Energy Storage News

Eyeing the success of the recently-passed California solar mandate, Milwaukee Common Council Member Tony Zielinski has proposed legislation that would require all new residential units in the city to include solar arrays, starting in 2019. Zielinski told Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) that the idea for his proposal came while he was reading about California’s rooftop solar mandate. “I think this is just one step in a series of steps that we need to undertake to help improve our environment and gradually reduce our reliance on fuels,” Zielinski said while appearing on WPR. ” There’s a whole myriad of other initiatives… I think we need to add more. I just think that this is one step and there’ll be additional steps down the road as well.”

AES, one of the world’s largest power companies, has released a report detailing the company’s moves to reduce carbon emissions 70% by 2030, but, more importantly, their plans to incorporate increasing amounts of renewable generation and energy storage projects to compliment this new generation. In the report, AES outlines three scenarios of optimization between carbon reduction and minimizing the stress of a new energy transition, known as the Business as Usual Scenario, the Greener Scenario and 1.5-2°C Scenario, the same one outlined in the Paris Agreement.

In continued pursuit of his state’s 50% renewable by 2030 and 1,500 MW of energy storage by 2025, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) has announced that $40 million will be made available to solar projects that integrate energy storage. Like CPS Energy earlier this week, New York is recognizing the necessity of expansive energy storage coverage to shift solar energy’s availability to times of peak demand, outlining in a release that the storage will be used for that goal. This reasoning is likely also behind Gov. Cuomo’s unique battery storage goal, first unveiled in his 2018 State of the State address this past January.

We know energy storage is coming. The question is: How much and how fast? Tesla showed us that they’d rather build cars versus energy storage installations, and that makes sense since more than 90% of their revenue is from cars. And Bloomberg recently reminded us that the whole of the industry is in a situation of greater demand than supply. Nonetheless, the potential is there and the manufacturing capacity is growing immensely.

Stem, Inc. has announced new collaborations with Urban Energy Solutions, LLC and SunGreen Systems to use Stem’s artificial intelligence (AI), Athena, in intelligent solar + storage solutions in Arizona and California. These projects represent Stem’s entry into a sixth U.S. state and the continued high growth of solar + storage momentum across the country.

A utility survey shows battery storage capacity growing sharply, including solar + storage installations in several states. Looking ahead, FERC Order 841 could spark extensive new storage for grid services, helping more utilities become familiar with storage and its benefits.

Wood Mackenzie projects that the U.S. energy storage market will reach well over $500 million in sales this year, following on 61.8 MW / 156.5 MWh of installations during the second quarter. Residential storage has grown at 61% per quarter since Q1 2017.

Today solar and energy storage advocates had their second win in less than 24 hours. Following on the dramatic and narrow passage of a bill to mandate 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, another bill which may contain one of the keys to making that happen has passed the Assembly. SB 700 will extend the state’s Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) through 2026, which by the estimates of the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) will support the installation of nearly 3 GW of behind-the-meter storage.

 Enphase Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENPH), a global energy technology company and the world’s leading supplier of solar microinverters, today announced that Momentum Solar, a top U.S. residential solar contractor and Inc. 500 fastest-growing private company, has chosen Enphase to be its exclusive inverter supplier. Momentum Solar is one of the fastest growing home solar service providers in the U.S. with operations in New Jersey, New York, California, Florida, Texas, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.

The Empire State is singing the renewable energy tune these days. If it isn’t a gigawatt battery factory, then it is a batch of large solar projects, or its massive offshore wind farms, and 1.5 GW of energy storage by 2025. With these announcements the state is predicting a doubling of its 2017 installed solar power capacity in 2018, and forecasts falling electricity demand decades out due to more behind-the-meter solar.

Nowhere in the United States has embraced rooftop solar like Hawaii. Very high retail electricity prices made net-metered rooftop solar a bargain in the island state well before the mainland, with the result that 16-20% of all homes on individual islands hosted PV systems by the end of 2017. As this is a much higher rate of distributed solar than anywhere in the Continental United States, this and the island’s isolated grid also meant that the state’s utilities hit technical challenges associated with deploying this solar sooner.

While power sector holdouts such as FirstEnergy get headlines by pushing for disingenuous regulatory changes in a vain attempt to make the future look like the past, many U.S. power companies are seeing the light in the low and predictable costs of large-scale wind and solar. One of the leaders in this regard is Florida power company NextEra Energy. The company’s Q1 2018 results show NextEra building not only large amounts of solar both through generation arm NextEra Energy Resources and utility Florida Power and Light, but also beginning to deploy large-scale energy storage through both companies.

