Energy Storage News

In mid-2017, IKEA announced that it would be ‘launching’ a battery storage offering to sell alongside its solar panels in the UK. The week previous to this announcement, Siemens – another household name – announced that it would be joining forces with AES to create Fluence, a company focusing on the global energy storage industry. The press release by IKEA was viewed by many in the industry as a big deal, with many excited that such a well-known consumer brand could be ready to push storage into the UK market.

Senator Martin Heinrich has proposed granting tax relief for purchasers of energy storage systems, in a similar way to how the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is applied to residential solar PV purchases. Heinrich, democratic senator for the state of New Mexico, along with Minnesota’s Al Franken, also a democrat, last week introduced S.1851, a bill in Congress to create research and demonstration programmes for energy storage systems. Heinrich, with Franken as co-sponsor, also that week introduced S.1868, “a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax credits for energy storage technologies, and for other purposes”.

UK-based renewables developer Anesco says the inclusion of battery storage has been central to the economic viability of the country’s first subsidy-free solar farm, a 10MW site the company has just unveiled in the east of England. Clayhill Solar Farm, near Flitwick in Bedfordshire, was developed by Anesco in just 12 weeks with work being conducted over the course of this summer and, crucially, after the Renewables Obligation scheme had closed to new applicants.

Automation and engineering group ABB has signed on to become a supplier to a planned European lithium-ion battery ‘Gigafactory’ for Swedish start-up Northvolt.

Legislation recently introduced in California to cut red tape and reduce permitting times for energy storage systems and currently awaiting the state Governor’s rubber stamp could also halve the costs associated with paperwork, commercial system provider Stem has said. Assembly Bill 546 (AB 546) was authored by Democrat David Chiu, representing the 17th Assembly District of California, which includes the eastern half of San Francisco. The bill, which seeks to streamline permitting processes by, among other things, allowing for online forms to be submitted for approval, passed the Assembly floor successfully on 7 September. It now awaits the attention of the California Governor, climate hawk Jerry Brown.

While lithium-ion is rapidly racing ahead to become the “de facto grid storage solution” and is the most popular technology choice by far, vendors of other types of batteries are also targeting the market, with varying degrees of success. US firm Navigant Research published ‘Navigant Research Leaderboard: Non-lithium ion batteries for grid storage’,  earlier this month, examining the technologies, business models and strategies for commercialisation and larger scale production of energy storage batteries that sit outside the many different sub-chemistries making up the lithium battery market ecosystem.

National gas and electricity market regulator Ofgem has made a “game changer” decision for UK energy storage, by confirming that solar farms are able to retain accreditation under the government Renewables Obligation (RO) when supplying electricity to batteries. The first beneficiary of the decision is energy efficiency solutions provider and solar farm developer Anesco, which confirmed this morning that it is now the first commercial solar farm operator in the country to retain accreditation for three of its 5MW sites, all of which are connected to 1.1MWh batteries though shared grid connections.

Good Energy, one of the first utilities in Britain to offer all-renewable energy for consumers, has said it aims to start work on its maiden commercial energy storage development in November this year. In March this year the clean energy utility announced that it was to move into the battery storage sector as part of a significant restructuring of its offering. In May the company also launched a US$10 million corporate bond offer to fund work in the stationary energy storage and EV charger sectors.

Using just 351.9kW of PV and 1MWh of energy storage in a microgrid, a tiny island off the Massachusetts coast successfully met more than 50% of its electricity demand over summer. Historic Cuttyhunk Island, just a few miles from Martha’s Vineyard, a summer destination for the rich and famous, has less than 50 residents outside of seasonal tourist peaks and about 300 residents during the summer season.

Green Hedge, a UK renewable energy developer that has diversified into battery energy storage systems, has had an application for a 40MW project approved by local authorities in Derbyshire, England. Green Hedge, which has developed 200MW of renewables in Britain to date, mainly large-scale solar PV, netted £30 million (US$38.84 million) of funding towards battery storage projects from investor Zouk Capital in July. By that time, through a subsidiary company, Green Hedge Energy 2 Barn Ltd, the company had already in late May applied to South Derbyshire District Council, in England’s Midlands, for permission to construct the project.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) assessment of reliability and security of the country’s electrical grid network is “encouraging”, the Energy Storage Association’s head has said in her initial reaction to the report’s publication. Energy secretary Rick Perry ordered his staff in April to produce the report, which was published on Wednesday. Described as a comprehensive analysis and including recommendations to policymakers, regulators and the general public on future policy options, the DOE has now invited the public to offer comments on the “Staff reports on electricity markets and reliability” report via its website.

