, including the need to further develop the non-energy benefit attributes of energy storage systems with a focus on the benefits accrued to local communities to understand past decisions and inform future decision-making tools that account for environmental, economic, and social impacts, particularly those on disadvantaged and fenceline communities.