Zero-carbon electricity from wind and solar is great for the climate. But because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, it can be a headache for grid operators who have to make sure electrons are flowing steadily to homes and businesses. The solution is energy storage: big batteries that can capture and release power from intermittent sources when it’s most efficient.

The scale-up of storage has been steady, but slow over the last several years. But in the last three months, the US energy storage market has absolutely boomed, according to new data from Wood Mackenzie—giving renewables a major boost in the fight to displace fossil fuels.

The third quarter of this year smashed the record for new US battery installations, beating out the second quarter (the previous record) by 240%. The charge was led by “front-of-the-meter,” also known as utility-scale, systems, as opposed to batteries on homes, businesses, or factories.

That’s a sign that power companies, and not just climate-minded individuals, are laying the groundwork for a much cleaner grid—which is essential, since the grid accounts for at least one-quarter of US carbon emissions. And the grid is expected to shoulder even more of the overall energy burden as cars, heating systems, and other points of fuel consumption go electric.

The majority of the new installations were in California, which not only has one of the country’s biggest existing fleets of wind and solar farms, but also has one of the country’s most aggressive decarbonization targets: 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2045. It’s a major incentive for power companies to move early on storage. In September, the world’s largest battery came online in the state.

The electric power grid is facing a number of challenges from the technological change across the power system and increasing severity and frequency of natural and man-made threats. As the generation mix rapidly evolves throughout the country, technologies that provide additional operational support to the grid will become more valuable. Part of that process will require the industry and the government to build and validate business cases based on a firm regulatory framework that meet requirements such as flexibility, reliability, resilience, sustainability, and grid stability. This effort requires a holistic approach to identify technical and regulatory solutions that is coordinated with the industry and the government. One technology that is crucial to the next evolution of the nation’s electrical grid is advanced energy storage.

But what is energy storage really? For many people, the term “energy storage” is likely to invoke a vision of an electrical battery — and it makes sense since the majority of the utility energy storage systems deployed on the grid in recent years are batteries. However, the technology with the largest installed capacity on the grid in the United States is pumped hydro. What about other types of storage such as thermal or chemical? These technologies store energy as well. In fact, a pile of coal at a power plant or a pipeline with natural gas is energy storage. Also, technologies that do not store energy themselves but provide similar functions may work best in some scenarios. To fully assess how to support the development of energy storage, we need to evaluate all of the diverse technologies that provide the benefits of energy storage from the perspective of the functions and values that a system can provide to the grid.

One of the essential benefits of energy storage is the flexibility it adds to the power system. The electric grid is a very complicated machine and electricity is a very unique product that requires just-in-time delivery. Electricity supply must match demand at any given moment of time. In the past, that was accomplished by forecasting loads and scheduling and dispatching generation to meet demand. Today, with increasing penetration of variable renewable generation, you need forecasts for both demand and generation. While our forecasting abilities are improving, this does not overcome the issue that traditional wind and solar generation are not dispatchable resources. When you cannot fully control both sides of the system, you need additional flexibility and that is where energy storage comes in.

What are the roles of battery storage and hydrogen in the clean energy system of the future? Matthias Simolka, a consultant at Germany-based TEAM CONSULT takes a look at the roles each plays today and where we might see the dynamics go from here, with regard to everything from large-scale renewables integration to electric transport. Co-authored by Madjid Kübler, managing director at TEAM CONSULT and Jens Jens Völler, head of business unit, gas, at TEAM CONSULT. 

Renewable energy needs to be stored in order to make it available at all times and for mobile applications. In recent years, batteries and hydrogen technologies moved into the centre of attention as means of storage for renewable energies. For both technologies, stationary and mobile applications are available. But are these technologies competitors in the market and is one more advantageous than the other, resulting in the displacement of the less competitive technology? Or are they complementary and necessary for the overall energy system to maintain grid stability while integrating more and more renewable energies?

In the following, we analyse the current situation in Germany and provide an outlook for both technologies.

The German word “Energiewende” is often used, even in an international context, in conversations about the transition of the energy system from fossil to renewable energies, indicating Germany’s pioneering role in the global energy transition. The central features of the “Energiewende” are the decarbonisation of energy supply and the switch to renewable energies, which so far have been mainly taking place in the electricity system. The main challenge posed by renewable energies is their fluctuating generation of electricity, which impedes a stable and demand-actuated provision of energy. Over the years, the increasing share of renewable energies has led to higher load changes (feed-in gradients) in the power grid (see Figure 1 below).

A new three-year project allowing residential solar and batteries to trade electricity and grid services in Victoria, Australia, is aimed at creating a replicable model marketplace that could be widely expanded across the country.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said today that Project EDGE (Energy Demand and Generation Exchange) has been launched in partnership with electricity retail company Mondo Power and network operator AusNet Services. According to the national Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), which will financially support AEMO in rolling out the trial, initially involving about 50 residential customers in the Hume region of north east Victoria, it will be scaled up to enrol 1,000 customers, including commercial and industrial (C&I) as well as residential. AEMO said that the trial will include a minimum of 10MW of distributed energy resources (DER).  

