(TNS) — Bill Coleman needed to replace the roof on his Los Altos home. The tech entrepreneur decided to package new roof tiles with a solar power system and a battery unit to store electrical power.

The solar panels have dropped his electric bills to nearly nothing, and the rechargeable battery pack from Sunverge has kept the power on at his house during blackouts. It’s quiet and, so far, hassle-free, he said. The extra expense was worth the peace of mind.

“The lights don’t even blink,” Coleman said. “They stay on.”

Coleman is part of a small but growing group of homeowners coupling solar panels with rechargeable energy storage systems. These battery units provide power during emergencies and can potentially reduce power usage and bills.

But it’s also a new technology, which means it can be expensive and unreliable.

“At this stage of the game, energy storage isn’t quite for everyone,” said Cory Klausmann, vice president of sales at Simmitri. “There’s a select demographic that it works really well with.”

A typical home battery storage unit is a collection of rechargeable, lithium ion batteries, connected to power-generating solar systems.

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The two top competitors in the home energy storage market — a market that barely exists at present — are preparing for burgeoning sales in coming years as renewable energy supplies grow more common.

One name is familiar: Tesla, the electric car maker, which makes a battery called the Powerwall to store rooftop solar power at home.

The other name is Sonnen, a European company little known in the U.S. that has sold more than 15,000 lithium ion storage batteries to homes and businesses, primarily in its home country, Germany, a global leader in renewable energy.

Their products are similar but their business strategies are not.

At an energy storage conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, representatives of each company laid out the differences.

Tesla, whose merger with solar rooftop giant SolarCity is imminent, envisions a wide network of Tesla retail stores where customers can shop for an electric car, a solar roof and a battery to store excess energy for later.

“We see a convergence in a number of ways around the consumer experience,” said Mateo Jaramillo, vice president of products and programs for Tesla’s energy arm. “We obviously think a lot of that starts with the vehicle.”

Electric car customers will naturally be interested in related technologies, he said.

Sonnen, which counts General Electric as a major investor, works with contractors who install solar roofs and power supplies, and emphasizes its software systems that help customers manage home and business energy use.

As the solar rooftop business grows, “you won’t make money welling power; you’ll make money managing power,” said Philipp Schroder, Sonnen’s head of sales and marketing.

And unlike Tesla, which — in partnership with Panasonic — is making batteries that form the core of the Powerwall at a giant factory in Nevada, Sonnen will buy from suppliers.

“We don’t care where the battery is coming from, from Panasonic or anyone else,” said Schroder.

Tesla believes that having control of the battery manufacturing process will lead to lower costs and better designs.

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Europe’s first grid-scale Tesla Powerpack energy storage system installation was recently officially unveiled in Somerset (England), according to recent reports.

The new Tesla Powerpack installation was designed to store the electricity generated at a solar photovoltaic (PV) project located at the site. The energy storage project, which was developed by Camborne Energy Storage, is intended to provide enough electricity to supply for the needs of about 500 regional households if necessary.

The UK’s Energy Minister Baroness Neville Rolfe attended the recent unveiling event and stated:

“We welcome this exciting project from Tesla and Camborne. Innovation in storage technologies will help manage our electricity grid more efficiently, support greater energy security and, crucially, drive down consumer bills.

“Our upcoming industrial strategy will build on this work further, working with businesses to ensure the UK continues to be at the forefront of low-carbon technology, creating the conditions for future success.”

Business Green provides more: “The industry has been calling on the government to provide a clearer policy landscape for energy storage projects and take steps to accelerate investment in the sector. However, Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark delivered a boost for the fledgling industry last month, delivering a speech in which he argued energy storage and smart grid technologies would play a critical role in the UK’s energy system in the future and launching a call for evidence on how smart systems should be developed.”

The managing director at developer Camborne Energy Storage, Dan Taylor, commented at the recent unveiling as well: “Camborne is pleased to have developed Europe’s first Tesla grid scale installation by co-locating with a solar farm in Somerset, England. This project is already commercially operational providing low carbon power during times of high demand. Our first co-located site is an early step in the right direction, both for Camborne and for the industry and we look forward to continuing to deliver further low carbon power to the UK.”

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Should you opt for Tesla’s new Powerwall 2.0, or should you look elsewhere? We’ll show you the top 10 alternative products.

With the launch of Tesla’s new and improved Powerwall 2.0 last week, all eyes are now on Musk and co to deliver. The hype became even bigger, after the announcement of a merger with SolarCity, which Tesla is about to sign later on this month.

Home energy storage is definitely the way to go if you are looking to (partly) step away from the grid. We do hear a lot about the Powerwall, but Musk is not the only one tapping into this market. There are various options out there, with specifications to meet every need.

We have selected 10 of the best alternatives out there to give you an idea of possibilities. However, first things first. Let’s take a look at the specifications of Powerwall 2.0 so that we can make an honest comparison.

Tesla’s new home energy storage device is a 269-pound lithium ion battery. The cells are made by Panasonic, while the pack and the module are built by Tesla. One module can store up to 13.5 kWh of energy and comes at a price of $5,500, which also includes an inverter. If you would like to store more power, the Powerwall allows the connection of up to nine individual units. Installation costs around $1,000, with starting day sometime in January next year.

So, here are the others:

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Vermont Business Magazine South Burlington-based Dynapower Company and Samsung SDI announced Wednesday the introduction of an integrated behind-the-meter energy storage system built on their respective proven technologies. The initial release of the system will be a 250 kW/550 kWh offering, with a 100 kW two-hour system to follow. The integrated energy storage offering provides energy storage system vendors, project developers, and utilities with a fully engineered solution that reduces costs for commercial and industrial end users in the deployment of energy storage. This line of systems will incorporate Dynapower’s recently released Generation 2 MPS product line of behind-the-meter energy storage inverters(link is external) and Samsung SDI’s recently released E2 battery solution.

