The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has announced its intention to investigate the potential for energy storage in its buildings. The federal government oversees a wide network of about 10,000 workplaces for more than 1 million federal employees.

GSA Chief Sustainability Officer Kevin Kampschroer announced the request for information would go out mid-September and potentially lead to projects starting in 2017. The storage devices are amongst others meant to replace diesel backup generators, which are used during backouts.

“We don’t pretend to be the world’s experts in energy storage, and so we’re reaching out to the industry and saying it’s wide open,” Kampschroer said.

The issued Request for Information (RFI) will call for project proposals among storage providers within a period of at least one month. After the evaluation and selection, the implementation phase is likely to begin with small-scale pilot programs, but if a company can provide a clear enough business case, they could jump straight to deployment, said Kampschroer.

Source: www.greentechmedia.com