Energy Storage News

S&P Global reports the cost of solar with battery backup dropped precipitously in 2018. Several tenders for solar plus storage came in at under $30 per megawatt-hour last year. Stand alone prices for installed battery storage — based on a 20 megawatt-hour system with 4 hours of storage — dropped 40% from the previous year to $357 per kilowatt-hour and are expected to keep falling. Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects a further 52% reduction by 2030. Such tumbling prices have led Wood Mackenzie to forecast that as the market for solar plus storage matures, it could put more than 6,400 MW of new natural gas-fired peaking capacity in the US at risk by 2027.

China is poised to add a significant amount of battery storage to its utility grid next year. And it’s backing two horses in the energy storage race — both lithium-ion and flow batteries are part of the plan. China’s renewable energy portfolio now stands at 706 gigawatts according to Bloomberg but too much of that is wasted, or curtailed as they say in the utility industry. 7.7% of the electricity generated by wind turbines is curtailed as is 2.9% of electricity from solar panels.

How many cars sold in America today can take full advantage of all the power available from a 350 kW ultra fast charger? If you said “none,” go to the head of the class. But that doesn’t mean such vehicles won’t be on the road soon. The Porsche Taycan will be arriving shortly. At the San Francisco Premium Outlets electric car drivers will now find 2 ultra-fast 350 kW chargers and 8 super-fast chargers (150 kW). They have been installed by Electrify America as part of the agreement it signed with the state of California to settle claims arising from its diesel cheating scandal.

EVgo has flipped the switch on a new bank of fast, super-fast, and ultra-fast EV chargers that help plug-in vehicle drivers conveniently make the run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The new installation brings two 50 kW fast chargers, new 150 kW and 175 kW super-fast chargers, and a 350 kW ultra-fast charger to the popular gas-and-go town of Baker, California. The chargers include a bank of second-life batteries to store up cheap power and push it out to charging vehicles in order to mitigate the steep demand charges from the utility that typically eat into the cost of delivering power to vehicles charging at high rates of speed.

Things are changing fast in the world of electricity generation and distribution. As always, changes are to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others. The sharp drop in the cost of renewable energy in the past few years is the primary engine driving the changes. The next revolution is bulk energy storage, the piece of the puzzle that will turn traditional ideas of how an electrical grid should operate completely upside down. Here’s a look at what is happening right now and what the utility grid of the future may look like.

BYD has started up its first grid-scale energy storage project in Poland with the official opening of its new 1.26MW/2.52MWh energy storage facility. The system, which was shipped into Poland in May, came online just a few months later in September, highlighting just how quickly large-scale stationary storage deployments can be brought online. The installation is the first in the Polish market and will be operated in partnership with ML System S.A.

Tucked away in the Micronesia region of the Pacific Ocean is the small Republic of Palau, boasting a population of just over 20,000. The country will nevertheless soon be home to what is believed to be the world’s largest microgrid consisting of solar, diesel, and energy storage, representing at least 45% of the island nation’s total demand. While the microgrid has been in development for some time, the Republic of Palau this week announced the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with ENGIE EPS, a worldwide microgrid and energy storage pioneer which will complete the project.

The Hawaiian Electric Company and its subsidiaries are in contract negotiations with developers to add a potential 260 megawatts (MW) worth of solar and over 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) of storage in what would be the largest infusion of renewable energy capacity in Hawai’i’s history.

Recent developments in this energy and storage sectors are bringing new light to emerging technologies. We’re looking at a few of the most interesting energy storage technology developments below.

Antigua and Barbuda are moving forward with a joint solar power and energy installation. The clean energy provider PV Energy Limited is working with the local government on the project. Mr. Karprit Virdee, Director of PV Energy, answered some questions about it for CleanTechnica. 

The islands of the world all offer spectacular ocean vistas — they are islands, after all — but they also share a common scourge. Bereft of natural resources, most of them rely on diesel generators for electricity. That means electricity is expensive and the skies over those pristine locations are filled with carbon dioxide and other emissions that are harmful to the environment and human health.

Imagine a world where we depend on sunlight and the wind for most of our energy needs. Then imagine nighttime and our main source of electricity literally falls asleep. Unless our future electricity system represents a giant “super-grid” with tons of wires connecting everywhere from San Francisco to Beijing, we will need somewhere to put that electricity when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Along comes battery storage, one of the emerging technology advancements of the 21st century that could revolutionize the way we produce and consume electricity.

A new report from Greentech Media and the Energy Storage Association finds residential battery storage in the US surged in the first quarter of 2018. In total, 36 megawatt-hours of behind the meter residential storage were installed in Q1 — equaling the total amount installed in the previous three quarters combined. The vast majority of new grid connected residential battery storage — 74% — took place in just two states, California and Hawaii.

US home energy storage systems installations hit a record high in the first quarter of 2018. 36 megawatt-hours of grid-connected home energy storage systems were installed during this period, which was the same amount for the first three quarters of the year. Nearly three quarters of the Q1 installations were in California and Hawaii. “Changing net-metering rules and increasing customer interest in backup and solar self-consumption drove the residential energy storage market’s record quarter,” said Brett Simon, senior analyst at GTM Research.

What do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman, Jack Ma, and David Rubenstein have in common? No, they are not all building new rockets for interstellar exploration. The common bond between them is that all have combined their considerable financial resources to create Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Formed in 2016 with an initial capitalization of $1 billion, BEV says its investments will be “patient capital,” which means a return on its investments may not happen for 20 years or more, giving the scientists and engineers it supports the time they need to develop disruptive technologies that could change the world.

Electric vehicles are part of a sustainable energy/transportation ecosystem that also includes charging infrastructure, smart grid technology, and renewable energy. The key that ties all of these components together is energy storage. Storage, specifically batteries, is the enabling technology that makes modern EVs possible, and that makes renewable energy viable. Battery storage also provides a number of other benefits for the electrical grid, such as load balancing and frequency regulation.

Installations of up to 25 kW of solar need not worry about grid regulations and taxes, but can be configured any way the owner wants in terms of grid output and/or battery storage. For home owners and small businesses this opens up a great deal of opportunities.

The US Army is behind a new research project at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory that aims to send lithium-ion batteries spinning into a new era of high capacity energy storage. Among other things, that means more wind and solar grid integration, and that’s kind of funny considering that right now DOE is making yet another stab at finding a way to save old coal and nuclear power plants from the dust bin of history. Good luck with that!

San Diego Gas & Electric broke the news that it will be doubling the energy storage capacity of its network over the next 3.5 years to enable the adoption of more renewables in its service area.

New York State has awarded Cadenza Innovation funding for a demonstration project featuring Li-ion supercell technology, a standalone system that includes a rack-mounted 200kWh, 50kW battery storage unit. The project is part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) drive to pursue nation-leading clean energy goals, including Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s energy storage target of 1500 megawatts in New York State by 2025. As the pioneering provider of energy storage solutions for license to lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery manufacturers, Cadenza Innovation offers unique cell design that combines the best properties from wound jelly rolls and large prismatic cells. That allows for high energy density at low cost for EV, PHEV, and grid markets.

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.