The two companies share a wealth of field proven integration experience of their technologies across a wide range of ESS projects, sizes, and applications including the Electrical Training Institute Net Zero Plus building microgrid and Duke Energy Notrees 36MW/14MWh ESS repower.

The new Dynapower/Samsung SDI integrated energy storage system offering for behind-the-meter applications in commercial and industrial markets. Dynapower photo.

“We have worked alongside Samsung SDI for a number of years and are excited to take that collaborative effort to the next level with the introduction of an integrated energy storage solution,” said Adam M. Knudsen, President of Dynapower. “As the energy storage industry has rapidly evolved we have seen a clear demand from the market for engineered solutions that are flexible and proven. This is a solution customers can rely upon.”

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Commercial and industrial businesses bear 98% of the tens of billions of dollars in costs associated with power outages in the United States each year. Despite these costs in lost production more than 80 percent of C & I energy storage installations today are NOT used for backup power.

With the cost of adding backup power being nominal when selecting the right inverter, and a pipeline of 1.3 GW of commercial and industrial energy storage installations forecast by 2021, Dynapower examines considerations for developers and end users when selecting an energy storage inverter to provide valuable backup power for their installation and maximum value for their energy storage installation.

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PHOENIX–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Arizona Public Service (APS) is bringing battery-based energy storage to the desert through a 4-megawatt (MW) energy storage agreement with AES Energy Storage. The pair of 2-MW AES Advancion^® energy storage arrays, which will provide enough storage capacity to power 1,000 homes, will be deployed as part of the APS Solar Partner Program (SPP) and represent AES’ first installation in Arizona.

APS’s Solar Partner Program studies the use of smart inverters and energy storage to examine how best to integrate solar onto the grid in areas with a high penetration of solar while still maintaining reliability for customers. Through SPP, more than 1,500 customers had photovoltaic rooftop solar panels, totaling 10 MW, installed on their homes at no charge, and receive a $30 monthly bill credit for the next 20 years for their participation. The information APS gains from this study will help craft what the future of renewable energy integration looks like for utilities across the country.

“The best renewable energy is the type a customer never thinks about. A light goes on, a load of towels gets washed and life goes on as reliably as ever before, all powered by the sun,” said Scott Bordenkircher, APS’s director of technology innovation. “This is the future APS looks toward as it studies energy storage.”

The two Advancion battery arrays will be installed in Surprise and Buckeye, which have a total of 120 SPP customers and a high penetration of solar. The batteries will deliver energy to customers at the time of day when electricity is in the greatest demand and is most expensive. By bringing energy storage to these areas, APS can maintain reliable service for solar customers, even when the sun is down and solar panels are no longer producing power.

APS anticipates Arizona’s energy needs will be approximately 25 percent higher by 2025. The company plans to meet 50 percent of that growth with renewable energy and energy efficiency. Through SPP and other groundbreaking pilot programs, APS is taking the lead in Arizona’s deployment of energy storage, advanced inverters, and other controllable resources to manage peak demand better, minimize CO₂ emissions, and solve renewable integration challenges for the benefit of all of APS’s customers.

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Researchers have identified a glow-in-the-dark dye as optimal material to develop batteries for energies like wind and solar in the continued quest to develop storage for large-scale alternative energy reuse.

A team of chemists at the University at Buffalo have discovered that a fluorescent dye called BODIPY — an acronym for boron-dipyrromethene — executes two energy-related tasks extremely well: storing electrons and participating in electron transfer. These are exactly the tasks batteries must perform to save and deliver energy, they said, making BODIPY a perfect material to store large amounts of energy in rechargeable, liquid-based batteries that could one day power cars and homes.

Researchers tested BODIPY in what’s called a redox flow battery, which consists of two tanks of fluids separated by various barriers. Flow batteries are one method being pursued by a number of researchers as candidates for large-scale solar- and wind-energy storage. Researchers think these types of batteries will solve the problem of scale and reuse because they can easily be enlarged to store more energy for reuse later in both residential scenarios and for use by energy utilities.

“A flow battery using BODIPY can be used to store any energy source that drives the generation of electricity,” explained Timothy Cook, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo and the leader of the research team. “For example, a solar panel can generate a current and voltage that can be used to charge up the BODIPY dye, but the same battery could easily be attached to a wind turbine, a hydroelectric dam, or even a hand-crank generator. As long as a high enough charging voltage can be created, any source capable of generating electricity can be stored.”

The effectiveness of a redox flow battery depends on the chemical properties of the fluids in each tank. When the battery is being used, electrons are harvested from one tank and moved to the other, generating an electric current that in theory can power from the smallest device to an entire house. To recharge the battery, a solar or wind energy source would force the electrons back into the original tank, where the process of generating an electric current starts over.

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Battery storage coupled with low-carbon electricity generation could have helped to avoid the power outages experienced in South Australia earlier this year, according to a study by RES and Lloyd’s Register.

RES Australia technical head Jeremy Moon said the power outages, which were caused by severe storms will mean a detailed review of the Australian state’s power system security policy.

“We understand this requires investment long term and the adoption of new technology and solutions that enable sustainable energy provision now and in the future.”

The two companies said new technology should be planned for now by both government and operators.

Lloyd’s Register energy services manager for the Australian power engineering division Andrew Jones said: “New technology solutions in energy storage can be leveraged to help operators use more cost-effective and locally produced energy.

“This study seeks to open discussions on … how large-scale grid connected battery storage available right now can play a critical role in improving power system events such as those experienced in South Australia.”

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