Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil’s Batwind project in Scotland, combining wind turbines with energy storage, will have a battery system installed by system integrator Younicos.

Batwind is under development through a partnership between Statoil and Masdar, the renewables and energy efficiency company owned by a government investment group in the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by parties including Statoil and the Scottish government to develop the project in March 2016.

The project also hosts the world’s first floating wind turbines, based on Statoil’s proprietary Hywind platform, with the wind farm portion of the project dubbed Hywind Scotland. The floating turbines generate 30MW of electricity and began production in mid-October, when the facility was officially opened by Scotland’s First Minister Nichola Sturgeon.

The offshore power plant, some 25km off the coast of Aberdeenshire to the east of the Scottish coast, is 75% owned by Statoil and 25% by Masdar. Statoil announced yesterday that it has awarded Younicos the contract to deliver a battery energy storage system of 1MW / 1.3MWh to connect to Hywind Scotland.

The battery is intended to maximise the output of the wind farm usable by the grid, which in times of overproduction could mean storing the energy generated for injection into the grid later, could smooth out the variable generation of the six 5MW Siemens Gamesa-supplied turbines and otherwise mitigate peaks and troughs in energy production. Younicos has in the past sourced batteries from Samsung SDI and others, acting as integrator for grid-scale and commercial energy storage projects, using its own energy and battery management software and control platforms.

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Developer Convergent Energy & Power has installed a commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage system in Ontario for an injection-moulded plastics company, sized with 8.5MWh of batteries.

In common with C&I projects elsewhere, the system is designed to help the host, Husky Injection Molding Systems, reduce its electricity bills by reducing the number of times in a year Husky’s operations need to draw electricity from the grid at peak times. Convergent said it is expected to reduce electricity costs on the load the system is connected to by 15% to 30% each year, beginning in early 2018.

Ontario also has what are known as Global Adjustment charges, levied on the majority of electricity bill-payers, to help pay for ensuring there is adequate generation capacity on the network to meet demand and to pay for renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation measures.

Global Adjustment charges are set monthly, reflecting the difference between wholesale electricity prices and what it costs to keep nuclear and hydroelectric plants running, to build and maintain energy infrastructure, to pay for power fed into the grid and the cost of conservation programmes.

Essentially, while the methodology varies for different classes of customer, the amount of power drawn from the grid will affect how liable for these charges each customer is. For large industrial users of power, the contribution of their peaks in demand to Ontario’s overall demand peaks determines how much they pay. While in the US, demand charges for C&I customers can comprise 50% of their bill, in Ontario, Global Adjustment charges can account for as much as 70%.

Convergent Energy + Power has delivered the project, based on a Lockheed Martin Gridstar Lithium battery system – the aerospace and engineering firm spoke with Energy-Storage.News of having a “long-term interest” in the market as it launched its turnkey energy storage product range in 2016 – which Convergent said it selected due to its compact, robust and reliable design. Local firm S&T Electric is supplying balance of plant equipment, while Montreal-headquartered engineering company SNC Lavalin designed the whole system.

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Australian large-scale renewables investor Lyon Group has confirmed it is selling three projects under development, totalling 800MWh of energy storage and 545MW of PV generation capacity, in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

The group said on Friday in a statement sent to Energy-Storage.News that the Cape York, Nowingi and Riverland projects are expected to be sold by the end of this year. Lyon already has a shortlist of bidders, but refused to reveal names at this stage.

The sales will help support Lyon Group’s ongoing strategy to develop more than 2,000MW of solar PV and over 1,000MW of battery energy storage within the next three years. The company was behind the development of Australia’s first utility-scale solar-plus-storage facility, Lakeland in Queensland, which pairs 22MW of solar with 1.4MW of energy storage.

Lyon Group launched a ‘Battery storage market services tender’ for 640MWh of energy storage across the three projects in June, open to electricity retailers and generators, heavy electricity users, and other sector participants.

The Riverland project in South Australia features what is thought will be the world’s largest lithium battery installation to date when completed, pairing 240MW of solar PV with 100MW / 400MWh of energy storage, although the solar portion could be scaled up to 330MW in future. It will take the ‘world’s largest’ crown from Tesla’s just-completed 129MWh project, also in South Australia.

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Swiss institutional investment group SUSI Partners has agreed to finance C$120 million (US$94.56 million) of commercial and industrial (C&I) sector energy storage projects by Canadian project developer/owner NRStor.

Toronto-headquartered NRStor completed one of Canada’s first large-scale grid-connected energy storage systems, a 2MW flywheel system using 10 separate Temporal Power flywheels, in 2014. That appears to be the only completed project in the company’s portfolio as listed on the NRStor website, but in late 2016, the company signed a deal with fellow Canadian company Hydrostor, which delivers advanced adiabatic compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) from underground caverns, to jointly develop utility-scale energy storage projects across Canada.

Meanwhile SUSI Partners’ SUSI Energy Storage Fund hit energy storage industry headlines when it provided third-party project financing for 12MW of Canadian energy storage projects with developer Convergent Energy and Power. At the time, Florian Mayr of consultancy Apricum, who advised on the deal, said the arrival of an institutional investor such as SUSI in the space spoke volumes about the promise of energy storage as a technology and economic opportunity.

“SUSI Partners has clearly realized the high potential of the energy storage market for its institutional investors seeking attractive risk-adjusted returns in a rapidly growing infrastructure asset class that also contributes to the mitigation of climate change,” Mayr said at the time.

The investment group has earmarked a total of €250 million (US$298.7 million) for investment in energy storage and related areas such as smart microgrids, which SUSI said will be open to investors until early next year. SUSI reached the closing of a €66 million (US$70.4 million) fund in April, garnering investments from pension funds and other institutional investors. 