Most of us are solar power professionals, for example we’re reading pv magazine. However, for those of us who haven’t already, it’s probably time to start paying attention to how energy storage will affect our business – because the largest players in our field have been modeling large scale energy storage projects for at least three years. The Energy Storage Association (ESA) has been watching also – and they’ve articulated their thoughts in a white paper: 35X25: A Vision for Energy Storage. In this document, focused on the years between now and 2025, the ESA describes market drivers for growth, how to value energy storage, where and how it expects the growth to happen and what we have to continue to do in order to make this real.

Kelly Speakes-Backman, the CEO of the Energy Storage Association, spoke with pv magazine about storage and the challenges of state-level advocacy at ESA's annual conference in Boston.  As solar industry professionals, we’re all familiar with the 50 state markets that we deal with. What are the politicians thinking? Is there a new Governor coming in? What is the business environment going to look like in six? nine? twenty-four months? And how much should we invest in our operations in these complex states?

As energy storage continues to grow in the U.S., SMA is pleased to sponsor and exhibit at the Energy Storage Association’s (ESA) 28th Annual Conference and Expo, which will take place April 18-20, 2018, in Boston, Mass. ESA is the premier storage-affiliated trade association in the U.S., and its conference is an ideal opportunity for networking, education and collaboration among solar and storage professionals.

The power company, which recently placed bids to build the largest battery energy storage projects in the world, has connected the largest solar (74.5MW)+storage (10MW/40MWh) project in the United States to the grid. NextEra is one of the world’s largest owners of renewable energy, and they’re taking steps to be in the same position in the energy storage market. The company was recently discovered, per a tip from one of pv magazine’s readers, to be behind the largest energy storage bids yet received globally – and now they’re announcing the nation’s largest solar+battery storage project connected to the power grid.

The IRS published a Private Letter Ruling last Friday, responding to a request to determine whether, the cost of installing energy storage to be integrated into a residential PV system would qualify as a “qualified solar electric property expenditure” eligible for the Investment Tax Credit (ITC).

Third time’s the charm? If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again? No matter what cliche you prefer, the Hawaii legislature will accept it as long as they’re able to pass a bill allowing any incentives for energy storage installations. For the third straight year, led seemingly quixotically by Senator Lorraine Inouye, Hawaiian legislators are trying to provide electric consumers with incentives to install energy story, this time through Senate Bill 2016.

One of the hottest topics in the industry these days is how utilities will deploy more energy storage to accommodate renewable resources during peak use times, which traditionally fall outside the highest production times for solar-electricity systems (see Curve, Duck). California is, as usual, leading the race toward a solar + storage future, having recently decided to require utilities to include non-fossil fuel alternatives – including electricity storage – to serve during those early evening peak times. But one Oregon utility is making sure it doesn’t fall too far behind in the race.

A new study by NREL finds widespread availability of rates with high demand charges for commercial customers, meaning that businesses across the country could save money with energy storage.

The United States is entering its tenth year of the renewable energy revolution and there’s no slowdown in sight, only more adaptation. Over this time, clean energy jobs have grown 12 times faster than the overall job market, and renewables was one of the very few growth areas during the 2008 recession. The last two years have been no different, with both solar and wind growing at over 20% annually. Compare this to coal which has shed jobs for its fifth consecutive year. At a recent industry conference, a Colorado legislator said that his state is eliminating coal energy at an extraordinary pace—formerly, coal comprised two-thirds of the energy generated, now it is about 50%, and major goals are in place to reduce it to only 25% in a short period.

Finnish provider of energy solutions Wärtsilä has signed an agreement to acquire Greensmith Energy Management for an undisclosed sum. According to a company announcement, the acquisition of the U.S.-based provider of intelligent energy storage technology and solutions will enable Wärtsilä to expand its business in energy storage and to position itself on the global energy system integration market. The transaction is yet to be confirmed by U.S. regulatory approvals/authorities, but rumours have been circulating for months. It follows a recent trend of large firms taking over small but growing energy storage companies.

The popular California Public Utilities Commission program will start receiving applications today for distributed energy projects that incorporate energy storage.

In 2007, KEA set a goal to produce 95 percent of Kodiak’s energy from renewable sources by 2020, to reduce reliance on diesel fuel and lower the cost of generation to customers. Today, the island has achieved that goal through a combination of hydroelectric and wind energy, KEA officials say. The new batteries will permit greater harvesting of wind potential.

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz fondly described solar’s rise from a niche market to a U.S. energy supply mainstay in his exit memo, his last statement before he leaves the office. Moniz, who oversaw such successful programs as the department’s Sunshot Initiative the Department of Energy (DOE)’s successful Loan Program, said the amount of solar powering U.S. homes, businesses and military installations has increased from 1.2 GW to 31 GW in 2016.

Southern California Edison (SCE) is awaiting approval from the California PUC for the third unit within its 27 MW of lithium-ion storage plans. The utility filed in late December with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a Generator Interconnection Agreement with the third of the three, the PPA Grand Johanna LLC for a 2 MW/8MWh storage project called Grand Johanna.