Energy Storage Promotion and Deployment Act of 2015

Energy Storage Promotion and Deployment Act of 2015

This bill amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to establish national energy storage standards for certain electric power suppliers (utilities) that sell at least 500,000 megawatt hours of electric energy annually. Each supplier must have energy storage devices that have the capacity to provide at least 1% of its annual average peak power demand by 2021 and 2% by 2025. Suppliers must also meet a secondary standard.

Energy storage devices include those used to store energy using pumped hydropower, compressed air, batteries or other electrochemical forms, thermal forms, flywheels, capacitors, and superconducting magnets.

The standards do not apply to rural electric cooperatives or government-owned suppliers.

An energy storage device placed in operation before January 1, 2009, may not be used to achieve compliance with the standards.

The Department of Energy may provide one-year waivers from the deadlines if achieving the standard by the deadline would present undue hardship to the supplier or its ratepayers.