Legislation introduced to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources earlier this month could require some utilities to increase their energy storage portfolios with sources that include pumped-storage hydroelectric power.
Called the Energy Storage Promotion and Deployment Act of 2015, or State Bill 1434, the proposal would be applicable to power suppliers that sell at least 500,000 MWh of energy annually.
Per the bill, those retailers would be required to have a storage capacity equal to but not less than 1% of their annual average peak power demand by 2021, and 2% by 2025.
Aside from pumped-storage hydropower, the bill also includes flywheels, batteries, superconducting magnets, compressed air and thermal energy as qualifying storage technologies.
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