The biggest natural gas leak in U.S. history led to a boom in large-scale energy-storage systems, the technology that’s long considered the elusive link to integrating solar and wind power into electric grids.

U.S. homes and businesses — primarily utilities — installed storage systems with 336 megawatt-hours of capacity in 2016, double the amount from the previous year, according to a study released Tuesday by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association. That’s about enough batteries to power a city the size of San Diego for an hour.

The majority of the installments came during the last three months of the year, as Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Edison International’s Southern California Edison turned to powerful batteries to make up for anticipated electricity shortfalls stemming from the Aliso Canyon gas leak. The result is that California, which has a goal to install 1.3 gigawatts worth of batteries by 2020, now has more energy storage capacity than any other region of the U.S.

“The fourth quarter marked a turning point,” Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage, said in a statement. “California will play a significant role in the future as utilities there continue to contract energy storage.”

Longer Charges

Developers have installed 643 megawatts of energy-storage projects in the U.S. since 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The increase comes as power companies struggle to incorporate energy from wind and solar farms, where production ebbs and flows based on unpredictable breezes and sunshine.

Revenue from the U.S. energy-storage market will grow fivefold, from $664 million this year to $3.3 billion in 2022, according to GTM, a Boston-based market renewable-energy research company.

Click Here to Read Full Article

The Gigafactory has been activated.

Hidden in the scrubland east of Reno, Nev., where cowboys gamble and wild horses still roam—a diamond-shaped factory of outlandish proportions is emerging from the sweat and promises of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. It’s known as the Gigafactory, and today its first battery cells are rolling off production lines to power the company’s energy storage products and, before long, the Model 3 electric car. 1

The start of mass production 2 is a huge milestone in Tesla’s quest to electrify transportation, and it brings to America a manufacturing industry—battery cells—that’s long been dominated by China, Japan, and South Korea. More than 2,900 people are already working at the 4.9 million square-foot facility, 3 and more than 4,000 jobs (including temporary construction work) will be added this year through the partnership between Tesla and Panasonic. 4  

By 2018, the Gigafactory, which is less than a third complete, will double the world’s production capacity for lithium-ion batteries and employ 6,500 full-time Reno-based workers, according to a new hiring forecast from Tesla. The company’s shares, having touched their highest point since August, closed up $10 at $226.99 in New York trading. 

The full activation of the Gigafactory carries existential significance for Tesla, representing a new sense of urgency at a company known for its unreachable deadlines. After missing almost every aggressive product milestone it set for itself over the last decade, Tesla must prove to investors and customers that it can stay on schedule for its first mass-produced car.

There are promising signs. Wednesday marks the third successful target Tesla met for the New Year. The company fulfilled its promise to rapidly complete a massive battery storage project to back up the grid in California 5 ; it rolled out promised software upgrades to cars equipped with new Autopilot hardware 6 ; and now it’s begun battery cell production at the Gigafactory. 7  That said, the company did fall short of its target to deliver 80,000 cars in 2016, reporting just 76,230 completed in time. 

Click Here to Read Full Article

A patch of land in the shadow of Mount Fuji is becoming a testing ground for energy storage, with some of Japan’s leading companies trying to develop technologies such as spinning flywheels and fuel cells. 

The government of Yamanashi, a prefecture 102 kilometers (63 miles) west of Tokyo, is hoping that by attracting companies such as Panasonic Corp. and Toray Industries Inc. it can become a kind of Silicon Valley for energy storage development.

As part of a project in Kofu City, the prefecture has built a 1-megawatt solar power station that’s being made available to developers of storage devices who want to run tests under closed conditions, according to Masaki Sakamoto, an official in charge of the project.

“It’s not easy to find a large-scale solar power station available for pilot projects,” Sakamoto said. “The best scenario would be that advanced research being conducted here leads to more collaboration between major and local companies and the creation of supply chains.”

Projects like the one in Yamanashi underline how Japan is racing to dominate a new age of energy technologies using a model similar to the one used by the nation to develop its automobile and semiconductor industries.

The site in Yamanashi, one of Japan’s sunniest regions, is already home to a flywheel system in a pilot program to adjust output from the solar plant. Flywheel storage devices use spinning drums to store kinetic energy in a way that can later be turned into electricity.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Battery technologies starting to disrupt the electricity and automobile industries may also emerge as a trillion-dollar threat to credit markets, according to Fitch Ratings.

