Energy Storage News

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.

Scotland’s first utility-scale battery storage facility has been officially opened today, having begun delivering sub-second balancing services to National Grid at the end of June under a bespoke agreement secured before the hotly contested Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) auction of 2016. The 20MW Broxburn Energy Storage facility was built by RES, which had sold the project to The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) in August last year for £20 million. It was the first project to have been acquired by TRIG and RES’ fourth in the UK, with the company now managing the site.

“The innovation of California within the energy sector is welcomed by the storage industry as we stand on the precipice of realizing our own goal of 35 GW of new storage deployed by 2025,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the Energy Storage Association in the US. “As an enabling technology with a multitude of applications, the added flexibility that storage provides to the electric grid will prove crucial to achieving the goals of SB100 in a cost-effective manner while maintaining grid reliability. Storage resources can be deployed to optimize existing renewable energy resources and to integrate additional ones, serving as a multiplier of the greenhouse gas reductions made possible by ambitious clean energy policies like California’s,” she said.

Following news of SB100, legislation that would set California on a path to 100% renewables by 2045, the state is also on the brink of setting up a rebate programme for energy storage equipment sales. Senate Bill 700 (SB700), authored by Senator Scott Wiener, would extend the state’s feted SGIP (Self-generation incentive programme) policy to 2024 and make more provisions to include energy storage. SGIP supports the deployment of solar, wind turbines, microturbines, fuel cells, energy storage and other distributed energy technologies by utility customers.

A household just outside Berlin has become the recipient of the 100,000th grid-connected residential battery energy storage system in Germany. Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Thomas Bareiß attended an official event to mark the system’s commissioning in Eichwalde. Bareiß hailed the event as an “important milestone” that Germany has reached in its energy transition – referred to domestically as the Energiewende.

Following news yesterday of the first grid-scale solar-plus-storage system on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, two more modestly-sized projects show the potential diversity of applications for energy storage in the US state. Energy-Storage.news just reported that the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission had approved a 22-year power purchase agreement (PPA) deal for the project on the island of Molokai, which would pair 4.88MW of solar with a 3MW / 15MWh lithium battery system.

Elon Musk has confirmed that he wants to take Tesla private. In classic Musk form, he had earlier tweeted that an offer of US$420 per share was in the works. It would be more conventional for such an announcement to be published through an official filing. He confirmed the offer later in the day in a company statement.

Minnesota electric cooperative Connexus Energy has confirmed recent press reports that it is building 15MW / 30MWh of battery energy storage, while another not-for-profit, Vermont Electric Cooperative, will build a 1.9MW / 5.3MWh system in its service area. Connexus is part of Great River Energy, an electric transmission and generation cooperative and the second largest utility in Minnesota. Connexus serves about 130,000 residential and commercial properties in its service area. It issued a statement yesterday stating that the “innovative” solar-plus-storage project is now under construction.

In response to Massachusetts Legislature passing a bill raising the state’s renewable energy standard and another encouraging clean energy and energy storage use during peak hours, solar and energy storage trade groups SEIA and ESA offered contrasting views.

India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST), a single tax applicable across the whole of the country, will be lowered for lithium-ion batteries by 10% in a move which has been welcomed by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). All goods and services are taxable under the law, which was introduced in 2017. Along with a wide range of other changes, the GST rates on lithium-ion batteries has dropped from 28% to just 18%. In related news, fuel cell vehicles will see their GST reduced from 28% to 12%.

Lithium and sodium sulfur batteries will be used for the first time in new territories, after NEC ES and NGK inked deals to deliver projects to an island archipelago in Brazil and in Dubai respectively. Integrated electricity company Neoenergia, active in distribution, generation and other parts of the supply chain in Brazil, was requested by ANEEL (National Electric Energy Agency) in 2017 to help find sustainable ways to wean Fernando de Noronha, 350km off the country’s north-eastern coast, from a heavy dependence on expensive and polluting diesel generators.

Australia’s energy and environment minister has hailed the country’s accelerating residential energy storage sales as a report has emerged from Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel which says the “financial equation is straightforward” for adding batteries to home PV systems. Finkel’s office produced reports during 2017 which advised the government on the power market, opportunities and challenges for renewables and decarbonisation and the role of clean energy technologies in boosting the resiliency of energy networks across Australia. At the tail end of the year, he also published a report on the “transformative role” of energy storage.

Hawaii’s KIUC, the top-ranked US utility in 2017 for energy storage deployment per customer by SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance), will pay less than US$0.11 per kWh for power from a new solar-plus-storage facility.

EDF has completed one of the UK’s largest battery storage projects, bringing online the 49MW West Burton B project to provide Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) services for transmission operator National Grid. Only one project remains incomplete of the eight to have won contracts with the transmission system operator back in August 2016, with Foresight’s 35MW project at the Port of Tyne expected to begin operation in August.