Everyone agrees that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 841, and its commandment to create participation models for energy storage across the country, is going to be a big deal.

Brattle Group estimates there are about 7,000 megawatts, or more than 20,000 megawatt-hours, of cost-competitive energy storage potential to be unlocked by Order 841’s implementation across the capacity, energy and ancillary services markets run by the country’s independent system operators (ISOs) and regional transmission organizations (RTOs).

But behind these grand-scale projections, there are dozens of key details being worked out that will affect how much of that energy storage potential is unlocked, at what pace, and at what cost. Order 841 implementation is now in the hands of the ISOs and RTOs. And while many of its key provisions are set in stone, many more are left up to the grid operators and various stakeholders to work out in ways that best suit their particular needs.

These are the details that are keeping the energy storage industry, as well as state regulators and public and private utilities, finely tuned for each new Order 841 implementation plan, known as a “straw proposal,” to come from the nation’s ISOs and RTOs. This month so far has seen a final straw proposal from Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) put before stakeholders, as well as the latest iteration of straw proposal from PJM Interconnection. As the country’s biggest grid operator and as host to hundreds of megawatts of batteries playing into its frequency regulation market, PJM is a focus point for the industry.

These proposals are coming at a relatively rapid pace for a process that took nearly two years to move from a proposal to a final rule. ISOs and RTOs have a deadline of December 3 to file the tariff changes needed to “establish a participation model for electric storage resources that ensures eligibility to participate in its market in a way that recognizes the unique physical and operational characteristics of such resources.” By December of 2019, those rules are set to go into effect.

Southern California Edison has selected esVolta to develop, build and operate four energy storage projects totaling 38.5 MWh in Riverside and Ventura counties, the companies reported.

The projects, which are pending approval by the California Public Utilities Commission, include the Wildcat Energy Storage project (3 MW/12 MWh) near Palm Springs and the three Acorn Energy Storage projects (total combined capacity of 6.5 MW/26.5 MWh) in Thousand Oaks.

All four projects, if approved, are expected to go into service by March 2020.

“esVolta is delighted to be selected by SCE for the Wildcat and Acorn projects,” said Randolph Mann, president of esVolta, in a statement. “These contract awards represent a major milestone for esVolta as we continue to grow our energy storage business platform. We look forward to delivering cost-effective storage solutions for SCE, a leading electric utility and a key supporter of advanced energy storage technologies.”

Rosemead-based SCE included the Wildcat and Acorn projects as part of the utility’s integrated distributed energy resources RFO (request for offers).

The overall RFO includes multiple distributed energy resources such as renewables, energy efficiency, demand response, energy storage, substation and circuit upgrades. They are designed to provide incremental capacity at targeted points along SCE’s electric distribution system.

State regulators have tasked California’s three investor-owned utilities—SCE, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric—to procure 1,25 MW of energy storage capacity by 2020. SCE’s share of that target is 580 MW, according to reports.

California-based esVolta has a portfolio of operational and/or contracted storage projects totaling more than 450 MWh, according to the company.

The cost of energy storage has fallen to the point where the power generation industry is moving from demonstration projects to full deployment. Driven by demand and a federal order designed to nurture broader adoption of storage capabilities, practical applications of energy storage are emerging that are competitive with conventional solutions.

In addition, continued annual reductions in the cost for storage will reveal more and more applications where energy storage makes economic sense. A great example can be found in the performance optimization of gas turbines.

In recently establishing Order 841 to integrate energy storage into the power market, FERC declared the order would “enhance competition and promote greater efficiency in the nation’s electric wholesale markets, and will help support the resilience of the bulk power system.” While many initially ascribed storage’s primary value to the capture of renewable energy and subsequent grid resilience, new scenarios are emerging that pair storage with conventional gas turbine generation to deliver more rapid response, milder ramp rates, fewer starts and stops, and emissions reductions.

In a way, gas turbines and renewables are beginning to solve each other’s problems.

