Energy Storage News

In remarks to the 28th annual conference of the Energy Storage Association held in Boston last week, ESA head Kelly Speakes-Backman was euphoric. “This is a watershed moment, friends, this is our moment,” she said. “On a regular basis, our teams are in contact with ISOs and RTOs who are seeking guidance in how to create markets and support rules that enable more storage on the transmission level, distribution level, in businesses, and in homes.”

Tesla will build and supply the energy storage facility to be installed at BP’s Titan 1 wind energy power plant in South Dakota, US, the company has revealed. The new energy storage facility is expected to be installed during the second half of 2018, according to the company.

French utility company EDF has a goal of 100% carbon-free power by 2050. Energy storage will be a big part of achieving that goal. The company already has 5 gigawatts of installed grid-scale storage, but plans to increase that to 15 gigawatts by 2035. Adding the extra 10 gigawatts of storage called for by its new Energy Storage Plan will cost about $10 billion.

Earlier this month, the 800 megawatt Bay State Wind offshore project being developed jointly by Ørsted and Eversource off the coast of Massachusetts announced a deal which will see it work with local NEC Energy Solutions to develop an energy storage solution for the offshore wind farm. Ørsted, one of the world’s leading offshore wind companies, and Eversource, New England’s premier transmission builder, announced on March 16 that their Bay State Wind partnership had signed a Letter of Intent to work collaboratively with Massachusetts-based NEC Energy Solutions so as to develop an energy storage solution for the 800 megawatt (MW) Bay State Wind. Specifically, they are looking to combine the offshore wind farm with a 55 MW/110 MW-hour (MWh) energy storage option, which upon completion would result in the world’s largest wind-paired energy storage system for commercial-scale energy.

Storage is the fastest growing segment of the solar market, and grid scale energy storage allows utility companies to even out the flow of electricity sloshing around the utility grid, which will be a vital part of converting the utility industry.

AES Energy Storage and Siemens have joined forces to create a new energy storage company called Fluence Energy, which we mentioned recently in a story about the breakthrough prices of renewable energy + storage projects. Fluence CEO John Zahurancik has since answered some questions for CleanTechnica about the new company and one of its major new energy storage projects.

Agricultural businesses in the Middle East have a lot to contend with — water shortages, fluctuating rainfall, effects of climate change, high CO2 emissions per capita. The fertile lands of the region once provided conditions for incredible agricultural growth, which led to the evolution of human potential across millennia. Fast forward to the 21st century, and new power solutions now may provide the necessary energy pathways for successful local agriculture to flourish again in the region.

Statoil, the energy company backed by the Norwegian government, is the majority partner in the Hywind Scotland offshore floating wind farm that began operations in the past few weeks — the first floating wind farm in the world. Now, Statoil says it has selected Younicos, a global battery storage company, to install a 1 megawatt battery system contained in two 10 foot containers on land near Peterhead, Scotland.

Elon Musk set the world on its ear in 2017 when he promised Tesla could build and install a 129 megawatt-hour grid storage battery in South Australia in 100 days or less. The kicker? If Tesla failed to meet the deadline, the battery would be free. In fact, Tesla beat its own deadline. The battery got turned on in late November, weeks ahead of schedule. Now Hyundai says it intends to build and install a battery that will be 50% larger than the South Australia facility near Ulsan on the southeast coast of South Korea. It is scheduled for completion in February of next year.

While that argument may involve a bit of exaggeration, there’s no denying that the company’s success to date has depended a great deal upon its innovative use of lithium-ion battery cells (of various chemistries) and battery pack design. In other words, the company’s continued success likely depends upon its continued excellence with regard to the development and implementation of new ways of designing, utilizing, and manufacturing battery tech.

Elon Musk didn’t need 100 days after obtaining a connection agreement to switch on the Tesla big battery in South Australia. In fact, it took him less than 100 minutes. That’s how quickly the battery was up and running after the ink dried on the connection deal with the state’s transmission company ElectraNet last Friday. By the early evening, some 300 Tesla Powerpacks already in place were delivering all the power for the unveiling event, stored from the adjoining Hornsdale wind farm, a three-hour drive north of Adelaide.

Earlier this year, a first-of-its-kind microgrid was commissioned at the Marcus Garvey Apartment complex in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood in New York City. Like many microgrid projects, it combined renewable energy (in this case, solar PV) with battery storage, as well as a fuel cell. It’s connected to the grid and provides multiple local benefits, including clean energy generation and resiliency. The system also generates revenue and savings through demand charge reduction, capacity relief, and other grid services.

Storage has long been hailed as the holy grail of the renewable energy market, as it allows for a greater integration of technologies like solar PV and wind into the electrical grid. So, a lot of people have asked why energy storage hasn’t taken off in a more substantial fashion and at a more rapid pace, and many would agree that one of the issues is the bankability of energy storage technology. “Bankability” is a term used in the renewable energy world to describe the likelihood that any particular technology or manufacturer will be funded by financiers. If a technology is new and unproven, banks and other financial institutions will be unlikely to fund associated projects until they have developed an industry track record through the performance of such technology, and have gained maturity in the marketplace.

