Hybrid systems combining the complementary aspects of more than one technology could “change the energy storage landscape”, with 2.1GW predicted for deployment in less than 10 years, according to a report from Navigant Research.
The US state of California’s Senate has approved a bill that would provide rebates to customers for the purchase of energy storage systems, bringing the legislation a step closer to introduction. The bill, SB 700, was introduced by Democratic Senator Scott Wiener, along with SB 71, which is a mandate for new buildings to include rooftop solar in their construction. Both passed the Senate by a 23-13 vote and are now to be passed over to the State Assembly for consideration.
The Australian state of Queensland has announced a 400MW renewable energy auction with 100MW ring-fenced for energy storage. The tender was part of a raft of announcements on Monday, including confirmation of a commitment to source 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. An Energy Security Taskforce has been established which will introduce the recommendations from a review of the country’s electricity sector. Queensland currently lags the progress of other Australian regions in terms of renewables deployment, but there have been multiple project announcements.
The UK is to become home to Europe’s largest battery flywheel system in a first for the country which will provide fast acting frequency response services and aid the integration of renewables. The €4 million (US$4.51 million) project is being brought forward to support the project which will be delivered by a consortium of engineers from the University of Sheffield, flywheel specialists Schwungrad Energie and Adaptive Balancing Power, and product supplier Freqcon.
Stephen Prince, President and CEO of Younicos, is a transaction-oriented executive with more than 25 years of experience of growing and leading companies in global markets, as well as a published author and speaker with numerous industry awards. Stephen holds an M.S. in Taxation from Golden Gate University and a B.A. in Business Administration and Accounting from California State University Fullerton.
Whilst most of the federal incentive buzz for energy storage surrounds California’s Self-Generation Incentive Programme (SGIP), new bills from Hawaii and Maryland provide insights on how state storage incentives are moving beyond the Golden State.
Swedish energy major Vattenfall has partnered with BMW Group to add battery storage capabilities at its largest onshore wind farm in Wales. The agreement will see the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm, which reached its full generation capacity earlier this month, equipped with up to 1,000 lithium-ion batteries each with a capacity of 33kWh and using the same battery technology as that used within the i3 car.
Over €12 million (US$13.18 million) in funding will be provided to two European projects to examine and exploit synergies between the stationary energy storage and transport sectors, through the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding instrument.
Tesla has announced the first programme to aggregate the capabilities of hundreds of its residential and commercial stationary storage systems in a partnership with Vermont utility Green Mountain Power. The pair will bundle together up to 2,000 of Tesla’s residential Powerwall and commercial and industrial (C&I) Powerpack systems to create a “single resource of shared energy”, Tesla said, calling it the “next step in tapping the potential” of energy storage systems in the field.
India’s biggest utility, NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation) is seeking bidders to add a 6MW / 24MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) to a 17MW PV plant in Manglutan, South Andaman. Indian home minister Rajnath Singh laid the foundation stone for the PV project in early April. Our sister site PV Tech reported at the time that there would also be a separately held tender for energy storage to support the solar farm, which is located on the remote Andaman Islands, several hundred kilometres off the Eastern coast of mainland India.
Multinational energy company Engie Group has contracted NEC Energy Solutions and NEC Chile to provide a 2MW / 2MWh energy storage system to its subsidiary Engie Energia Chile in Latin America. The project will be NEC Chile’s first smart energy project and was awarded to the company last week through a competitive solicitation process, it was announced on Tuesday. While NEC Energy Solutions has executed two other energy storage projects in Chile already, totalling 32MW, it will be Engie’s first energy storage system in the country and follows news from last month that the France-headquartered group’s Brazil operations will be trialling the use of a grid-scale zinc hybrid cathode battery system from Eos.
The Victoria government has opened the tender process for the procurement of two 20MW battery systems. The Australian state is investing AU$25 million into a range of energy storage projects. The two projects must have a combined storage capacity of 100MWh with installation to be complete by January 2018. According to a statement from the administration, a 20MW battery could power a town with a population of around 100,000 for four hours.
AES Energy Storage was the powerhouse behind the largest battery storage facility built to date. When combined with the other mammoth battery plants built by Tesla and AltaGas, the three constitute around 15% of the entire battery storage capacity installed across the planet last year.
