The installed capacity of energy storage for microgrids is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade, with nearly 15 gigawatts of new cumulative capacity and revenue worth $22.3 billion, according to a new report from Navigant Research.

Navigant Research published a new report earlier this month investigating energy storage for microgrids (ESMG), providing an analysis of expected trends and market dynamics through the next decade, until 2026. Unsurprisingly, the report concludes that interest in ESMG technology is increasing alongside the interest in solar PV and wind deployments. While energy storage systems are not inherently required for a microgrid to operate, Navigant concludes that storage systems have nevertheless emerged “as an increasingly valuable component to distributed energy networks because of their ability to effectively integrate renewable generation.”

The report’s key highlight predicts that through 2026 there will be a cumulative installation of 14,850.7 MW (megawatts) of new ESMG capacity with revenue of approximately $22.3 billion in revenue.

“There are several key drivers resulting in the growth of energy storage-enabled microgrids globally, including the desire to improve the resilience of power supply both for individual customers and the entire grid, the need to expand reliable electricity service to new areas, rising electricity prices, and innovations in business models and financing,” explained Alex Eller, research analyst with Navigant Research. “Innovations in business models and financing will likely play a key role in the expansion of the ESMG market during the coming years.”

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Elon Musk didn’t need 100 days after obtaining a connection agreement to switch on the Tesla big battery in South Australia. In fact, it took him less than 100 minutes.

That’s how quickly the battery was up and running after the ink dried on the connection deal with the state’s transmission company ElectraNet last Friday.

By the early evening, some 300 Tesla Powerpacks already in place were delivering all the power for the unveiling event, stored from the adjoining Hornsdale wind farm, a three-hour drive north of Adelaide.

Of course, it’s not all in place yet. About half is installed – 30MW/65MWh out of 100MW/129MWh it has contracted to build – and it has yet to fully engage with the grid.

But it has only taken two months since Tesla won a South Australia government tender to get this far, and despite some hints that a demonstration was in the wind, the 500 or so invited guests were stunned by what they saw.

“So much has been done in an incredibly short period of time,” Musk said at the unveiling on Friday night. “Talk is cheap, action is difficult … but this is not just talk, this is reality.”

And, Musk noted – ominously enough for the fossil fuel interests looking on from afar – this is just the start of what he expects will be a rapid transition to renewables.

“The vast majority of the world is still fossil fuel powered and this is really just the beginning. But what this serves as is a great example to the rest of the world of what can be done.”

Talking to some of the energy market officials, developers, and investors at the event, it seems clear that battery storage installations like this will mushroom across Australia in coming years.

Some are already well flagged: Neoen, which owns and will operate the South Australia big battery, plans another 20MW/34MWh storage facility at the yet-to-be-built Bulgana wind farm in Victoria, there is another 30MW/8MWh facility to be built at the Wattle Point wind farm, not to mention the 250MW big battery proposed by AGL to replace the ageing and decrepit Liddell coal generator.

There is also a smaller battery at the soon to be opened Lakeland solar farm in north Queensland, batteries at the Kennedy solar, wind complex also in north Queensland, pumped hydro at the Kidston solar farm, and dozens of other storage project.

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A new report from GTM Research has determined that for the first time ever, grid-tied residential battery storage deployment will overtake that of the traditionally-leading off-grid and grid-independent battery storage systems across the United States in 2017.

GTM Research published its latest report this week, U.S. Residential Battery Storage Playbook 2017, which details the battery storage industry in the United States, and its future potential. Traditionally, the report has shown that off-grid and grid-independent backup battery storage applications have dominated the US market, accounting for 86% of the total residential battery storage systems installed during 2016. More than 4,400 residential battery systems were installed during 2016, representing a total of 127 MWh (megawatt-hours) of energy storage.

However, GTM predicts a shift in 2017 that will flip the industry on its head, somewhat, with grid-connected battery deployments set to make up 57% of annual deployments — the first time ever that grid-connected battery systems have overtaken off-grid and grid-independent systems.

Further, and astonishingly, GTM Research predicts that by 2022 grid-connected systems will account for 99% of new deployments, with off-grid and grid-independent backup deployments remaining relatively flat.

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Energy storage is already accelerating the transition to wind and solar energy, and things are about to get a little more interesting. Scientists at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have come up with a new bijel that could have some interesting energy storage applications. They’re still trying to find the right adjectives to describe it, but “weirdly exciting” seems to fit the bill for now.

Bijel is short for “bicontinuous jammed emulsion gels.” If that sounds somewhat mysterious, it’s really not. You can almost DIY your own bijel right at the dinner table. Here’s the explainer from Berkeley Lab:

Bijels are typically made of immiscible, or non-mixing, liquids. People who shake their bottle of vinaigrette before pouring the dressing on their salad are familiar with such liquids. As soon as the shaking stops, the liquids start to separate again, with the lower density liquid – often oil – rising to the top.

