“Hard cases make bad law,” or so goes the old legal adage. In light of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s broad attack on state and local jurisdiction in its recent denial of rehearing in Order No. 841, we would suggest you can add, “Popularity contests make for bad overreach.”

At issue are matters related to how energy storage resources will connect to the grid and be compensated for the services they provide. And by any measure, storage is the popular new kid in the school of energy resources. It’s not hard to see why. Energy storage helps solve one of the great conundrums of the electricity world: the need for electricity to be generated at precisely the time it is consumed. 

The more widespread adoption of energy storage holds the potential of making markets more efficient and better enabling resources like wind and solar, whose Achilles’ heels are their intermittency. It’s not hard to see why FERC, and regulators generally, have a crush on the new kid.

Alas, infatuation can lead to decisions with far-reaching consequences. That brings us to the Order No. 841 rehearing requests.

A sweeping expansion of federal authority

A broad coalition of interveners, from non-profit public power, to rural electric cooperatives, to investor-owned utilities and state utility regulators, pointed out the obvious: the way FERC went about effectuating Order 841 was through a sweeping expansion of federal authority over matters once thought to be solely outside of its jurisdiction. 

Specifically, FERC took aim at storage resources embedded within distribution assets. Under the construct of the Federal Power Act (FPA), FERC is supposedly handcuffed when it comes to regulating the distribution side of the utility business.

German renewable energy company Enertrag, Italy’s Enel Green Power and Swiss specialist Leclanché have inaugurated a 22 MW storage facility in Cremzow, in Brandenburg, northeastern Germany. The consortium has invested around €17 million into construction of the large scale energy storage system, which will provide primary control power and help stabilize the grid.

“The Cremzow project shows how storage is increasingly becoming an integral part of renewable energy systems because they make the energy system safer, more flexible and more stable overall,” said Antonio Cammisecra, CEO of Enel Green Power. In addition to the daily contribution to network stabilization, the storage system was also conceived to ensure security of supply. In case of failure of supply, Enertrag CEO Jörg Müller said, the system can be easily restarted.

Müller added, storage can now be developed without public support and can turn a profit. “Renewable energy systems are ready for the market,” he said.

Wind farm storage

According to the consortium, the large scale system in Cremzow will provide primary control power in real time to support the frequency stability of the power network. If grid frequency drops due to high demand for electricity, the battery storage supplies power from the stored energy within 30 seconds. If, in turn, frequency increases due to low demand, the storage system stabilizes the level.

The storage project will also be integrated as a primary control unit for the electricity generated by Enertrag wind farms. The company intends to analyze how excess wind power can be stored in the battery to avoid shutting down turbines.

The owner of the storage project is a special purpose vehicle in which the German subsidiary of Enel owns 90%, with Enertrag having the balance. Leclanché is supplier of the turnkey storage system and is responsible for integrating the battery, power unit and control software.

May 17 (Renewables Now) – Italy’s Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) celebrated on Thursday the completion and commissioning of a 22-MW energy storage plant in the German state of Brandenburg.

The Cremzow Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) required a total investment of EUR 17 million (USD 19m). It will provide frequency regulation services to the country’s Primary Control Reserve (PCR) market, helping to stabilise the local grid. The facility could also be integrated with ENERTRAG’s wind farms at a later stage.

Enel Green Power Germany (EGP Germany) holds 90% of the special purpose vehicle (SPV) that owns the battery park, while local renewable power company ENERTRAG has the remaining 10%. Swiss energy storage solutions company Leclanche acted as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor and manager, Enel noted.

Upcoming electric rate changes in parts of the U.S. mean that almost every home and business here will eventually benefit from a battery connected to their solar system.

These combined systems provide tangible economic benefits: time-shifting energy use, energy arbitrage, preserving the benefits of net metering and demand-charge reduction.

But surprisingly, the vast majority of residential customers are installing battery storage systems for emotional benefits: backup power and cutting their utility ties. Just as it was in the early days of the PV industry, it is challenging for contractors to correlate these economic and emotional needs of customers with the practical realities of currently available (and reliable) battery storage systems.

As our company got back into the energy storage business with lithium-ion batteries, we did extensive research into battery systems and their compatible inverters, into manufacturers, into software and operating modes, and into the interconnection and incentive process.

In spite of our efforts, we encountered a wide range of challenges on our first few installations. There were relatively minor learning experiences such as finding the best ways to transport and mount a 200+ pound battery, streamlining a battery structural permit, and ensuring the battery doesn’t die before being interconnected. And there were major (expensive) learning experiences such as discovering that the battery cannot provide the startup current for even a relatively low horsepower motor (such as a well pump or small air conditioner).

The good news is that we are encountering zero safety issues with regard to residential lithium-ion battery installations. Popular systems on the market are UL 9540 listed, and are equipped with safety features that make it almost impossible to short the battery and create a fire.

