The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity on April 30 announced a Request for Information seeking feedback on a proposed Blue Sky Training Program to train first responders, law enforcement agencies, local communities, utilities, authorities having jurisdictions, and others on how to respond to unanticipated failures of energy storage systems.
The proposed program “will help ensure community readiness when including energy storage as a source of back up generation to renewable energy resources,” DOE said.
Anticipated major objectives and outcomes include, but are not limited, to:
- Provide resources to include community stakeholders who may traditionally not be involved in decision-making related to ESS deployment, operation, and safety planning.
- Development of emergency response plans and trainings for participating community stakeholders at an ESS site.
- Development of a safety validation report that describes site-wide criteria to verify that the safety measures/functions are incorporated into the ESS site.
DOE is inviting stakeholders to provide feedback on these categories: program objectives, project deliverables and results and applicants and partners.
Stakeholders “must be consulted to ensure a new or existing ESS will operate safely and reliably. In U.S. localities, uncertainty over proper response procedures to security threats and unanticipated ESS failures can delay or even prevent deployment,” it said.
Submit responses to the RFI (DE-FOA-0003282) to RFI-3282@NETL.DOE.GOV by 5 p.m., (ET) on June 3, 2024.
