Officials from 56 Muslim-majority nations have come together to pledge new climate-related technology goals that included promoting microgrids, energy storage and renewable energy targets.

The Islamic world’s first ever Science and Tech summit, which ended last night in Astana, Kazakhstan, involved heads of state and government ministers from 56 Muslim majority nations. All countries pledged to increase investment in science as a way of addressing energy, food, water, health and climate change challenges. The summit included the presidents of Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan among others.

The countries have pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by targeting 10% renewable energy shares in the national energy mixes of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) States by 2025.

They also plan to introduce microgrids and encourage distributed standalone systems for small communities.

The countries will also design and develop energy storage systems such as fuel cells and batteries using lithium-ion and vanadium redox technolgies for small-scale energy storage applications.

Other pledges by the OIC nations involved nuclear energy, addressing food and water shortages, space exploration, managing big data, education and health.

OIC assistant secretary general for Science and Technology ambassador Naeem Khan, said: “As more people in the Islamic world emerge out of poverty, energy demand is increasing. This is being aggravated by climate change, with many OIC countries inhabiting climate-sensitive regions already facing desertification and degradation of land and water. Several studies have also shown a link between climate change and the subsequent effect on drought, food prices and the outbreak of conflict.

“Energy consumption and production is a major challenge in the Islamic world where many of the OIC’s 57-member states are well placed to harness the power of renewables, yet also still rely heavily in traditional fossil fuels.”

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TerraE Holding, a collaborative initiative to establish large-scale production line manufacturing of lithium-ion cells at a European ‘Gigafactory’, has signed a raw materials deal for anode materials with Australia’s Magnis Resources.

Six companies from the Germany-based KLIB (Kompetenznetzwerk Lithium Ionen Batterien – ‘Competence in Lithium-Ion Batteries’) group, which includes the likes of Daimler, Bosch, 3M, Manz, Wacker, Kuka, Varta and Litarion in its membership, formed TerraE in May 2016.

The plan is to build two lithium-ion cell production facilities in Germany with a production capacity of 34GWh by 2028. The factories will be operated as an OEM (original equipment manufacturer), with TerraE owning and running the facilities, contracted to assemble battery cells for customers.

TerraE claimed to have established a consortium of 17 unnamed companies and research institutions this summer and said that potential customers and investors had already been approached, from sectors including stationary energy storage system makers, electric vehicle companies and the industrial power and equipment sector. According to TerraE, all of these prospective customers and investors have a direct interest in establishing battery supply lines in Germany.

This morning the group announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sydney-headquartered Magnis Resources, for the Australian company to supply graphite with which to make anodes for the battery cells. TerraE said production is expected to begin during 2019. Magnis develops mineral resources in Australia and Africa, with a graphite production ‘flagship’ site in Tasmania.

“Ensuring our long-term supply of raw materials is highly important for cell production in Germany,” TerraE CEO Holger Gritzka said.

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Collaboration with NY BEST and DNV GL

Solar Global develops and services solar photovoltaic (PV) farms and rooftop PV installations, and currently has some 100 MW capacity under service. As Solar Global wants to play an important role at the forefront of the energy transition, it is investing in an innovative energy storage solution that initially will be used for energy trading. As the local market further develops, the system is also ready for other applications, such as providing grid stability services. This project is supported by EU Regional Development Fund.

František Smolka, CEO of Solar Global comments: “Energy storage will play a crucial role in the large scale roll-out of renewable energy. With this project we prepare ourselves for the future, and I expect to implement many more of these systems in the region.”

Andreas Plenk, global sales director energy storage at Alfen, adds: “In close cooperation with Solar Global we assessed the most optimal configuration of the system for the local situation. Our modular and standardized storage system makes it possible to deliver and implement our solution in the Czech Republic within a short timeframe.”

Implementing innovative solutions 

Smolka explains why Solar Global selected Alfen for this project: “Alfen’s proven technology and multiyear experience with utilities throughout Europe ensures that we are implementing the most innovative and reliable system in the market. We look forward to leverage Alfen´s vast experience with state-of-the-art applications for our business.”

Plenk adds: “We have experience with many types of storage applications, ranging from smoothening large scale renewable energy sources to load balancing for the charging of electric vehicles. Combining renewables with energy storage is gaining momentum throughout Europe. Parties such as Solar Global are realizing that storage will enhance the return-of-investment of solar PV and wind farms. And we’re only at the beginning of this trend.”

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US energy storage designer and manufacturer SimpliPhi Energy has installed a combination of solar PV and batteries to power air-conditioning units at a school in Hawaii, with a further 1.4MWh of such projects in the pipeline.

In May 2016, Hawaii State’s Department of Education (HIDOE) brought into legislature a commitment to add air-conditioning to 1,000 classrooms across Hawaii, with the US$100 million Heat Abatement Program for public schools created to fast-track projects. The 1,000 classroom goal was reached in August, but the programme continues to add new units.

According to HIDOE, many of its schools are more than 50 years old and were never designed with the kind of electrical load needed to run air-conditioning in mind. A HIDOE fact sheet on the Heat Abatement Program says that the department annually spends US$48 million on electricity and cited the example of one school’s new AC-unit and said that it doubled power costs at Pohakea Elementary School.

Solar-plus-storage has now been put forward as an economical solution to power those air-conditioning units, allowing schools to control the long-term costs of their energy. Waialua High and Intermediate School, on the island of Oahu, is now being fitted with a system designed by Ameresco Solar, a developer and designer of PV systems headquartered in Arizona. Ameresco and SimpliPhi worked with local solar system integrator Haleakala Solar to execute the project.