Gas turbines have long played a central role in helping supply meet demand, given their ability to quickly flex up or down to demand peaks and dips. But their efficiency is diminished when running under or above optimal load. Meanwhile, the rise of renewable energy sources promises to reduce our carbon footprint, but they also carry hazards for utility managers because their
variability and intermittency complicate loadbalancing and grid-planning efforts.

Enter the battery storage-augmented gas turbine, in which storage performs as a kind of reserve that springs to life to smooth and optimize turbine performance levels.

Toronto, Ontario, Oct 15, 2018 (Newsfile Corp via COMTEX) — Golden Share Resources Corporation (GSH) (“Golden Share” or the “Company”) announces that it has entered into an arrangement agreement (the “Arrangement Agreement”) with its wholly-owned subsidiary incorporated under Delaware law, Harmony Energy Technologies Corporation (“Spinco”), to transfer its energy storage business to Spinco under a plan of arrangement (the “Arrangement”).

The assets to be transferred to Spinco under the Arrangement Agreement (the “Spin-off Assets”) are the Company’s license agreement and its agreement for commercializing technology. Both agreements are with the Battelle Memorial Institute, the operator of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. Please refer to the Company’s press releases dated October 18, 2016 and January 30, 2018, respectively.

Concurrently with the Arrangement, Spinco will complete a private placement (the “Spinco Financing”) of a minimum of 100,000 common shares (“Spinco Shares”) at a price of US$1.00 each, for minimum gross proceeds of US$100,000 (to be used for working capital).

Under the Arrangement Agreement, on the date that the Arrangement is effected the following principal steps will occur and will be deemed to occur in the following order without any further act or formality:

Golden Share will transfer the Spin-off Assets to Spinco, in consideration for 3,850,134 Spinco Shares;

Golden Share’s articles will be amended to create a new class of class A shares (“New GSH Shares”), which will provide their holders with the same rights and benefits as holders of Golden Share’s current common shares (“GSH Shares”);

Each 10 outstanding GSH Shares will be exchanged for 10 New GSH Shares and one Spinco Share (no fractions of Spinco Shares will be issued; any such fractions will be rounded down);

Solar power now accounts for around 1% of the world’s electricity generation, up from a negligible amount of solar capacity only a decade ago. But that’s just scratching the surface of the industry’s potential. Solar energy is the most abundant form of energy on earth, with enough solar energy hitting the planet’s surface every hour to provide for all of humanity’s energy needs for a year.

If the Energy Transition Outlook 2018 report from DNV GL, a quality-assurance and risk-management company, are true, solar electricity production could grow 65-fold by 2050, eventually making solar one of the largest sources of energy in the world. That presents a tremendous opportunity for long-term investors.

Why 6,500% growth is within reach

One of the reasons solar energy could grow 6,500% between 2016 and 2050, the period this report is analyzing, is because solar energy is growing from a fairly small base. According to DNV GL, only 290 gigawatts (GW) of solar was installed at the end of 2016, and about 100 GW are now being built per year. By 2050, DNV GL expects 18,895 GW to be installed by 2050.

Solar and wind power together are projected to provide two-thirds of all electricity in 2050. Incredibly, this is expected to come at a cost saving, with energy expenditures as a percentage of GDP falling from 5.5% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2050. Wind and solar will actually save money for consumers as they grow.

Who is installing all of this solar energy? 

Thirty percent of that 18,895 GW of solar energy capacity is projected to be installed on rooftops around the world. That presents a potential growth opportunity for a global rooftop solar leader like SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR), which makes high-efficiency solar panels that pay more power generation on each roof. Since customers are willing to pay a premium for efficiency, SunPower can even charge more than commodity solar panel prices for its products, and that will help its economics as the industry grows.

What’s left is 70% of the solar market, which will be installed in large and small ground-mounted systems known as utility-scale solar projects. This is where First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) thrives as a solar panel provider, and Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ) and JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS)make solar panels and build their own projects.

Israel-based smart energy and inverter company SolarEdge announced on Thursday its intention to acquire battery manufacturer Kokam in a deal expected to be worth approximately $88 million.

