Energy Storage News

Canadian company Hydrostor has just received approval to build the first grid-scale compressed air energy storage system in Australia. Hydrostor will deploy a 5MW / 10MWh system at a former zinc mine near Strathalbyn, South Australia. The advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) project, expected to cost AU$30 million (US$21.09 million) in total, received development approval and has been welcomed in statements by local politicians

Lithium-ion batteries are far more widely recycled than many people think, while China and South Korea are already leaders of the emerging circular economy of lithium, a report commissioned by the Swedish Energy Agency has found. The report has been republished in English after a launch in Spring in Swedish. The author stated that many misconceptions and poor observations are made and repeated around lithium recycling and that more than 70% of lithium-ion batteries recycled today are processed in China and South Korea, with “high” recovery rates of materials.

Utility Georgia Power wants to own and operate 80MW of battery energy storage systems in its service area, building on the state’s early recent steps to investigate the value of storage both in front of and behind the electricity meter. Georgia Power has just made a request to raise residential rates in order to invest in the state’s “energy future” by 7% next year, filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Plummeting solar-plus-storage costs could help electrify millions worldwide by facilitating a ten-fold explosion of mini-grid systems, a new report from the World Bank has said. Its report said most new mini-grids will feature a mix of PV with batteries, adding that the 10-15GW of solar / 50-110GWh of mostly lithium-ion batteries expected by 2030 would bring CO2 savings of 1.5 billion tonnes.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has put numbers on the significant potential for energy storage to replace peaking capacity on the grid in the US, albeit with an understanding that as the peak changes, the goalposts will also move. NREL has said in a report just-published that around 70GW of peaking capacity in the US - from a total base of about 261GW - could be served by energy storage systems of four, six and then eight hour durations.

San Diego International Airport in California will be home to a battery energy storage system paired with onsite solar PV that is set to reduce electricity costs as well as deliver much-needed reductions in carbon emissions and peak demand charges. Comprising as much as 40% of the airport's monthly energy bills, the energy storage system will help reduce these demand charges.

Failing to create an investment tax credit as part of the ongoing tax extenders legislation, a coalition of clean energy trade bodies in the US have urged. Writing to Representative Richard Neal (D-MA), chairman of the Committee on Ways & Means, the group said the storage investment tax credit offered a short-term jobs boost and a contribution to addressing the climate crisis.

Flexibility providers including grid-connected energy storage systems sprung into action late last week after Britain’s interconnector with France suffered a trip, causing around 1GW of capacity to fall off the system in moments, causing fluctuations in the frequency of the grid.

Two of the best known system integrators in the energy storage field have just completed work on large-scale battery systems on the eastern coast of the US, NEC in Massachusetts and Aggreko in New York. The two latest projects demonstrate how states in the US, and not just the usual solar industry ‘hotspots’ such as California, Arizona or Texas can use energy storage systems to cost-effectively increase reliability of electricity supply while also lowering energy costs through either high value single applications or a combination of appropriate applications for the technology.

Ontario’s policy of rewarding large users of energy that reduce their demand for grid energy at peak times has resulted in Shell New Energies announcing 21MWh of projects with Convergent Energy + Power. The main policy mechanism through which developers of Ontario energy storage projects have found a profitable niche is the Global Adjustment Charge. Like demand charges in most of the US, commercial and industrial users of electricity have to pay a premium for energy drawn from the grid at times of peak demand.

An open source software tool to help developers and other stakeholders in the US to analyze the viability of their energy storage system projects has been released by Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia this week launched QuESt v1.2, which it describes as “open source software for energy storage valuation.”

A push to establish an Investment Tax Credit for energy storage has not only been welcomed by clean energy advocates and the industry, but might also meet the some stated aims of the Trump administration’s energy policies, an analyst has said. Michael Doyle, a Democrat, has proposed in the US House of Representatives the bill HR2096, an amendment to the tax code to issue credits “for energy storage technologies and other purposes”.

Many of the most polluting thermal power plants on the US grid today are also the most lucrative to run, but the service they provide could already be done twice as cheaply using solar and storage, developer 8minutenergy has claimed.

