Leading The Charge
By Jennah Denney and David Herder
Advancements in utility-scale and residential battery systems help prevent outages, protect equipment, and provide many more benefits.
Not long ago, when people talked about batteries, they meant the kind that powered flashlights, phones, and watches. Today, batteries are transforming the way utilities power homes, farms, and electric grids. Across the country, battery energy storage helps electric utilities keep power more reliable and affordable.
Battery storage systems can help utilities keep their communities powered when they cannot generate or import electricity—especially useful in remote or weather-sensitive areas.
Most systems can provide power for 2 to 8 hours. However, new long-duration energy storage technologies can provide power for multiple days.
Anza Electric Cooperative in Southern California is an early adopter of utility-scale battery storage. The utility’s remote service area receives the bulk of its power supply from a single transmission line.
“When that goes down, we’re in a systemwide outage,” Anza Electric General Manager Kevin Short says.
Wildfires and potential Public Safety Power Shutoffs result in increased transmission line outages. Batteries are a way for the community to stay powered through those outages.
“What we wanted to do was have this microgrid setup where we could keep the majority of our businesses—which are kind of clumped together in 1 little downtown area here—up and running during these outages,” Kevin says.
With only 1 connection to energy generated by others, Anza Electric began generating and storing its own power. The utility onboarded 4.5 megawatts of battery storage in 2020. The batteries work in tandem with the co-op’s large solar panel installations.
The hope was that the batteries could be used to keep the community’s downtown business area—about 50 businesses spread across a mile—powered into early evening.
The batteries proved their value this past winter. Between November 2024 and February 2025, Kevin says the utility faced about a half dozen outages, ranging from six hours to multiple days. In each case, the batteries kept the downtown area powered.
With the success of the battery program, Anza is increasing battery storage with 2 projects that would roughly triple the utility’s total power storage.
“We’re hoping to have enough on system generation and storage to keep the entire utility up—at least during daylight hours—during an outage,” Kevin says.
Beyond outages, batteries paired with power generators can store excess electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind, then discharge it when demand rises, which can help balance supply and demand and improve grid stability.
Batteries can also provide an alternative to traditional infrastructure upgrades.
Orcas Power & Light Cooperative, which serves 20 islands in Northwest Washington, has seen how batteries can prolong the lifespans of its equipment. The utility is served by underwater insulated cables. This insulation will lose effectiveness over time— in part because of the heat of the electricity it carries—and the cable will need to be replaced after a few decades.
Studies by the Department of Energy show that when utilities such as OPALCO add battery storage systems, the batteries can help manage the heat and extend the life of the cables by multiple years. Because these underwater lines cost millions of dollars per mile to replace, extending their life offers significant savings for OPALCO and its members.
When adding new technologies, utilities have seen a need to thoroughly communicate the program’s costs and benefits. For battery programs, this can include communicating how batteries prevent outages, but people likely won’t notice that success.
“They didn’t actually know it because they didn’t lose power,” says OPALCO Manager of Communications Krista Bouchey.
While utilities use large battery systems, residential battery systems also provide backup power during outages, keeping essential equipment running, such as lights, refrigerators, and medical devices. For homes with rooftop solar, batteries store excess energy during the day.
OPALCO’s members have become more community-minded in how they use residential batteries and want to support the local grid.
“We have had six to 10 of them reach out just to say, ‘If I were just to go ahead and discharge the battery, even when the grid is operational, when should I do so to help the utility?’” says OPALCO Manager of Engineering and Operations Russell Guerry.
Battery technologies are helping electric utilities improve reliability, integrate renewable energy, and manage infrastructure costs. These developments can contribute to a more flexible and dependable electric system that supports entire communities.
“Co-ops for years maybe haven’t had to deal with generating their own power, or having energy resources like batteries,” Krista says. “That may be the reality for our future—preparing our communities to be open to those ideas and understand the importance of reliable power.”