SolarEdge announced that it would acquire approximately 75% of outstanding equity shares in Kokam for approximately $88 million, and would seek to acquire the remainder of the shares in the near future. SolarEdge expects the deal to be approved and closed in the coming weeks, and will look to purchase the remaining outstanding equity shares currently listed on the Korean over-the-counter exchange through open market purchases and otherwise, resulting in Kokam becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of SolarEdge.

“The acquisition of Kokam will enable us to grow our offering, adding already proven battery storage to our product portfolio,” said Guy Sella, CEO, Chairman and Founder of SolarEdge. “Our technological innovation combined with Kokam’s world-class team and renowned battery storage solutions, will enable seamless integration with our current solutions, taking us a further step toward making solar installations smarter and more beneficial.”

Headquartered in South Korea and founded in 1989, Kokam manufactures Lithium-ion battery cells, batteries, and energy storage solutions and provides battery solutions for a wide variety of industries including energy storage systems, uninterruptible power supply systems, electric vehicles, aerospace, marine, and more.

Kokam currently boasts over 700 megawatt-hours (MWh) worth of energy storage deployments and over 60 battery-related patents.

“Residential solar and storage systems are becoming cheaper and therefore more popular, and this acquisition aims to bring a better product to this market,” explained Jane Swarbreck, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Inverters are the link between solar and storage and so by acquiring battery manufacturer Kokam, SolarEdge is diversifying to offer their customers a more integrated and seamless solution for small-scale solar and storage projects.

“Integrated products, such as those offered by Tesla, are favored by customers looking for a one-stop shop for their home energy system. There is a central system that manages their solar and storage with a single software interface and point of contact with the manufacturer. For the customer, this probably means simpler installation and a more reliable warranty.”

A community energy project based on the south-west coast of Western Australia is offering households an opportunity to become 90 per cent renewable “for the price of a coffee a day” as part of a privately funded, potentially 6.5MW virtual power plant.

The Dunsborough Community Energy Project – which claims to be the first of its kind in WA, and Australia’s first VPP to be completely privately funded – is a collaboration between Perth-based company Redback Energy, investment outfit SUSI Partners and Perth law firm Jackson Macdonald.

The group’s first major goal is to pool the resources of 1000 or more Redback solar and battery storage systems installed across Dunsborough and the neighbouring town of Yallingup, and connect them using Australian made aggregation and control software.

The hook for local households and small businesses is zero upfront cost for the technology, which would include just under 7kW of solar PV (Suntech panels), one Redback 5.5 KVA inverter, 9.6kWh of Pylontech (LiFePo4) batteries, installation included.

The lithium ride was a great one. Cobalt, too. All they needed was their Elon Musk moment, which came in the form of the Nevada battery gigafactory. The next Elon Musk moment won’t be about lithium at all—or even cobalt. It will be for an element that takes everything electric to its revolutionary finish line: Vanadium.

The one moment that will change everything … and that moment may be near.

Vanadium is lithium on steroids—wildly bigger and the only way forward from here. We may have already reached the peak of our electric revolution through batteries with lithium.

We need bigger batteries, preferably the size of a football field—or 20.

That’s vanadium—Element 23. The answer to our issue of scale.

“It’s no longer a technological maybe,” says Matt Rhoades, president and CEO of United Battery Metals, a Colorado vanadium explorer sitting on one of the few known sources of the next big battery metal in the entire United States.

Rhoades should know … his company is behind the discovery that hopes to put America definitively on the vanadium map. UBM’s Wray Mesa Project in Colorado has a mineral resource base estimate indicating resource of around 2.7 million pounds of vanadium—not to mention all the uranium they already know is there for additional upside.

“Vanadium is here, and lithium is scared because the $13-billion energy storage market has already found its new poster boy,” Rhoades told Oilprice.com.

The Moment of Truth

Indeed, Rhoades is an expert at timing.

The worldwide battle for vanadium is ramping up …

The Chinese have already had their Elon Musk moment …

The U.S. has none …

And vanadium was the best-performing battery metal last year, beating out even lithium and cobalt.