Bright Lights, Big City--Big Battery  Cities become a key
proving ground for commercial energy storage technologies
Courtesy of Eos Energy   Some of the most compelling needs for
storing energy like digital bits are now coming from businesses
and utilities in cities, turning them into a crucial proving
ground for a technology many consider vital for the electricity
grid of the future. Cheap, multi-hour energy storage—a long
sought but largely unrealized goal—could convert a variable
source, such as wind and solar, into one that can supply power
on demand as fossil fuel or nuclear plants do now. A solar cell
converts the sun’s energy into a flow of electricity, which a
battery stores as chemical energy.  In cities pockets of energy
storage distributed throughout a municipality would make the
grid infinitely more flexible and perhaps even more reliable.
Instead of only shipping energy from big centralized power
plants, batteries could supply power closer to where it is
actually used. Big batteries in urban bui