Energy Storage News

Autonomous Energy Grids is the name of a multifaceted project that the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created to envision the electricity grid of the future, where output from many decentralized energy sources is managed simultaneously to ensure a secure and consistent energy supply. The concept is focused on smart technology and autonomous communication, based on a series of interconnected microgrids, which communicate with each other and make use of algorithms to continually find the best operating condition in response to constantly shifting energy demand, availability and pricing.

In a few weeks, municipal utilities and electric cooperatives in the state of Texas will have legal confirmation on their right to own energy storage facilities that sell energy or ancillary services, while not having to register as an energy generator. Current policy in the state defines energy storage as a generation asset, which requires owners to register as power generators.

Today the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources unveiled the latest program design for its visionary Clean Peak Standard, a policy that builds on its renewable energy programs with the aim of more directly meeting the actual demands of the state’s electricity system.

Significant expansion in energy storage markets is poised to occur against a backdrop of regulatory changes in federal and state incentive programs, cost improvements and advances in monetization of energy storage. These current and anticipated trends affecting the U.S. energy storage market will have a significant influence on how industry participants choose when, where and how to invest in and develop energy storage technology.

The City of Glendale, California has released a plan to replace all but one of the plant’s existing generation facilities with a mix of battery storage, distributed solar and geothermal energy. Broken down by capacity, the plan calls for a 75 MW, 300 MWh battery energy storage system, up to 50 MW of distributed solar projects, energy efficiency and demand response programs. The plan also calls to keep the “peaker” portion of the former plant, which totals 93 MW of gas generation from up to five combustion turbines.

On Sunday a cable failure took the largest power plant on the island of Kaua’i in Hawaii offline, which led to cascading failures in other oil-fired and hydro power plants, leading to a 2+ hour blackout for the island’s 66,000 residents. Despite work on the Port Allen oil-fired power plant continuing and still waiting on parts to repair the Kapaia oil-fired power plant which started it all, the Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) did not have to implement further rolling blackouts on Tuesday. This was in part due to the contributions of solar and storage.

While heat-related grid disruptions hit New York City, Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd) and its subdiriary, Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R), have issued a Request for Proposals for Bulk Energy Storage Scheduling and Dispatch Rights for 310 MW of of front of the meter energy storage. 300 MW / 4 Hours+ of the volume will be deployed in ConEd territory, while 10 MW will be deployed on O&R. The project must be operation by December 31, 2022 and are eligible for a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Incentive.

AES has broken ground on a 100 MW / 400 MWh battery storage system in Long Beach, California that will feed the Southern California Edison (SCE) region in a 20 year power purchase agreement. The facility was specifically procured to provide power at peak times of the day, offer local capacity and ramping/ancillary services. Construction is expected to complete by the end of 2020, and will complement a new air cooled 1 GW gas facility that is replacing an older ocean cooled system.

NV Energy is making major plays in response to Nevada’s recently-raised RPS, as the company announced today that it will be purchasing power from three massive projects, totaling 1.2 GW of solar and 590 MW of battery storage.

The Hawaiian Electric Industries, the parent company of Hawaii’s investor-owned utilities, has officially kicked off the second phase of its renewable energy procurement agreement, whose roots date back to 2017. Of the Hawaiian Islands, phase 2 procurement focuses on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii, with the former two given clear renewable generation and battery storage targets.

NextEra’s 2019 Investor Presentation is 235 slides of deep information showing the forward-looking business plans of multiple business units. These include large volumes of solar, wind, storage and transmission – as well as ideas and projections on how these technologies will evolve over the next five-plus years.

Last week, one of the largest solar and battery projects in the world just got one step closer to approval. On Friday the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the colossal Gemini Solar Project, a behemoth planned for 11 square miles of the Nevada desert northeast of Las Vegas. The paperwork shows few exact details of the project, however it notes that there has been an upgrade to the scale of the battery storage component, with a mammoth 531 MW / 2125 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery planned accompany the 690 MWac of solar that will be deployed.

