"Energy storage is certainly there to integrate intermittent resources like solar and wind and help enable our grid to get cleaner, but it’s also there for grid operators to improve the efficiency of the grid, to improve resilience. We are there for an efficient, affordable and sustainable grid." - Kelly Speakes-Backman
As the global energy market, piece by piece, slowly but surely, moves towards a renewables-centered paradigm, dispatchable solar and uncurtailed wind, along with other forms of clean energy, are requiring longer and longer durations of storage to integrate them to the grid. While there’ll be a place for lithium-ion for many years yet, the technology really excels at applications of up to around four hours. For everything else, there’s a growing list of contenders, with diverse technologies and at different stages of commercialization. Here’s a handy guide to some of those technologies and their providers, electrochemical and otherwise, that promise anything from five hours to even days or weeks of storage.
While expressing disappointment that end-of-year tax announcements in the US did not include a standalone energy storage investment tax credit (ITC), the policy could still have a big impact if introduced, the CEO of the national Energy Storage Association has said.
Ranked among the leading solar PV module suppliers by our sister site PV Tech, GCL System Integration (GCL SI) has created a joint venture, branded as G-Powin Energy Solution, to expand its energy storage business in the Asia-Pacific region, notably Australia with US-Based energy storage technology provider Powin Energy.
As US states work to address and enable the swift growth of distributed energy resources (DERs), including solar and energy storage, the issues surrounding their interconnection to the electric grid require close attention. Not only to maintain safety and reliability as new technologies connect to the grid, but also to provide a clear, transparent and efficient process for customers, developers and utilities alike. Interconnection procedures are the rules of the road for the grid. Without common rules and predictable processes, gridlock and costly projects can result.
French utility EDF has acquired UK battery storage firm Pivot Power, cementing its mulit-gigawatt bid to become a market leader in Europe’s energy storage market. EDF confirmed the transaction this morning, with Pivot becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of EDF’s renewables arm. Pivot will immediately play a central role in EDF’s bid to deploy as much as 10GW of additional energy storage by 2035, bringing with it a 2GW+ pipeline of energy storage assets in the UK that are at various stages of planning.
Communities most likely to be affected by both the effects of and the response to devastating wildfires which have wreaked havoc on California will be given extra incentive to install solar-plus-storage at their properties through the state’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP).
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Energy-Storage.news spoke with Kelly Speakes-Backman, head of ESA, for a wide-ranging feature interview. Speakes-Backman said that energy storage right now is enjoying “extremely strong, bipartisan support, from Congress, from our Department of Energy and other administrations such as the Department of Commerce and Environment Protection Agency.” One of the reasons why storage is enjoying cross-party support in what appear to be divided times, is that there is growing recognition of the role batteries and other storage can play in creating an efficient, affordable and sustainable grid.
Supporting New York’s state goals of reaching 3,000MW of energy storage by 2030 - equivalent to 40% of today’s electric demand - codes for the safe installation of energy storage systems will go into effect on a permanent basis after 1 November. The issue of fire safety in relation to the deployment of stationary energy storage systems in New York, particularly in the US state’s densely populated urban areas, has been considered to have held back what has otherwise been a hugely fertile state for clean energy.
As the costs of solar PV modules continue to reduce, and those of batteries follow a similar downward trajectory, solar-plus-storage is in growing demand among utilities and solar developers. To further push down the levelized cost of energy of solar-plus-storage and maximize the amount of MWh of solar-generated electricity that can be fed into the grid, energy suppliers and developers are turning to direct current (DC) coupling these installations. Compared with alternating current (AC) coupling, DC coupling the PV array and the battery storage system in front-of-meter installations, such as utility-scale plants, is a much newer, less standardised approach.
Engie has been hired by Guam’s state electricity utility to build two solar-plus-storage plants with a combined capacity of 50MWp/300MWh on the Pacific island. The firm scooped up the project duo in the third round of Guam’s competitive renewable tender program after submitting the lowest bid. The plants will deliver more than 85GWh annually and are scheduled to be operational by 2022, according to Engie.
The recent flurry of energy storage project announcements from Massachusetts have been driven in part by a “common sense” approach to tackling the dirtiest impacts of fossil fuel generation. Massachusetts was identified by research firm Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables as one of the leading US states to have “laid the groundwork for supportive storage policies” in recent years, along with New York. Both states, Wood Mackenzie expect, will witness project developments that will contribute to ”substantial growth” US-wide in the early 2020s.