An agreement to construct a 20MW lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) has been approved by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), which would reduce reliance on natural gas generation. Last week, LADWP’s board of water and power commissioners voted to approve the agreement with Doosan GridTech, which says it primarily executes energy storage projects for utilities to help integrate more renewables on their networks. LADWP serves over four million customers with water and power, making it by some measures the largest municipal utility in the US.

The latest phase of a AUS$55 million (US$43.8 million) programme giving remote communities in Australia’s Northern Territory reliable and clean power will see a 2MWh battery installed and paired with more than 3,000 solar PV panels. Daly River, a remote indigenous community in the Northern Territory, is projected to save 400,000 litres of diesel fuel each year with the installation of the 3,200 panel, 1MW PV system and co-located lithium-ion battery-based energy storage.

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) company Hydrostor announced Tuesday that it has sought the services of Australian global infrastructure firm AECOM to support its entry into the market. AECOM’s Australia team will assist Hydrostor’s early-stage development efforts across the National Electricity Market (NEM). This work includes market assessments and site identification for the deployment of the Hydrostor Terra solutions in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Ideal Power, the US company best known for its power conversion systems for energy storage, has announced two recent project orders totalling 1.6MW in northern Texas and in California. Just over 1MW of the company’s 30kW Stabiliti power conversion systems will be integrated into six solar-plus-storage systems at a California municipal school district. The 35 separate Stabiliti units will be installed with PV and battery energy storage at six installations.

Canadian utility Alectra Energy Solutions, which has over a million customers in Ontario, will offer large-scale energy storage to commercial and industrial operations in its service area, having formed a partnership with developer AMP. AMP Solar, which has developed over 520MW of energy assets to date, is headquartered in Ontario with offices in New York, Denver, New Delhi and Tokyo, executing and acquiring solar PV projects in the UK, Japan, Canada and elsewhere. The strategic agreement signed with Alectra appears to be AMP’s first publically announced foray into energy storage.

Aquion Energy, maker of energy storage batteries and whole systems based on a novel electrolyte with a chemical composition similar to saltwater, is back in business. The American company, which began production in 2014, went bust in March, offloading 80% of its workforce and sending its website offline. One British company, Solar PV Partners, which was selling Aquion Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) batteries said Aquion had developed a “sustainable, clean and non-hazardous product”, also describing it as “cost-effective” and “scalable” compared to alternative storage technologies.

Despite a bill to create a rebate programme for energy storage systems purchased in California being dropped from a recent round of legislative decision-making, the state’s industry still has a “bright future”, commentators have said. Energy Storage Association vice president Matt Roberts and GTM Research analyst Brett Simon both told Energy-Storage.News this week that although Senate Bill 700 (SB 700) was taken off the voting agenda at a California Assembly meeting, where a ‘yes’ vote would’ve created a new policy pathway, California is set to continue its role as a leader in energy storage.

China-headquartered PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow has supplied a complete energy storage system to a commercial and industrial (C&I) solar-plus-storage project in the Bahamas. Unlike the company’s recent five-island microgrid project in the Maldives, the Bahamas system, at an unnamed customer’s site, is thought to be grid-connected. It provides behind-the-meter services such as load shifting and peak shaving and can also operate independently of the grid.

National Grid has reduced its forecasts for electricity storage capacity in the UK down to just 10.7GW by 2050 in the most ambitious scenario set out within its future projections for the energy sector. The latest Future Energy Scenarios (FES) document, published on Thursday, suggested the greatest level of storage would be deployed under its 'Consumer Power' scenario, which predicts a highly economic market driven by innovation over environmental concerns.

Business models used by Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS), including creating “Hybrid Electric Buildings” with energy storage, take the industry to a “new level”, VC investor Nancy Pfund has said. Investors including actor and activist Arnold Schwarzenegger, major Australian utility AGL, GE Ventures and Macquarie Capital participated in the successful raise of more than US$34 million in a Series B funding round, which AMS announced yesterday.

At least two global technology leaders could set up Gigafactories to manufacture lithium-ion cells in India in the next couple of years, according to the head of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). This focus is being driven by opportunities in both stationary and electric vehicle (EV) applications in India, particularly with the government goal of making all vehicles electric by 2030.

A lack of clarity around India’s recently enforced Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill has caused a PV tender delay in the state of Gujarat and prompted the nation’s energy storage alliance industry group to write a letter of appeal to the government. The India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) has now sent a letter to energy minister Piyush Goyal asking for clarity over taxes on separate segments of cells and batteries.