Battery systems, which feature racks of cells wired together, and are capable of storing large amounts of power and releasing it over an hour or longer, have some advantages over other storage methods. They can supply power nearly instantaneously and handle continual cycling between charging and discharging. And as the manufacturing of batteries and control systems scales up, it will be easier and cheaper to deploy “plug and play” systems, rather than designs that are unique to each situation.

A large battery storage project in Notrees, Tex., illustrates the current economics. Built in 2013 for about $44 million by Duke Energy Renewables (with the Department of Energy contributing half of the amount), the project consists of thousands of lead-acid battery cells near a large wind farm.

Greg Wolf, the president of Duke Energy Renewables, said the company found it hard to sell large electricity users so-called firmed wind, in which stored power from the battery is used to supplement the wind turbines to provide assured blocks of electricity at certain times. “There was little interest from customers willing to pay for that,” Mr. Wolf said. “That has not evolved as much as some folks, including ourselves, thought.”

Instead, he said, the grid operator in Texas was interested in the Notrees battery as a fast-response source to regulate the frequency of the electrical current, which keeps the grid stable.

Maintaining a reliable grid is a high-wire act for operators, who struggle to keep a balance between the supply of electricity from generation sources and demand for it from customers. Batteries are especially valuable because they can respond quickly, adding more power to the system in a second or less.

Fossil-fuel plants that are often kept on standby for this purpose can take a few minutes or more to reach a level where they can provide the same service, Dr. Gyuk said. And all the while, fossil-fuel plants are emitting greenhouse gases.

Here at a Southern California Edison laboratory in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, scientists and engineers are doing some of the fundamental work to help make widespread battery storage happen.