“Bringing sustainable cooling relief to students in Hawaii was a problem we knew required innovation on several levels, including how to manage the up front and long-term costs of these systems and how to work with the limited electrical infrastructure on these campuses,” Ameresco senior account executive Richard Dean said.

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Using just 351.9kW of PV and 1MWh of energy storage in a microgrid, a tiny island off the Massachusetts coast successfully met more than 50% of its electricity demand over summer.

Historic Cuttyhunk Island, just a few miles from Martha’s Vineyard, a summer destination for the rich and famous, has less than 50 residents outside of seasonal tourist peaks and about 300 residents during the summer season.

The island is famous for being one of the trading posts with the British pre-independence but has now found a degree of energy independence for itself. Solar Design Associates, a Harvard-headquartered company, designed and installed the PV array, which has 1,020 panels, and the lithium-ion battery energy storage system.

As with most electrified island territories, Cuttyhunk Island has always relied on burning diesel fuel, which is brought to the island on a barge, which is of course expensive, polluting and relies on supplies being able to negotiate bad weather conditions and other logistics. The project received financial assistance from the US Agriculture Department’s grant scheme for rural electrification projects.

While the new microgrid will not eliminate diesel use entirely, during this year it is expected to reduce consumption by 30,000 gallons, a representative of Gosnold Electric Light Commission, which oversees utilities on Cuttyhunk, said. In fact while helping the residents and visitors to rely on more than 50% renewable energy over summer, during off-season periods, that proportion can rise to 80% renewables.  The massively diminished population numbers in those times are a factor in this – some accounts refer to there being less than 20 residents on the island at some points in the year.

“The microgrid’s performance and reliability have exceeded all our expectations, and we are on track to burn 30,000 fewer gallons of diesel fuel this year,” Gosnold Electric Light Commission’s Paul Elias said.

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The power purchase agreement (PPA) for what is claimed to be the Middle East’s largest solar-plus-storage project has been signed.

Jordanian PV manufacturer and EPC Philadelphia Solar is developing the 11MW generation site, which will be paired with a 12MWh lithium-ion battery. The system will perform peak shaving and load shifting duties to support the grid during daytime hours.

The Irbid District Electricity Company has signed a 20-year PPA for power from the site. The signing was overseen by minister of energy and mineral resources Saleh Al Kharabsha.

Philadelphia Solar will install its own 320Wp polycrystalline modules and its own single-axis tracker for the project. Further details on the energy storage system were not provided and Philadelphia Solar was not available for further comment.

Jordan is energy-poor and relies heavily on fossil fuel imports from neighbouring countries. Historically, diesel and fuel oil have been the dominant sources of electricity but recent renewable energy tenders have helped to decrease this dependence.

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An EV and stationary energy storage battery start-up headed by former SpaceX, Tesla, Apple, Amazon and Samsung designers and engineers has mobilised almost US$100 million of financing and contracts to kickstart manufacturing operations.

Led by Michael Patterson, an entrepreneurial CEO with a taste for disruptive tech startups, California-based Romeo Power is currently building a 113,000 square-foot, fully automated manufacturing facility, scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. Once opened, it should produce 1GWh of battery capacity on a single shift, reaching 4GWh capacity per shift during 2018.

Attempting to stake its claim in an already-competitive market, producing its own cylindrical lithium-ion cells for mobility and a product named Powerstack for stationary energy storage based on the same battery pack design, Romeo has just announced the raise of US$30 million in seed financing.

CEO Patterson said the company, which launched in 2015, was scaling manufacturing “as fast as we can” due to high demand and “incredible momentum in a short period” and called the market opportunity for energy storage technologies “massive”.

In addition to the US$30 million financing, from unnamed investors, the company also claims to have US$65 million in “initial orders scheduled for delivery in 2018” already, assuming they can meet those manufacturing targets.

The company is touting the fact that its engineers are led by CTO and co-founder Porter Harris, who was behind development of batteries for the Dragon spacecraft and F9 rocket at Elon Musk’s NASA-contracted interstellar delivery service, SpaceX.

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The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) assessment of reliability and security of the country’s electrical grid network is “encouraging”, the Energy Storage Association’s head has said in her initial reaction to the report’s publication.

Energy secretary Rick Perry ordered his staff in April to produce the report, which was published on Wednesday. Described as a comprehensive analysis and including recommendations to policymakers, regulators and the general public on future policy options, the DOE has now invited the public to offer comments on the “Staff reports on electricity markets and reliability” report via its website.

Our sister site PV Tech reported today that the omission of passages supportive of renewable energy economics – in relation to fluctuating fossil fuel prices – found in a leaked early draft of the document were expunged from the final version. Some PV industry figures also commented to say that the report overstated the challenges in integrating renewables, while others expressed their satisfaction that the study was undertaken in the first place.    

Meanwhile, DOE appears to consider energy storage as a vital part of the grid-level toolkit – if there is a desire to integrate increasing levels of variable renewable energy.

“Energy storage will be critical in the future if higher levels of VRE are deployed on the grid and require additional balancing of energy supply and demand in real time,” the report says, in a section on energy storage.

Perhaps ominously, the same section concludes: “However, the need for storage may not be as great for a grid more reliant on traditional baseload generation.”

With President Trump extolling the virtues of so-called “clean coal” in the past few days, some alarm bells might be raised by the ambiguous language.

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