Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are essential for increasing distribution network performance. Appropriate location, size, and operation of BESS can improve overall network performance. The appropriately scaled and installed BESS helps meet peak energy demand, improve the advantages of integrating renewable and distributed energy sources, improve power quality control, and lower the cost of expanding or re-configuring the distribution networks. This paper investigates the feasibility of BESS for providing short-term and long-term ancillary services in power distribution grids by reviewing the developments and limitations in the last decade (2010–2022). The short-term ancillary services are reviewed for voltage support, frequency regulation, and black start. The long-term ancillary services are reviewed for peak shaving, congestion relief, and power smoothing. Reviewing short-term ancillary services provides renewable energy operators and researchers with a vast range of recent BESS-based methodologies for fast response services to distribution grids. Long-term ancillary services will provide the distributed network system operators and researchers with current BESS-based bulk-energy methods to improve network reliability and power quality and maximize revenue from renewable energy generation. The review presents a list of energy storage policies and BESS projects worldwide with a cost-benefit analysis. The challenges for deploying BESS in distribution grids recommended solutions for the implementation challenges, and future research directions are also presented.