Duke Energy announced plans last week to expand its 1,065-MW Bad Creek pumped storage project by 200 MW, with an anticipated completion date of 2023.

This upgrade was included in the Duke Energy Carolinas Integrated Resources Plan that was filed Sept. 1. The company plans to file a license amendment for this work with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2017.

Work to increase capacity will involve installing a more efficient and powerful pump-turbine, a new generator and higher-rated generator output circuit breakers.

“The upgrade is part of our strategy to increase renewable energy and reduce our carbon footprint,” says Kim Crawford, Duke Energy corporate communications. “The additional energy storage will provide a benefit to more renewables in the region. It will also help meet our winter peak demand in the morning hours — when solar power is typically not available.”

Bad Creek is about 8 miles north of Salem, S.C., and began operating in 1991. The upper reservoir is called Bad Creek Reservoir and the lower is Lake Jocassee. The underground powerhouse contains four pump-turbine and motor-generator units.

Bad Creek provides about 10 percent of Duke Energy’s power capacity in the Carolinas.

A second Duke Energy pumped-storage facility, 660-MW Jocassee, uses water from Lake Jocassee, which is its upper reservoir. The utility upgraded this plant a few years ago, increasing its capacity by 50 MW.

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The U.S. energy storage market is in a period of transition.

Last year was a big one for storage, with Q4 2015 alone logging more total megawatts deployed than 2013 and 2014 combined. This growth drew increased attention from investors, regulators, consumers, and system operators. And in 2016, battery storage has expanded its foothold beyond its historically favorable markets, capitalizing on improved economics and a renewed focus on reliability. GTM Research has analyzed several key indicators of a transition for America’s storage market.

Front-of-the-meter deployment trends

The front-of-the-meter energy storage market logged another strong quarter in Q2 2016, recording 32 megawatts of new installations. This new capacity is down 10 percent from Q2 2015, but up over threefold from Q1 2016, continuing the trend from 2015 of deployments increasing toward the end of the calendar year.

Grid-scale energy storage is getting traction outside of its historically strong markets. New deployments in PJM are down in 2016 following the institution of an interim cap on RegD resources the frequency regulation market. For the first time since Q2 2014, PJM did not represent the majority of utility-scale deployments.

Front-of-the-meter policy trends

Policy developments dominated news in the front-of-the-meter market. Energy storage procurements in response to the Aliso Canyon gas leak in California could serve as a case study for energy storage as an expedited solution to capacity issues. SDG&E has signed an agreement with AES to install and commission 37.5 megawatts of Samsung batteries by January 2017. SCE has announced two 20-megawatt projects, one to be built by AltaGas with Greensmith batteries and one using Tesla batteries, along with a 2-megawatt project by Powin Energy and a 5-megawatt project from Western Grid. Successful deployment in the short timeframe required would be a tremendous success story for grid-scale batteries, and serve as further proof of the technology’s speed of installation and potential to enhance reliability.

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This summer, just after Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) showed off its Gigafactory to the press, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company would have an announcement related to its energy storage business later this year. The teasing continued when Musk mentioned upcoming “next-generation technology” for its energy storage solution during the company’s second-quarter conference call. 

Now, Tesla is giving investors a clearer idea of what to expect, and it’s putting a target date on this new technology’s unveiling. “Aiming for Oct 28 unveil in SF Bay Area of new Tesla/SolarCity solar roof with integrated Powerwall 2.0 battery and Tesla charger,” Musk said on Twitter Thursday morning. 

Here’s a closer look at what this product might look like and what investors should know about it.

What to expect

An integrated solar and energy storage product in partnership with solar panel company SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY), where Musk is the largest shareholder and board chairman, isn’t necessarily news. Indeed, Tesla has described a product like this on several different occasions.

In July, shortly after Tesla revealed its proposal to acquire SolarCity, Tesla teased an integrated solar and energy storage product in the company’s update to its Master Plan. Tesla plans to launch “a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works,” the plan read, “empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app.”

In August, when Tesla announced it had reached an agreement with SolarCity to combine, Tesla said an acquisition would enable the company to “create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed.”

And Musk specifically noted during SolarCity’s second-quarter conference call in August that the differentiated product the solar company has been promising to unveil later this year is “a solar roof.” In other words, the solar roof will be the roof itself.

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US automotive manufacturer General Motors (GM) has said its expertise in electric vehicle batteries will help it to power 100% of its global operations with renewable energy by 2050, meeting annual demand of upwards of 9TW/h.

GM said its “pursuit of electrified vehicles and efficient manufacturing”, combined with its expertise in electric vehicle batteries, will see it meet its 2050 target. “Energy storage can ultimately address the intermittency or reliability of wind and solar energy,” it said in a statement.

