This paper examines the development of lead–acid battery energy-storage systems (BESSs) for utility applications in terms of their design, purpose, benefits and performance. For the most part, the information is. From a historical perspective, small battery energy-storage systems (BESSs) were relatively. In addition to lead–acid batteries, there are other energy storage technologies which are suitable for utility-scale applications. These include other batteries (e.g. redox-flow, sodium–sulf. There are many applications for electrical energy storage in large-scale systems. These have been described in numerous publications that often used descriptive but somewhat impre. Many, probably most, of the recent (since 1980), utility-scale BESSs are presented in Table 1. For each BESS, details are given of the location, rated capacity, principle applications, an. Perhaps the best available cost estimates for the BESSs discussed in this paper are documented in two Sandia reports,. These data, categorized in a standardized for.