Sep 23, 2021
Energy storage technologies are one of the most promising tools currently on the market that are effective and efficient and can expand integration at a pace and scale that is necessary to combat the current climate crisis. The world is taking notice and the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) has stepped up into a leadership role with its Global Energy Storage Program (GESP) that supports, promotes, and further develops this pioneering technology.
And in May of 2021, the Federal Republic of Germany pledged USD$95 million to GESP in an effort to help support the programs objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting energy storage capacity, and improving the economic growth of countries supporting these clean technologies and solutions.
The Global Energy Storage Program (GESP) is the world's largest multilateral investment program for scaling up energy storage systems in developing countries. Amid falling clean technology costs and increasingly favorable regulatory conditions, GESP has created a community of groundbreaking developers, passionate advocates and committed organizations who are pushing boundaries and providing affordable, mobile, rapidly deployable solutions.
There is a wide range of exciting projects currently being explored that potentially hold the key to unlocking fully renewable electricity grids and the storage systems necessary to help deal with intermittency problems and provide round-the-clock clean power. Some examples include flywheels that store energy by spinning a rotor at exceptionally high speeds; pumped hydropower storage, a gravity-based technology, that releases stored energy by sending water down a natural incline; and electrochemical batteries.
Greater investment is needed in the energy storage solutions sector. CIF’s Global Energy Storage Program is proving that by developing new storage capacity with revolutionary technologies and supporting integration of variable renewable energy into grids, it is indeed a promising, efficient, scaled and sustainable pathway for a green future.
