On February 1, 2024, the Maine Governor’s Energy Office submitted a report to the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Technology on long duration energy storage. The report was pursuant to Public Law 2023, Chapter 374: An Act Relating to Energy Storage and the State’s Energy Goals and included:
- A discussion of technology options for long-duration energy storage, including emerging technologies and a description of their technical operation and commercial viability, that may be feasible within Maine and New England between 2023 and 2040;
- An overview of known cost and performance characteristics, as well as development considerations by technology, such as development timelines, siting requirements and safety considerations;
- A discussion of scenarios for long-duration energy storage technologies, such as serving as peaking capacity, providing winter reliability or providing benefits through colocation with renewable resources; and
- Consideration of whether and under what conditions the use of long-duration energy storage would be cost-effective for ratepayers in the state.
Some of the key recommendations included tracking storage deployments in the state and region to better understand market development and use cases, monitoring federal and private-sector investments in RD&D of long duration energy storage technologies, and participating in advancing regional market design improvements to ensure fair compensation for storage resources. The full report can be found here.