The trial will run on its own marketplace platform, where the capabilities and capacities of solar and batteries and other DER such as electric vehicles (EVs), EV chargers and smart meters can be aggregated. These aggregated resources will be able to deliver network support services at wholesale and local levels. The state of Victoria recently extended a subsidy programme offering rebates for purchases of rooftop solar and home batteries. 

At present, large-scale facilities are able to participate in such opportunities via the National Electricity Market (NEM). However, as AEMO pointed out in a press release and accompanying fact sheet, the NEM was originally designed to facilitate one-way trade and flow of electricity from large centralised generators to consumers. The Project EDGE trial is a first attempt to create a marketplace based on a two-way flow instead.

As the oil and gas industry has become increasingly focused on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the concept of leveraging renewable energy sources (RES), such as offshore and floating wind farms, to provide clean power to offshore installations has gained traction. However, many hurdles stand in the way of making this a reality. Mainly, this is because of the need to offset the inherent intermittency associated with electricity generation from renewables.

In 2018, Siemens, Seadrill, and Northern Ocean took an important step toward solving this problem by implementing the world’s first lithium-ion battery solution on the West Mira drilling rig in the North Sea. West Mira is a sixth-generation, ultra-deep-water (10,000-ft) semi-submersible that will operate in the Nova Field, approximately 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Bergen, Norway. It will be the world’s first hybrid rig to operate a low-emissions hybrid (diesel-electric) power plant using lithium-ion storage technology, with DNV-GL Power Notation.

Designing lithium-ion batteries for spinning reserve and safety

The concept of using lithium-ion energy storage solutions in both all-electric and hybrid power systems is not new. However, it has not been until recent years that large megawatt-hour capacity battery solutions have been commercialized for use in marine applications. This is primarily because of the numerous technical hurdles that have had to be addressed, including high capital cost, limited battery range, lifespan and reliability, and so forth. Safety has also been a critically important factor.

Because lithium-ion batteries combine high energy materials with flammable electrolytes, any damage to the separator as a result of mechanic stress or high temperature will lead to an internal short-circuit. This causes the electrolyte inside the cell to begin evaporating, resulting in an increase in internal pressure until the electrolyte vapor is eventually released, either through a relief valve or by the bursting of the cell shell. Without protective measures in place, an explosive gas-air mixture is created and if heating is not ceased, thermal runaway takes place.

Thermal runaway poses a serious safety concern for any facility that uses lithium-ion energy storage. However, in marine vessels and offshore facilities, the risk is magnified as there are limited options for personnel to be evacuated from the area where danger exists. Also, an explosion could cause catastrophic damage to the structure.

Additionally, in oil and gas operations, combustible fuels are present, which increase the risk of fire spreading. For this reason, lithium-ion energy storage solutions used in marine environments must incorporate fail-proof design measures to ensure safety.

Battery solution: BlueVault

This was the primary design objective of the battery solution (formerly named Blue Vault) used for the West Mira drilling rig. Individual cells in battery packs are equipped with propagation protection to prevent large-scale thermal runaway. Gases produced as a result of the thermal event are ducted through the cubicle that holds the battery modules. Any thermal runaway event that occurs within the system is isolated on the cell level. A freshwater cooling system regulates the temperature in the batteries.

The cooling system is designed to work as a passive safety layer to ensure that a faulty battery cell will not propagate to any neighboring battery cells. It also keeps the battery temperature stable and helps to extend its lifespan. The latter is influenced by a variety of factors, including ambient temperature, number of cycles, depth of cycles, and so forth. The typical life expectancy of the battery system is around 10 years.

In this year like no other, solar, storage and cleantech investors are finding reasons for optimism — driven, in part, by an incoming Biden administration aiming to enact a $2 trillion climate plan.

Here’s a rundown of these year-end investments.

Investments in solar software and CSP
$50 million for solar software: It took a pandemic, but the U.S. residential solar (and storage) industry has finally figured out how to lower customer acquisition costs — move everything online. Aurora Solar, a SaaS startup developing software that enables solar installers and financiers to design and sell residential solar remotely, raised $50 million in a Series B led by Iconiq Growth, along with existing investors Energize Ventures, Fifth Wall, and Pear VC. This brings the company’s total investment to over $70 million. Aurora is aiming to shift the solar industry from manual and in-person processes — to doing everything online. Aurora’s software lets solar installers perform remote solar shading analysis, design solar and storage rooftop systems, forecast energy generation, calculate savings, and produce sales proposals with financing choices. BloombergNEF is confident that Americans will install a record 3 GW of solar on their homes this year and 3.6 GW will be installed in 2021. Other solar software investments this year included Terabase Energy and Station A.