The key word is almost. Those spherical droplets in your vinaigrette bottle are as close to true bijellery as you can get.

The unique feature of bijels is that the two liquids can’t separate. The particles are “jammed” at the interface where they meet. Instead of distinct droplets, they form a web of channels.

That feature provides bijels with a wide range of applications in energy storage and other areas involving catalysis, conductivity, and energy conversion — potentially, that is.

In addition to issues involving the fabrication of bijels, the main catch is that the fluid channels are too wide to be of much use in energy conversion applications.

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At Solar Power International (SPI) in Las Vegas this week, BYD announced the world’s first installation of its high-voltage B-Box energy storage system in Germany.

BYD’s B-Box is a modular energy storage system that allows customers to add battery modules to the B-Box unit as demands increase over time. This particular installation in Germany utilized 9 battery modules for a combined storage capacity of 11.5 kWh. If greater capacity is required, up to 5 B-Box systems can be connected in parallel.

BYD developed the B-Box to store energy generated from rooftop residential solar systems, which it can then meter back out to the house after the sun has set. It is intelligent enough to minimize the amount of solar energy sent to the grid or intelligently feeding in battery power to offset home usage that would have pushed the household into a higher tier of electricity usage, depending on the rate and fee structure of the local utility.

The BYD B-Box is available in Europe and Australia today, with a US launch expected later this year in Hawaii as well as select west and east coast markets with high electricity prices that make the B-Box a more lucrative financial proposition. The B-Box has evolved over the last few product offerings and is now a modular, stable, high-voltage unit that makes use of BYD’s long-lasting Lithium Ferro Phosphate (LiFePo4) batteries. These batteries have a slightly lower energy density than most EV batteries, resulting in a slightly larger size and weight per kWh (resulting in a slightly heavier product), but they are well suited for home energy storage since they reportedly have a much longer lifespan and far lower deterioration over their lifetimes.

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The US Energy Department has been steaming full speed ahead on cutting edge energy storage technology, and the latest development is one of those environmental twofers we love. A $1 million grant from the agency will help a company called Saratoga Energy to bridge the gap between its labwork and a low cost, high efficiency energy storage technology ideal for electric vehicles — without the carbon footprint, too.

The Union of Concerned Scientists took a look at the lifecycle carbon footprint of EVsand determined that it is significantly smaller than conventional gas-powered vehicles.

However, EVs still have a carbon footprint, and in the interests of global carbon management that footprint needs to be as small as possible.

Part of the EV carbon problem is the graphite used in lithium-ion energy storage technology.

Graphite is a form of pure carbon chemically identical to diamonds but with different structural characteristics.

The carbon footprint of mining and processing comes into play for naturally occurring graphite, and the go-to source for synthetic graphite is petroleum coke (surprise!).

Local environmental issues also bedevil the graphite industry, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

The Saratoga Energy solution is to skip the graphite supply chain middleman and go straight to the source: carbon.

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The US Army will add a 1 megawatt energy storage system to accompany its 10-megawatt SunPower-built solar PV system which recently broke ground at the Redstone Arsenal US army post in Alabama.

US-based solar company SunPower revealed on Wednesday that the US Army will be adding a 1 MW (megawatt) energy storage system to a 10 MW solar project being developed by SunPower at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama — a project which will drive employment of up to 200 jobs at the peak of construction. The project was jointly developed by the US Army Office of Energy Initiatives, Redstone Arsenal’s Directorate of Public Works, and the US Army Corps of Engineers Huntsville Center’s Energy Division, and its development is being financed by a power purchase agreement (PPA) which opens the way for the US Army to buy 100% of the electricity generated by the project without having to pay for the construction, maintenance, or operation of the project. Specifically, the Army will purchase 18,000 MWh of electricity from the project at a cost equal to or less than Redstone Arsenal’s current and projected utility rates.

“This project reinforces the Army’s commitment to advancing adoption of reliable, cost-effective, home-grown renewable energy at Redstone Arsenal,” said Col. Thomas Holliday, Garrison Commander, Redstone Arsenal. “We’re continually looking for ways to grow our capability and reduce our cost to provide the nation with a more efficient defense.”

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Lithium-air batteries may or may not ever happen, but it’s not for lack of trying. Toyota Motor Europe is one of the funders behind a new MIT study that dives into the mysteries of this elusive energy storage technology, which promises to triple the power per weight of conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium-air technology translates into lighter, cheaper EV batteries and better range — if anybody can ever figure out how to get them to work in an EV.

EVs And The Lithium-Air Energy Storage Unicorn

Lithium-air batteries literally replace some of the lithium with an air flow, which is why they save on weight.