Deepwater Wind, the de facto leading offshore wind developer in the United States, has announced ambitious plans to develop a 144 MW offshore wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard that will be equipped with a 40 MWh Tesla battery storage system. Of course, Deepwater Wind is most well known at the moment as being the leading US offshore wind developer. Considering that it is the only developer with an actual working offshore wind farm, this is something of a moot point — though, the US offshore wind industry is finally beginning to gather some steam.

A new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reveals that solar jobs in the U.S. (and other nations) are expanding quickly. As of November 2016, the American solar industry employed 260,077 workers. This is an increase of 24.5% from 2015, with a growth rate that is 17 times faster than the United States economy as a whole.

How much damage can one image do? We may find out soon enough. US President Trump’s own Department of Energy is circulating an infographic that wipes the floor with the President’s pro-coal message, pitches wind and solar, and makes mincemeat out of the entire Trump Administration energy policy. Seriously, what is going on over at DOE? Energy Secretary Rick Perry keeps playing along with President Trump’s pro-coal rhetoric, but all the while he has been taking one poke after another at the beleaguered President — and he keeps getting away with it.

More developing markets are now considering storage solutions for better and efficient integration of solar power projects into the existing grid. The Department of Energy in the Philippines recently approved four large-scale solar power projects to assess the impact of their integration into the existing transmission network. These projects include two of 70 megawatts capacity each, one of 22 megawatts, and another of 30 megawatts with battery storage.

The lithium-ion battery manufacturer LG Chem has officially launched its residential battery systems line in the North American market. This news follows the completion of UL certification. The company’s residential battery systems line in North America is comprised of a variety of AC- and DC-coupled solutions, with system capacities ranging to up to 9.8 kilowatt-hours (kWh). There are two different voltage options available (which are paired with compatible inverters). These are a low-voltage 48V option and a high-voltage 400V option. The low-voltage option is available in system capacities of 3.3 kWh, 6.5 kWh, and 9.8 kWh. The high-voltage option is available in system capacities of 7 kWh and 9.8 kWh.

President Trump talks a great game when it comes to US coal miners and coal jobs but he sure is walking the renewables walk. The latest item in the flood of renewable energy news pouring from the Energy Department since Inauguration Day is a new study that charts a do-able path for global energy producers to harvest 5-10 terawatts of solar power by 2030. That’s quite a big feat considering that the current scope of global solar generation is still measured in gigawatts, but then again President Trump is known to be a huge fan of the bigly.

As Australia’s renewable energy industry awaits the imminent outcome of the South Australian government’s inaugural large-scale energy storage auction, the CFO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has described two of the key competing technologies – large-scale battery systems and pumped hydro – as neck and neck on pricing. Speaking at the 2017 Large-Scale Solar Conference co-hosted by RenewEconomy and Informa in Sydney on Monday, ARENA CFO Ian Kay said projects pairing 100MW of renewable energy generation with 100MWh of energy storage were “about equal” in cost.

In Chile’s last auction for power, SolarReserve bid a world-record-breaking low price at just 6.3 cents per kWh ($63/MWh) for dispatchable 24-hour solar. SolarReserve’s CSP technology with integrated thermal storage provides 24-hour solar power, and is ideally suited for Chile’s grid with round-the-clock power needs due to its huge mining industry. To bid 24-hour solar at 6.3 cents per kWh is a world record for CSP (Concentrated Solar Power), a form of solar utilizing heat from the sun that can be stored thermally. Chile has open auctions for both fossil energy and renewables, and no subsidies.

The US firm Tesla and South Korea’s LG Chem are tipped to dominate the US battery storage market, which is expected to be worth as much as $US50 billion by 2020. Analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley suggest Tesla and LG Chem are best positioned to take big market shares in a market that it predicts will grow faster than most others expect. Morgan Stanley says the “addressable” battery storage market in the US is 85GWh, or around $US30 billion. But if regulators come on board and allow it to compete in deregulated power markets, then that forecast is nearly doubled to 140GWh or more than $US50 billion.

Spurred by state mandated renewable energy goals, Panasonic, Xcel Energy, and Younicos have formed a public/private partnership with the city and county to promote a microgrid centered around the Peña Station NEXT, a 382-acre transportation hub located near Denver International Airport. The Xcel Energy feeder for Peña Station NEXT already has 20% solar penetration and is expected to have 30% solar penetration by the time the microgrid project is completed in the first half of 2017.

Renewable energy is now the cheapest option, on average, for new electricity capacity around the world — developed countries like the US as well as developing countries. As I noted the other day, we need to keep channeling this message to the broader public, and especially decision-makers, but there are other things to do in order to increase renewable energy growth.