LCUS: A New Way to Accurately Measure Energy Storage Costs
It is often difficult to evaluate the benefits, effectiveness and costs of energy storage technologies. These benefits are dependent on how one uses storage and which technology is used for what purpose. The cost of using an energy storage asset also depends on the initial material and installation costs, as well as how well it is maintained during its service life. These aspects are interconnected and, until now, customers have not been able to easily access this information with a simple test. The new Levelized Cost of Using Storage method combines acquisition costs, O&M, expected use, and service life data into a single meaningful metric to compare different energy storage technologies.