$39 million for next-gen concentrated solar power: Bill Gross’s CSP startup Heliogen received $39 million, to “develop, build, and operate a supercritical carbon dioxide power cycle integrated with thermal energy storage, heated by concentrated solar thermal energy supplied by a newly built heliostat field,” according to the DOE website. Heliogen’s proposed CSP plant uses sCO2 — essentially, CO2 halfway between gas and fluid — instead of steam to generate power. Since 2007, the DOE has provided about $575 million in support for CSP research. Heliogen is backed by Bill Gates, Steve Case and cancer drug entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong. (reporting by K Kaufmann)

247Solar, an MIT-spinoff, and microturbine maker Capstone Turbine tested a commercial turbine that can generate electricity using hot air at atmospheric pressure, without combustion — made possible by a heat exchanger using a nickel-chromium-aluminum-iron alloy engineered for operation at very high temperatures. The plant is driven by a CSP system that heats air to a high-enough temperature to drive the turbine to produce electricity. According to the company, the hot-air-driven Brayton Cycle system “operates at atmospheric pressure and requires no steam, molten salts, or heat transfer oils.” The system stores up to 20 hours of energy as heat, using ceramic pellets instead of molten salts. Source: 247Solar

Investing across the energy storage value stack
Li-Cycle, the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, closed a Series C funding round led by Moore Strategic Ventures to fund development of its Rochester, New York hub. Terms were not disclosed. Li-Cycle CEO Ajay Kochhar said, “Without sustainable and economically viable lithium-ion battery recycling, we believe it’s likely that electric vehicle proliferation will be substantially hindered.” Li-Cycle claims that its recycling process enables recoveries of at least 95% of all materials found in lithium-ion batteries, compared to the industry norm of less than 50%.

The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has approved the construction of the biggest battery storage project in the UK, and one of the largest such projects in the world, the company developing the site said on Monday.

InterGen, an energy company headquartered in Edinburgh, has received the green light to build the US$267 million (£200 million) project in southern England. The project is expected to provide at least 320MW/640MWh of capacity, with the potential to expand to 1.3GWh – more than ten times the size of the largest battery currently in operation in the UK and set to be one of the world’s largest, InterGen said.

The battery storage project, which will be built at DP World London Gateway on the Thames Estuary, dwarfs any similar projects currently in operation in the UK, with the largest operational project currently at 75MWh.

“It is also likely to be one of the biggest batteries anywhere in the world,” InterGen said.

Construction on the Gateway project is expected to start in 2022 and become operational in 2024.

InterGen is also exploring the option to develop another large battery project at its site in Spalding, Lincolnshire, which would be 175MW / 350MWh. The planning permissions are already in place for the project in Lincolnshire in east England.

Battery storage will be essential to the UK’s net-zero ambitions and its target to become a global leader in offshore wind energy, powering every home in the country with wind energy by 2030, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in early October.

Battery storage will also be crucial to advancing renewable energy in other parts of the world. Earlier this month, French company Neoen said that it would build an even bigger, 300-MW/450-MWh, battery storage system in Australia, in partnership with Tesla. The Victorian Big Battery in Australia, one of the world’s largest batteries, will be delivered together with Tesla and network partner AusNet Services.

The fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park will, upon its completion, have the largest energy storage capacity in the world of 15 hours.

The fourth phase will be operational in stages starting from Q3 2021, and will provide clean energy for 320,000 residences, and will reduce 1.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

The mega solar park is being built by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA).

The 950MW fourth phase is the largest investment project in the world that combines Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and photovoltaic solar power with investments totalling Dhs15.78bn based on the independent power producer (IPP) model.

It uses three hybrid technologies to produce clean energy: 600MW from a parabolic basin complex (three units of 200MW each), 100MW from a solar power tower (based on Molten Salt technology), and 250MW from photovoltaic solar panels, according to the Dubai Media Office.

A consortium led by DEWA and ACWA Power formed a project company, Noor Energy 1, to design, build, and operate the plant.

DEWA owns 51 per cent of the company, while ACWA Power holds 25 per cent, and the Silk Road Fund owns 24 per cent.

The Biden Administration is coming. President-elect Joe Biden is picking his team and getting ready to hit the ground running whenever the current president allows for the peaceful transition of power.

But Georgia’s two Democratic senate candidates will need to win their runoff elections in January to give their party 50 seats in the U.S. Senate, which would then allow Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break tie votes on key legislative efforts. Even if this split Senate is achieved, such a thin margin for passing votes means that bold action on climate change would require ironclad party discipline. 

Given those realities, energy storage industry advocates are looking at ways to embed friendly policies in must-pass legislation, such as bills to boost economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic or build up the country’s infrastructure. They’re seeking relief from tariffs that have made battery projects more expensive, and procurement guidelines to boost storage deployments in federal buildings and projects. And they’re promoting the role of storage as a critical step in increasing the country’s share of renewable energy. Here’s an overview of how the storage industry plans to achieve those goals.