A battery storage project using second-life electric vehicle (EV) batteries is set to be built in Germany, with an aim of developing an installed capacity of 20MW. The project is being billed as the largest stationary electricity storage system using EV batteries in Germany, following on from an initial 45MW project in France. The stationary storage system is to be built using EV batteries compiled in containers, using both second-life batteries and new batteries stored for future use in standard replacement during after-sales operations.
A legislative package for energy storage research and development (R&D) has been welcomed by the US Energy Storage Association, after receiving approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. An amended version of the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act was last week approved by the committee after having been introduced in May alongside the Promoting Grid Storage Act of 2019.
Engie North America has bought a four-project pipeline in Massachusetts that comprises 25MW of solar and 22MWh of energy storage. It is one of a “number” of solar-plus-storage portfolios that will be deployed by Engie under the state’s solar incentive program, the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART). The new projects are expected to be operational by the second half of 2020 and run for 20 years. The energy storage systems will use Engie’s GridSynergy software platform and operate in the ISO New England wholesale markets.
Bolivia will try and capitalize on its large lithium reserves to set up an industrial ecosystem around batteries and other storage technologies, according to a top government official. The country’s vice president Alvaro García Linera described the government’s plans for a “lithium industrialization” drive as he attended the opening of a PV project in Oruro, in Bolivia’s west. “Oruro won’t just produce mineral and power but also lithium, lithium hydroxide, cathodes and lithium batteries,” García said as he toured the 50MW first batch of a 100MW PV complex.
A handful of European states have moved to bankroll various World Bank clean energy initiatives, with £200 million (US$250 million) of UK money to back energy storage in middle-income and developing countries. The funding comes as part of the Climate Investment Funds’ Global Energy Storage Program, which runs in collaboration with the World Bank’s Energy Storage Partnership. The program has an aim of financing 17.5GWh of battery storage by 2025, over triple the 4-5GWh installed across all developing countries, the World Bank said.
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The world has watched on as some of its leading regional markets, China, South Korea, Australia, Japan, parts of the US, the UK, and many parts of Europe have raced ahead in deploying energy storage in the last five years. Record-breaking figures have been reported in the US and other territories such as the UK, year-on-year. In those leading regions, the rapid rise is happening both in front of and behind the meter, with economic cases that are finally starting to make sense and often – but not always – with specific policy support.
California is embracing energy storage as a reliability solution for an electrical grid that’s adopting more renewable, intermittent generation. Public agencies such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have set ambitious energy storage targets while companies across the state are developing cutting edge storage technologies such as zinc-air batteries and renewable hydrogen. The goal is to ensure a dependable energy supply for the state as it races toward its target of 100% carbon-free energy by 2045.
The Energy Storage Association and US Solar Energy Industries Asssociation joined forces to promote a ‘Day of Action’ in calling for an Investment Tax Credit to be applied to standalone energy storage technologies. Figures out today in research company Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables' quarterly Energy Storage Monitor, produced in partnership with the ESA, forecast that the ITC could add an extra 0.3GW of annual deployments by 2024: from 4.8GW in its base case scenario to 5.1GW with the tax incentive. ESA is also encouraging Twitter users to use the hashtag #storageITC in supportive tweets.
GlidePath Power Solutions has acquired eight wind projects in North Texas with a total capacity of 149MW. The portfolio, purchased from Exelon Generation, will be optimised by GlidePath while it plans how best to add energy storage on-site at each project. The projects are all north of Amarillo and sell into the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). According to GlidePath, they will be the first battery storage projects in the SPP.
A report out today on the causes of the UK’s recent blackout, where electricity supply to 5% of National Grid’s customers was cut off “to protect the other 95%”, highlighted that 475MW of batteries were used to help bring the network back online.
The US Energy Storage Association has expressed “deep concern” that additional tariffs slapped on Chinese goods will adversely affect the domestic energy storage industry. The increase in prices in a price sensitive industry “could stymie projects already underway or cancel others altogether”, which could threaten livelihoods. The decision will “have an immediate and adverse economic effect on grid energy storage deployments in the United States,” a statement from the association said.