GM is using repurposed Chevrolet Volt batteries, originally used in Chevrolet’s Volt extended-range electric cars, for energy storage from solar and wind generation at its vehicle testing facility in Milford, in Michigan. The Volt batteries supply power to its Milford data centre; excess energy is returned to the grid supplying the rest of the Milford site.

A similar scheme is in place in Japan, where Japanese trading company Sumitomo has a joint venture with Nissan Motors to reuse electric vehicle batteries.

The company said solar power will continue as the major part of its international energy generation. GM is in the process of adding 30MW of solar arrays in China, with 10MW of rooftop solar to be installed at its Jinqiao Cadillac assembly plant in Shanghai, and 20MW of solar carports, covering 81,000 paring spaces, at its distribution centre in Wuhan.

GM’s 11.8MW rooftop solar installation in Zaragoza, Spain, is one of the largest in the world, after Italian renewable energy firm Enel Green Power 25MW array in Naples, Italy, and Indian conglomerate Tata’s 12MW project in the Punjab, in India.

GM reckons it saves US$5 million per year, and has saved US$80 million to date, from using renewable energy. The company said costs to install and produce renewable energy will decrease further, resulting in more “bottom-line returns”.

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RICHMOND, Calif., and NEW YORK — Owners of grocery stores and other cold storage facilities in parts of Brooklyn and Queens can now receive incentives from Con Edison’s Neighborhood Program for installing Axiom Exergy’s thermal energy storage system. The Axiom Exergy Refrigeration Battery stores cooling instead of electricity to help businesses manage their energy usage, reduce demand charges on their electric bills, and prevent food spoilage. Over $5 million worth of Refrigeration Battery systems are set to be installed at supermarkets and other businesses in the Brooklyn and Queens areas covered by Con Edison’s Neighborhood Program. The 1.5-2 MW of energy storage set to be installed has the capacity to shift in aggregate of 6-8 MWh of energy. Businesses are eligible for incentives under the program and Con Edison is working with customers to reduce their energy usage while still having the lighting, heating and cooling, and appliances they need to run their businesses.

“We’re thrilled to see that Con Edison is taking an innovative approach to help address surging power demand on its grid by working with grocery store and cold storage facility owners to reduce their energy bills and enhance their razor-thin profit margins,” said Amrit Robbins, president and co-founder of Axiom Exergy. “By deploying Refrigeration Battery systems, these locations can convert power-hungry refrigeration systems into intelligent ‘batteries’ that can respond dynamically to the needs of the facility and the grid operator, taking into account energy prices, weather patterns, and grid programs like demand response.” 

Using the Axiom Exergy thermal energy storage technology, businesses with large refrigeration-based energy loads can reduce their peak electricity demand by up to 40 percent, said the company. The Refrigeration Battery can shift six hours of a building’s refrigeration-based electricity loads. It uses the existing refrigeration system’s excess capacity to “store cooling” at night by freezing a tank of salt water.

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TULSA, OK–(Marketwired – September 22, 2016) – 3DIcon Corporation (“3DIcon”) (OTC PINK: TDCP), which is scheduled to close on its acquisition of Coretec Industries LLC this month, announced that, through Coretec and its silicon materials technologies, it will commence the commercialization of Coretec’s proprietary high value liquid silicon precursor, cyclohexasilane, Si₆H₁₂ (“CHS”), for use within the growing battery energy storage market.

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are rechargeable batteries commonly used in portable electronics where weight, size and time between charging are critical. Theglobal market for Li-ion batteries is witnessing a significant growth owing to their increasing use in smartphones, tablets/PCs, digital cameras, and power tools and is estimated to be $46.2 billion dollars by 2022. Additionally, the demand for Li-ion batteries in the automobile industry is increasing as electric vehicles enter the market in greater volume.

A key challenge remaining for the broader adoption of Li-ion batteries is a need for further improvements in the amount of energy stored combined with the number of times the battery can be recharged before it must be replaced. Under current practice the capacity of Li-ion batteries is being enhanced by adding silicon while advances in improving the lifetime continue to be made by varying how the silicon is added. Currently in these cases, monosilane (SiH₄) gas is commonly used as the starting material.

Coretec has licensed technology for the manufacture of CHS and derivatives of CHS. Our strategy is to replace monsilane gas with CHS in these applications. A significant competitive advantage of CHS is that it is a liquid at room temperature and not explosive, making it easier and safer to handle than monosilane gas. CHS can also be converted into silicon directly from a liquid or gas, allowing greater flexibility in processing. We have shown that CHS can be easily converted into films, nanoparticles and nanofibers, all of which have been considered for use in Li-ion batteries.