Imperial Irrigation District SEPA’s top-ranked utility for storage MW Southern Californian utility Imperial Irrigation District was the leading US utility for energy storage in 2016, deploying 30MW, according to the first ever rankings from the Smart Electric Power Association (SEPA).
NextEra Energy Resources will build a 10MW lithium-ion battery storage system paired with a 20MW PV installation for Arizona utility Salt River Project, with another battery system on the way.A subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, which is itself a subsidiary of Florida-headquartered power generation company NextEra Energy, will construct and own the facility in Pinal County, near Coolidge, Arizona.
The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is promoting a Request for Proposals (RfP) to US companies to design, build and install hybrid solar PV and energy storage microgrid generation systems in Haiti. The RfP is being run by EarthSpark International – a small-scale clean energy product distributor that focuses in Haiti. It calls for a solar-storage microgrid in Tilburon, on the coast of the country. It also calls for additional microgrids in two other towns located in Haiti’s southern peninsula.
More than a tenth of a 250MW energy storage procurement by utility Southern California Edison will comprise of Ice Energy’s Ice Bear units, deployed in partnership with NRG Energy. Southern California Edison’s (SCE) choice to procure the energy storage was made in 2014, described at the time by California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) executive director Janice Lin as a “monumental decision”. The procurement was awarded to five companies, AES Energy Storage (100MW), Stem (85MW), Advanced Microgrid Solutions (50MW), Ice Energy Holdings (25MW) and NRG (0.5MW).
UK flow battery provider redT will deliver a 1.08MWh energy storage project to support the distributed energy system in Cornwall, England, and potentially take part in utility Centrica’s developing 'virtual energy marketplace'. The storage technology company has signed an agreement with The Olde House, a working farm and holiday retreat situated in North Cornwall in the southwestern tip of the UK, to supply six of its energy storage solutions originally destined for a Scottish wind project.
Japanese utility/grid operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has invested half a million pounds (US$624,000) into UK residential energy storage system provider Moixa. TEPCO announced last week that it had made the equity investment. Moixa CEO Simon Daniel told Energy-Storage.News today that it was “encouraging” that an international utility was essentially “validating” Moixa’s “hybrid play of mass market system and platform”.
The latest project to be dubbed “Europe’s largest battery” will be a 50MWh project from Dutch energy supplier Eneco and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation in Jardelund, Germany. Perhaps more notable than just the size will be the significant role of the battery-based energy storage system in the Schleswig-Holstein region where Jardelund is, close to the Danish border. It will provide frequency regulation to the grid and be used to replace baseload electricity supplied traditionally by coal and gas power plants.
Energy efficiency solutions provider and energy storage developer Anesco is to partner with "technology-driven utility" Limejump to deliver 185MW of energy storage capability in the UK into August’s capacity market, with plans for the units to be brought online by the end of 2018.
Flow battery manufacturer ViZn Energy Systems has won a contract to provide 1MWh of zinc-iron flow battery systems to India’s majority network operator and utility Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL). The energy storage system will be installed at PGCIL’s facilities in Puducherry, by ViZn’s local partner firm Raychem, a joint venture between US firm TE Connectivity, and India’s RPG Enterprises, which specialises in grid integration of renewables.
According to the latest GTM Research figures, energy storage is coming into its own and is no longer confined to a handful of US states. 21 states now have 20MW of storage projects proposed, in construction or deployed. Further, 10 states have pipelines of more than 100MW. Although California has traditionally been the US frontrunner in energy storage, 2.5GW of front-of-meter storage projects have been tracked outside of the Golden State. Texas, Hawaii, Ohio and Illinois are among the top states for energy storage procurement; signifying that the movement is not just confined to California.
UK firm Open Energi’s Dynamic Demand technology has been integrated with Europe’s first grid-scale Tesla Powerpack installation in Somerset, UK, in preparation for the site entering the firm frequency response (FFR) tendering market. The 500kWh battery storage system, which is co-located with a 500kWp solar farm, will be able to automatically store and discharge energy in response to electricity supply and demand across the UK.