Back in 2010 the US Energy Department laid out the challenge facing EVs in the auto market…

An EV that is cost-competitive with gasoline would require a battery with twice the energy storage of today’s state-of-the-art Li-Ion battery at 30% of the cost.

…and tagged Li-air energy storage technology as one promising solution:

Li-Air batteries are better than the Li-Ion batteries used in most EVs today because they breathe in air from the atmosphere for use as an active material in the battery, which greatly decreases its weight. Li-Air batteries also store nearly 700% as much energy as traditional Li-Ion batteries. A lighter battery would improve the range of EVs dramatically.

So, how are we doing? After all, it’s been seven years since the Energy Department wrote up its wish list.

The problem, as summed up by MIT writer David Chandler, is a triple whammy:

But that theoretical promise has been limited in practice because of three issues: the need for high voltages for charging, a low efficiency with regard to getting back the amount of energy put in, and low cycle lifetimes, which result from instability in the battery’s oxygen electrode.

Phooey!

CleanTechnica has been periodically checking on the progress of Li-air energy storage since 2010, and researchers have been trying all sorts of things to resolve any or all of those three issues, from genetically modified viruses to ordinary pencils. Researchers at MIT have also been looking into glass-based Li-air batteries.

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Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been steadily pushing the Trump Administration deeper into clean tech territory, regardless of President* Trump’s pro-coal rhetoric. In the latest development, the Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced a new round of $5.7 million in funding for next-generation energy storage technology, aimed squarely at driving down the cost of electric vehicles and pumping up the range, to boot.

Perry is also steadily getting more frantic in his efforts to satisfy the inclinations of President Trump and the conservative base, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

The new energy storage funding round comes under the Battery500 consortium, which is spearheaded by PNNL with a focus on improving lithium-metal batteries.

Battery500 was established under the Obama Administration in 2016. Back then, clean tech rated lavish attention from the Commander-in-Chief. Rather than leaving it up to the Energy Department, the White House took up the task of defining the Battery500 mission:

…The Battery500 Consortium aims to triple the specific energy (to 500 WH/kg) relative to today’s battery technology while achieving 1,000 electric vehicles cycles. This will result in a significantly smaller, lighter weight, less expensive battery pack (below $100/kWh) and more affordable EVs…

The $5.7 million in funding will go to 15 projects that fall into the seedling category, defined by PNNL as “new, potentially risky battery technologies that could pay off big and grow into significant energy storage solutions.”

Battery500 seems to have taken recent improvements in battery technology under consideration when setting a goal for the 15 projects. The current goal is to double, not triple specific energy:

Battery500 seeks to develop lithium-metal batteries that have more than double the specific energy found in batteries that power today’s electric cars. Specific energy measures the amount of energy packed into a battery based on its weight.

Meh, double, triple. It depends on where you set the level of specific energy typical of “today’s” EV batteries. PNNL currently puts that around the 170-200 watt mark.

Either way, the end result will be a new generation of EVs that could outrun gasmobiles on two key metrics, cost and range.

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A cutting-edge new cargo ship from the company Eco Marine Power could be the first out of the box to integrate a rigid sail system with solar power and energy storage. Going by the concept design, the renewable energy hardware seems to be taking up some valuable deck space, but this first vessel will be a floating R&D platform intended to arrive at the optimal balance between renewables and cargo for various ship models.

If all goes well, the company foresees that various iterations of the wind+solar+storage combo could be used in the cruise ship and ore carrier sectors, in addition to cargo ships.

A move in the direction of rigid sails for cargo ships crossed the CleanTechnica radar back in 2012, when the Irish company B9 Shipping came up with an idea for a wind-powered cargo ship modeled on rotating sail technology used in the then-largest luxury yacht in the world, the Maltese Falcon, which hit the water in 2006 using DynaRig sails.

DynaRig is rooted in a 1960’s concept for placing sails on a rotating mast. The heavy materials in use at the time prevented the concept from breaking into commercial application, but the introduction of lightweight carbon fiber and other new materials enabled DynaRig sails to slide into the superyacht market.

DynaRig also got a mention in CleanTechnica back in 2013, when the high-end yacht company Oceanco came up with an idea for deploying a ship equipped with both solar panels and DynaRig technology.

That yacht (dubbed Solar) made a huge splash when first announced in 2012. It was under wraps as a super secret project until it launched into a testing phase earlier this year.

Despite Oceanco nailing down the Solar name, it looks like Eco Marine Power could still have bragging rights to the first integrated wind + solar ship. It’s pretty hard to spot where Solar is hiding its solar panels, and there doesn’t seem to be much room for them on deck considering all the superyacht extras crowding for a spot in the sun:

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