Healthy debate happening here! Fact: Energy storage in batteries is (already) an integral components of a decarbonized power "generation" system & certainly "a significant type of electrical infrastructure".
My take: this will be clarified via law soon...and massive economic, social and environmental beauty and benefits will be unlocked. What do you think?
Abundant clean power for everyone on Earth is good for civilization, the economy & our planet. We cannot move fast enough here. Yet we need to be judicious too. And let the market speak. And expect trade-offs, per the wise Doomberg _.
Innovative US manufacturers with a Silicon Valley "mindset" are a charged-up "battery" (yep, bad pun!) of innovation that is responding to law/regulatory changes to reinvent the 19th century grid via material science, software, talent and raw market forces.
Smart, committed and hyper-competitive people are doing incredible things at the intersection of the grid, electricity, batteries, storage and no-carbon power generation that will likely put the "wind and solar are intermittent" story to bed.
Examples to consider:
Telsa "Powerwalls" are batteries - 14 kWh in 2000+ homes - already integrated into Pacific Gas and Electric Company infrastructure via the Telsa Virtual Power Plant program.
Ford Motor Company, General Motors and Google created "VP3" with a vision to turn cars in software-controlled batteries on wheels...that can be a power generating "virtual utility" when needed!
Gas in your tank - & at your local power station - is storage of energy where chemicals are converted/"transformed" into motion & electricity by spinning a turbine with hot gases.
So what is a battery?
If you are "into" this, follow people like:
Kelcy Pegler, Rob Threlkeld, Ty Jagerson, Tom Einar Jensen, Grant Ray, Mark Dyson and see their battery work and our electrified, decarbonized future.
Hydro-electric power from dams and reservoirs store then generate power by spinning turbines with the gravitational energy in elevated water. They are "batteries". Curtis VanWalleghem and Team Hydrostor are innovating here in North American. Anna Engman and MINE STORAGE are ones to watch in Europe
Arno Harris is pushing PGE in new directions based on his life's work and board influence. Elliot Mainzer of CAISO has spent his career re-inventing what "the grid" can be. California is leading the world...as always!
Mark Lewis and team are funding "smart" grid innovations.
Eric Faurot, Sarah Golden, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, James Temple and Ian Morse are talented thinkers and journalists on the beat.
And follow Jigar Shah and thank David Crane at the Department of Energy Demonstration Office...$80B being given out to fund the vision.
We are in good hands. There is much to be hopeful about and many committed people taking risk with time and money to be grateful for.