The New York State Energy Research & Development Agency (NYSERDA) and the New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) have put forth $280 million worth of incentives for energy storage in two programs: one for “retail” systems smaller than 5 MW, and a Bulk Storage program for larger systems.

U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (D-Pennsylvania) has introduced a bill that would extend the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to energy storage installations, anywhere from the home to grid level. The bill would move beyond current provisions that enable the ITC only for solar-paired battery systems.

Arizona Public Service (APS) announced today a request for proposals (RFP) to bring hundreds of MW in capacity of energy storage to both new and existing solar facilities. APS’s Chino Valley (19 MW) and Red Rock (40 MW) solar projects will be getting batteries. In the same RFP, the utility is soliciting 500 MW of new solar + storage projects and stand-alone battery storage by 2025.

Hawaii regulators have approved six of eight proposed large solar plus storage projects, with all coming at or under 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. The Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission has approved contracts between the subsidiary utilities of Hawaiian Electric Industries and the developers of six projects, representing a combined capacity of 247 MW of solar, and 998 megawatt-hours of energy storage – meaning that the entire capacity of all six projects will be fully backed by four-hour batteries.

A new analysis suggests that 9.2 GW of the California Independent System Operator’s required 47.5 GW of “Resource Adequacy” could be met by customer-sited solar+storage. In total, it would require approximately 48 GWdc of rooftop solar power, and 21 GW / 42 GWh of battery storage, to meet the requirement. The study looked at individual rooftops within the state, in essence building a grid from the rooftop up.

In an interview with pv magazine USA 8minutenergy President & CEO Tom Buttenbach talked of the USA solar market, a 14 GW pipeline and energy storage being a fundamental – not an add-on – feature. Tom’s opening words to pv magazine USA included that energy storage is no longer a cool feature, but something that our grid will increasingly depend upon as renewable penetration continues to increase.

Battery storage is entering the electricity scene at an extraordinary pace. It seems the entire energy industry is looking closely at the technologies, economics, and financing hurdles to stand-alone storage options and renewable energy pairing opportunities. There are four “S” factors critical to battery profitability: Siting, Sizing, Stacking, and (Bid) Strategy. In this piece, Ascend Analytics breaks down those four elements and offers the development and investment community a starting point for due diligence analysis.

Sunrun has won a bid for 20 MW to participate in ISO New England’s 2022-2023 Forward Capacity Market. The bid means that Sunrun will be required to offer to the broader power grid 20 MW of power, 24 hours a day for the single year period. The company will be paid $3.80/kW/month, or $76,000 for the year. Sunrun notes that the capacity will be made possible by its Brightbox energy storage product line. Currently, this product is an LG Chem RESU. LG’s 48-volt battery comes with 3.3, 6.5 and 9.8 kilowatt-hour (kWh) ratings, and its 400-volt batteries offer 7.0 and 9.8 kWh ratings. Both AC- and DC-coupled versions are available. Sunrun noted they would need about 5,000 New England customers to meet the requirement.

Only one day after the Energy Information Administration projected that coal’s decline will slow, gas will dominate the future energy mix and that wind will peter out after the PTC ends, one of the nation’s largest and arguably its most successful power companies has a very different forecast for the future. In NextEra Energy’s fourth quarter results call, CEO Jim Robo dropped another bombshell, with his statement that solar and wind plus storage will be cheaper than coal, oil or nuclear, that this will be “massively disruptive to the conventional fleet” and that it will provide opportunities for developers well through the next decade.

Providing a stable supply of electricity is a core part of the mission of all utilities, and is demanded by the regulators who oversee them. And yet the security of U.S. electricity supply appears to be getting worse. Not only can solar and batteries supply backup power in the event of an outage, but distributed generation has the advantage of being closer to demand, and can improve the reliability of the grid. Microgrids further enhance this advantage, and are being actively investigated as a means to protect critical infrastructure during disasters.

In this interview pv magazine talks with the chief research officer at the United States’ foremost clean energy laboratory about the work that NREL has been doing, and what to expect for the future of electricity and transportation.

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.”