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The UK-based energy storage project developer Camborne Energy Storage is the first company in Europe to install a grid-scale Tesla Powerpack system, following a recent installation in Somerset (England), according to an email sent to CleanTechnica.

The new Tesla Powerpack energy storage installation is an accompaniment to a ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) project that’s already located at the site. The new solar PV + battery storage installation reportedly has “the capacity to provide power for over 500 homes.” (This is perhaps not the most useful way of explaining the size of the installation, as some commentators here often point out, but it is important for those who aren’t familiar with industry terminology.)

The installation choice was the result of Camborne execs wanting to demonstrate the ability to contribute to the creation/maintenance of a balanced grid — and, thus, to help pave the way for the firm’s growth ambitions in that area (co-located generation + energy storage systems) in the UK.

The Managing Director of Camborne, Dan Taylor, commented: “the development of Tesla’s first European grid-tied system is an exciting step forward for Camborne and Tesla in terms of our respective storage strategies. This project is another success for storage development in the UK and being co-located with a renewable generation site, should offer significant benefits to all stakeholders.”

Camborne currently has over 100 megawatt-hours (MWh) worth of energy storage projects in planning in the UK.

The new Tesla Powerpack energy storage system located at the Somerset solar PV project was installed by EPC Poweri Services.

More information on Camborne can be found on the company’s website.

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BMW has a couple of initiatives to give a second life to used battery packs from its electric vehicles. Earlier this year, the German automaker announced a wall mounted battery storage system, not unlike the Tesla Powerwall, using BMW i3 22 kWh or 33kWh battery packs.

Today it announced that it completed and started testing, in partnership with Bosch, a new utility-scale energy storage facility again using used electric vehicle battery packs –  but the scale is much more impressive.

The new power station is located in Hamburg, Germany. It uses 2,600 battery modules from more than 100 electric vehicles for a total power capacity of 2 MW and a storage capacity of 2.8 MWh.

The system is used to stabilize the grid and reduce the impact of peak demand. Vattenfall, the energy company operating the project, highlights the advantage of battery packs that can just turn on in a matter of seconds.

Here’s a press release via Bosch:

A second life for used batteries

Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch test power storage in Hamburg

• 2,600 used battery modules from more than 100 electric vehicles are connected together to form a large power storage
• Stored energy is seconds available and helps to keep the power supply stable
• Cordelia Thielitz, Managing Bosch Energy Storage Solutions: “Electricity storage is a critical success factor for the energy transition.”

Hamburg/Munich/Stuttgart – What should be done with still-usable batteries at the end of their life cycle in electric vehicles? The Battery 2nd Life project organized by Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch merges them into a large storage facility in Hamburg, Germany, to keep the electricity grid stable.

Storage stabilizes the electricity grid within seconds

Electromobility and electricity storage are two core elements of the new energy landscape. Used batteries from electric vehicles are being merged to form a large electricity storage facility in Hamburg. The stored energy is available within seconds and can help to keep the electricity grid stable. Electricity storage is essential to enable a stable electricity supply with alternative energy sources. Natural fluctuations in solar power plants and wind turbines must be compensated as much as possible using storage methods with the greatest possible efficiency.

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RENO — Tesla officials on Thursday clarified earlier remarks and said Tesla’s Gigafactory under construction east of here is expected to begin producing lithium-ion batteries late this year for the electric car maker’s Model 3.

Daniel Witt, senior manager of business development and U.S. policy for Tesla Motors, on Wednesday said the battery storage side of the Tesla Motors business plan received a big boost last week when it was announced that the company won a contract to provide Southern California Edison with 80 megawatts of battery storage at one substation.

It will be one of the largest such projects in the world.

The storage units will be produced at the company’s Nevada Gigafactory, which now has to ramp up more quickly to fulfill the contract.

“This is a big deal for Nevada,” Witt said. “There is a one-to-one correlation between the growth of energy storage products and the growth of the Gigafactory project.”

Battery storage, where excess electricity generation is stored so it can be used when it is needed, is the answer to reducing the need for an expansion of traditional peak generation sources, he said.

The New Energy Industry Task Force, re-established by Gov. Brian Sandoval to review green energy policy issues, is considering a recommendation that Nevada’s utility, NV Energy, procure energy storage products to offset the need for new grid infrastructure by 2020.

The Legislature is likely to consider a similar policy when it convenes next year.

“What we’re looking to do, in going back to the mission, is catalyze an entire shift over to more sustainable energy,” Witt said. “The problem, if you want to call it that, with the sun, is that it is only up 12 to 14 hours a day.

“This is transformative in a way frankly that the vehicle application has been in the previous five years,” he said. “Where this is most transformative, most applicable today, is in the commercial and industrial market.”

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