While many in the industry have been enthusiastic about the potential of residential and other forms of behind-the-meter energy storage for some time, and the technology is ready to go, it’s been difficult to really demonstrate the total value that home storage systems could provide. This year we’re seeing evidence that that has changed. It allows individual users to become more independent of big utilities and to maximize their use of solar energy, but it can also help the grid, by connecting together - or aggregating - dozens, hundreds or even thousands of units at once and providing a sort of combined and controllable single asset to the grid operator or utility.

Energy storage enjoyed another record-breaking year of deployments in the US in 2018, while the residential segment is now “moving beyond early adopters” and into commercial viability, a report from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables claims. Prepared in collaboration with the national Energy Storage Association, US Energy Storage Monitor 2018 Year-in-Review follows on from Wood Mackenzie’s quarterly editions of the report produced throughout the year. Published at the beginning of this week, the company reports “robust growth” in both front-of-meter and behind-the-meter segments of the market through 2018, with 777MWh of energy storage connected to the grid – an 80% increase over 2017 install figures.

A new poll has identified energy storage as the most promising technology for institutional investors keen on renewable assets, amid plans by many to ramp up allocations. Nearly two-thirds of all asset owners and managers quizzed by the firm chose batteries and other energy storage technologies as the renewables subsector with the greatest potential. The appeal of storage rests on the "growing role" it will play in the European energy mix as renewables become more prominent.

Over the past few years, strides in material science, applied chemistry, manufacturing and logistics have caused energy storage system costs to drop significantly. However, as the industry matures, and “early adopters” give way to the “early majority”, the economic fine-tuning required to make storage projects as successful in the field as they seem on paper determines the fate of storage projects before they even leave the planning stage. Storage developers that are still in business do not just start pouring foundations and dispatching cranes on a whim. Every project opportunity is compared to a collection of possible project sizes and scenarios.

While the likes of California, Massachusetts and New York make headlines as the leading US states for energy storage policy, initiatives from the ground up in New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan have been announced already this year.

Power electronics giant Hitachi has acquired ABB’s power grids business in an US$11 billion deal which cements its position in the energy solutions sector. Hitachi is to acquire an 80.1% stake in the power grids division and has also entered into a purchase option for the remaining 19.9% share, turning power grids into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi.

Batteries in private households will be now able to perform the “same tasks as a conventional power plant”, across the whole of Germany, the CEO of Sonnen has said, following a ruling that opens up grid services markets to the company’s devices. Sonnen last week announced that it has obtained pre-qualification to enter Germany’s Primary Control Reserve market by grid operator TenneT for its battery energy storage units installed across the country. Primary Control Reserve is a form of frequency regulation, keeping the grid to within acceptable boundaries of its optimum 50Hz operating frequency.

The US government has been urged to recognise the “critical role” energy storage can play in making the grid cleaner and able to accept more renewable energy, by increasing the eligibility of batteries and other technologies to receive the Investment Tax Credit (ITC). The ITC is applicable to purchases of solar energy equipment in the US and applies about a 30% rebate or discount for buyers. In recent years the policy scheme has been adjusted to include energy storage but for a long time, storage systems could only receive the Federal subsidy if installed at the same time as solar equipment.

Arsenal football club’s Emirates Stadium in London, England, has become home to what could be the first behind-the-meter battery of its size aimed at wholesale energy trading over frequency response. The 2MW/2.5MWh system unveiled today is the first battery storage system to be installed at a UK football club’s stadium following three years of development between the club, developer Pivot Power and investment company Downing LLP.

NantEnergy has acquired Sharp Electronics Corporation's US-based energy systems and services business, which develops and delivers energy management systems across the country. As part of the deal, NantEnergy retained the entire Energy Systems and Services team, including Carl Mansfield, former general manager and founder of Sharp's energy system and services group. Mansfield will continue with NantEnergy as vice president, system solutions. Among the products that NantEnergy will acquire includes the SmartStorage behind-the-meter energy storage system.

Transmission system operators in the US have begun making their moves to accommodate energy storage into their wholesale markets, with New England ISO and Southwest Power Pool both making filings in the past month. In February the US’ main regulator the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), issued FERC Order 841, instructing the US’ six regional electricity transmission organisations to reconfigure their wholesale markets to allow energy storage to participate. The ISOs and RTOs have about a year to respond in full.