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Filipino firm Kennedy Renewable + Technology Corp has partnered with AC Energy to provide seven school campus buildings in the Island of Tawi-Tawi, south Philippines, with solar-plus-storage systems.

In this remote province, just 30% of the population has access to electricity, with most power sourced from diesel generators and often hit by blackouts.

Such rolling blackouts have negatively affected the Mindanao State University (MSU) in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, which is aiming to be a centre for excellence in the areas of fisheries, marine and maritime science and engineering, as well as oceanography.

Kennedy is the main developer, while AC Energy is offering technical and financial support. The two firms equipped the campuses with solar panels, hybrid inverters and batteries, providing not only 141kW capacity to the university but also energy storage capability to help the school deliver uninterrupted education despite the inefficiencies of the local power supply.

Dr. Philip Ella Juico, chairman of Kennedy Renewable + Technology Corp, said: “The successful launch of this project highlights the reality of conglomerates successfully working with small companies that labour under challenging circumstances to promote sustainable development. This installation is a living, although modest testament of how organizations like AC Energy and Kennedy Renewable + Technology Corp. solve real problems of power shortages that affect critical institutions in remote areas. Many more projects like this will help advance the cause of energy derived from sources that are replenished by nature.”

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Vertical integration of supply chain

Titanium electrode supply deal for Primus

Intended to “kick start concrete projects”, the European Commission is set to allocate a further €200 million (US$235.53 million) towards supporting the scale-up of lithium battery manufacturing on the continent.

Under the “strategic work programme” Horizon 2020, the European Commission funds innovation and research in various areas, helping to coordinate the efforts of academics and industry and endowed with around €30 billion in total funding from the European Union.

The commission has already allocated €150 million to battery research and innovation and last week announced the significant top-up. The main thrust behind the extra cash for battery R&D is really in the electrification of transport, with the EC announcing the funding as part of its “Delivering on low emission mobility” document.

However, the document uses terms that encompass the use of batteries as stationary energy storage, both for integrating renewable energy and as a grid asset in their own right. It describes the “transition to a modern and low-carbon economy” as a political priority for Europe and repeatedly says that tackling climate change and air pollution comes with the added benefits of creating jobs and sustainable industries.

The European Commission wants to prepare good conditions and incentives to create a globally competitive, innovative growing industry and employment opportunities around low carbon mobility. At the same time these innovative technologies should be scaled to be “clean, accessible and affordable for all”, the EC said.

While it will introduce specific measures for mobility such as CO2 standards, tenders for clean fleet vehicle contracts and ways for drivers to compare fuel prices easily, the EC said the battery initiative is of “particular strategic importance” to ensure European industry remains competitive.

Volumes of batteries demanded in Europe are predicted to rise significantly, with the EC quoting the work of JRC Science for Policy Support, which forecast demand for lithium-ion batteries to reach 210 to 535GWh by 2025, from 78GWh in the present day worldwide. In Europe, JRC Science for Policy Support said demand could range from 37GWh to 117GWh by 2025, from less than 10GWh annual demand presently.

“From an industrial perspective, the growth in demand will require major investments in the battery value chain between now and 2025, including a massive upscale of battery cell manufacturing,” the EC “Delivering on low emission mobility” paper said.

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Early DRAM engagement success

Toshiba and NRG Energy have completed a new battery energy storage system that will benefit the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.

The Elbow Creek Energy Storage project is a lithium-ion based Toshiba battery system that is able to store and provide up to 2MW of electrical power. The project located near major generator and utility NRG’s and NRG Yield’s Elbow Creek Wind Farm in Howard County, Texas, was designed to enhance the stability of the local electric grid. Transmission system operator ERCOT is repsonsible for the provision and maintenance around 90% of Texas residents’ electricity network, run as a non-profit corporation and overseen by the state’s Public Utilities’ Commission (PUC).  

The battery system is expected to help solve short-term grid issues by offering high-speed frequency regulation services. The project was manufactured at Toshiba’s 1 million sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas and features Toshiba’s SCiBTM Rechargeable Battery.

It has been part funded by Texas’ environment agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and it is hoped that the project can contribute to the state’s efforts to meet decarbonisation targets. TCEQ introduced the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) in August 2016, which gives out grants for individuals and businesses seeking to implement technologies that reduce diesel, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide, aimed primarily for air quality purposes, rather than explicity for decarbonisation. 

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Renewable energy is, undeniably, on the rise: solar and wind farms are popping up in the U.S., Europe, China, and Australia, while many companies are planning to source 100 percent of their energy from renewables. Side-by-side with this growing interest in clean energy are equally increasing energy storage needs. According to Spencer Hanes, a business development managing director at the North Carolina-based utility provider Duke Energy, batteries—like Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack—are going to take over the U.S. electric grid in five years.

“There’s going to be a lot of excitement around batteries in the next five years. And I would say that the country will get blanketed with projects,” Hanes said on Thursday, speaking as part of a panel at Solar Power Midwest in Chicago, according to Forbes.

Solar and wind farms generate energy at peak periods, when the sun is out and the winds are strong, but these don’t always match the needs of the grid. To remedy this, solar and wind farms, and even utilities, are turning to energy storage batteries. Tesla has a number of projects like this in Australia, while Google parent company Alphabet is working on a similar project in Malta.

CLEANER AND CHEAPER

Aside from batteries in larger energy farms, batteries are also becoming more popular domestically. Soon, more houses are going to be equipped with home batteries, like the Powerwall and Ikea’s home battery packs, as a reaction to the shift to renewables—and because they bring down energy costs. In the U.S., home developers in a number of state, which include New York and California, are making batteries part of their houses. “With the way that the cost curves are coming down it’s a big opportunity for all of us to deliver what customers want,” Hanes added.

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