A quarter of outstanding global corporate debt, or as much as $3.4 trillion, is linked to the utility- and auto-industry bonds that rely on fossil fuel activities, the ratings agency wrote in a report published Tuesday.

Batteries have the potential to “tip the oil market from growth to contraction earlier than anticipated,” according to Fitch. “The narrative of oil’s decline is well rehearsed — and if it starts to play out there is a risk that capital will act long before” and in the worst case result in an “investor death spiral.”

While hybrid and battery-only cars are making slow progress in denting sales of gasoline and diesel-driven vehicles, their growth trajectory may be grossly underestimated, said the authors of the study. The clean-energy research unit of Bloomberg LP estimates that battery-electric vehicles, which only run on power from a plug, will displace 13 million barrels of oil a day by 2040.

Mapping out the full effect of battery technologies on the fossil fuel economy currently exceeds the time frame of rating methodologies, according to Fitch. It advised utilities to lower their risk by diversifying into clean energy technologies.

“Diversification will help guard against the risk that the markets turn against” the oil economy,” Fitch wrote.

Battery prices fell 35 percent last year and are on a trajectory to make electric vehicles as affordable as their gasoline counterparts over the next six years, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 

Click Here to Read Full Article

The U.K. government should learn from California and incentivize energy-storage technology to help move away from dirty fuels, a cross-party panel of lawmakers said.

Ministers should reform the Capacity Market, a subsidy program designed to lower the risk of blackouts, to reward both energy-storage projects and power users who lower consumption at times of high demand, Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee said in a report published on Saturday. 

“There is an incredible opportunity for the U.K. to become a world leader in these disruptive technologies,” Chairman Angus MacNeil said. “Yet our current energy-security subsidies favor dirty diesel generation over smart new clean-tech solutions.”

Britain is trying to ensure it avoids power cuts as coal-fired power stations and aging atomic reactors close down. In March, the government said it would begin payments to power generators to guarantee electricity supply in the winter of 2017 to 2018, a year earlier than previously planned, in an attempt to encourage the building of new gas plants. 

Ministers should aim to spur projects that store excess power at times of low demand and feed it back into the grid when demand peaks, as well as those that encourage users to reduce their own demand, the committee said.

Get it Right

“We need to learn from California where strong public financial support and clear legislation have helped develop a storage industry and integrate storage infrastructure into the grid,” MacNeil said. “Getting demand-side response right will empower consumers, reduce bills, ease pressure on the grid, and lower carbon dioxide emissions.”

“We are fully committed to a low carbon energy future and the potential benefits that new technologies such as storage could bring to this,” the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in an e-mailed statement. “However, for the capacity market to work effectively it relies on flexible technology that is ready to be deployed.”

The committee also concluded that there are only “limited” short-term effects on electricity and gas supply of the U.K.’s decision to withdraw from the European Union. It urged ministers to publish an emissions-reduction plan because “the vote to leave has reduced already weak investor confidence in the energy sector.”

Click Here to Read Full Article

Batteries won big in the U.K.’s contest to provide power that can be dispatched quickly to help keep the electricity grid stable, a step that will help the nation expand the amount of renewable energy it’s using.

The companies that won National Grid Plc’s enhanced frequency-response tender include EDF Energy Renewables Ltd., Vattenfall AB, EON SE, Low Carbon, Element Power Ltd., RES and Belectric Solar Ltd. Of the 64 sites with storage units that bid, 61 were batteries, marking the first time National Grid will used the technology at that scale. They will supply electricity at 1 second’s notice.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Energy storage would gain access to the same tax incentives that helped make renewable energy the biggest new source of electricity in the U.S. last year under a bill introduced in the Senate.

Batteries like the lithium-ion ones in phones and electric vehicles would be eligible for the tax incentives when connected to the utility grid at homes and businesses under a bill introduced Tuesday by Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. The bill has eight co-sponsors including Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican, according to a statement.

Click Here to Read Full Article

To Steve Yates, the best thing about his new Tesla Powerwall is that he doesn’t have to worry anymore about the lights going out during a storm. Or maybe it’s how cool an addition it is to the entryway of his house in Monkton, Vermont.

“I’ve always wanted to have a backup power source,” said Yates, who was without electricity for 36 hours during Hurricane Irene in 2011. He also admires the Powerwall’s sleek white contours. “It’s kind of art-deco looking.”

Click Here to Read Full Article