In many regards, batteries are safer to install than rooftop solar. Anecdotally, the only safety incident of which I am aware occurred when a battery fell on someone’s foot.

Many countries are retiring their traditional ‘flexible’ energy sources – such as coal-fired power stations, and introducing more and more ‘inflexible’ renewable sources, like wind and solar. Unlike traditional power stations, the output from wind and solar is intermittent and can change second by second. As a result, we need new ways to ensure that we maintain sufficient flexibility in the energy system to respond to changes in demand.

For the past 100 years or so, we have controlled generation to meet demand. Increasingly, we must control the demand to meet supply. This trend is opening up valuable opportunities for flexible energy assets such as storage. Energy storage is part of the solution to create new sources of flexibility in our energy systems, alongside efficient flexible generation and better control of demand assets. Grid operators are beginning to value energy flexibility and pay asset owners to provide flexibility through various market mechanisms such as the ancillary services market.

While energy storage is an important source of flexibility, emerging demands on electricity grids, such as electric vehicles and the electrification of domestic heating, means that we need to deploy storage intelligently to get the best out of it. There are several alternative energy storage technologies in varying states of maturity. Different storage technologies have different response times, durations and costs, which make them suited to different applications.

It’s also important to consider how new energy storage projects can be funded. In the UK, for example, storage no longer benefits from subsidies and long-term contracts with guaranteed revenue streams. This means that these projects can raise limited debt and require putting expensive equity at risk. However, energy storage offers a versatile technology that can tap into multiple value pools and be deployed in many markets including ancillary services and wholesale trading.

Deploying intelligent real-time technology to utilise different storage technologies in an optimal way is key to getting the best value from them; such technology can help investors better understand the risks and opportunities associated with new storage projects and generate optimum value for them.

Tesla’s “Gigafactory 2” in New York is undergoing something of an identity crisis as of late. It’s now mostly being used by Panasonic to make solar components, but soon, according to a Thursday report by Electrek, Tesla will give it new purpose as the home of Supercharger V3 electronics and energy storage (think Powerwall) production. Tesla is also using the facility to ramp up production on its long-awaited Solar Roof materials.

Why is that a big deal? Well, there has been a fair amount of interest in Tesla’s products that aren’t cars, but with the brand’s initial difficulties in getting the Model 3 car into volume production, those other products got pushed somewhat to the back burner. Now that production of cars has stabilized somewhat; it’s becoming possible for Tesla to use some of its cell production for these other, less demanding projects.

“In addition to scaling production of Solar Roof, Tesla is also diversifying its presence in Buffalo by manufacturing and assembling Supercharger and energy storage components at Gigafactory 2,” a Tesla representative told Roadshow. “We’re committed to investing in Buffalo and the State, and the new power electronic lines will deliver more high-tech jobs while supporting Tesla’s energy storage products and global Supercharging infrastructure.”

This second wind at the factory chould create jobs and economic growth in the Rust Belt city of Buffalo. According to the Buffalo News, Tesla is less than a year from a state-imposed deadline stating that it has to basically double the size of its workforce there or get slapped with a $41.2 million penalty. This comes from the wording of the agreement that allowed Tesla to use $750 million of taxpayer money to build the factory.

Samsung SDI has developed a new system that can store larger amounts of energy, the battery business arm of Samsung Group said Thursday.

The firm showcased the product, the E3, at the Electrical Energy Storage Europe 2019 exhibition in Munich, Germany. The three-day event, which runs through Friday, is Europe’s largest energy storage system exhibition, featuring more than 1,100 firms in the industry.

The E3 has 20 percent improved energy density storage compared to previous models, the firm said. As it can supply electric power whenever necessary it will be used in renewable energy systems.

The firm is targeting commercial markets in Europe as the E3 can be used to supplement uneven energy production of from solar and wind power, and store off-peak electricity for peak hours at commercial energy storage facilities.

Samsung SDI said it improved the energy density thanks to its new high energy density cell technology.

“Samsung SDI improved the E3’s energy density through use of new internal materials without changing the size of embedded battery cells. The design of the rack and module were also optimized to enhance energy density further while maintaining size,” the firm said.

The company plans to expand its market share in the growing energy storage system market with the E3.

“We are constantly upgrading our products based on technology,” said Kim Jeong-wook, executive vice president and head of the strategic marketing office of the firm “We will take the lead with improved energy storage systems.”

This year has already seen “significant acceleration” of activity in the global grid-connected energy storage market, with 4.3GW expected to be deployed this year, analysis firm IHS Markit has said.

In a report released to its subscribers, IHS Markit also predicted that there could be 10.6GW of grid-connected energy storage deployments annually by 2025. Julian Jansen, research and analysis manager at IHS’ Energy Storage Intelligence division said that primary drivers for the strengthening of market outlook included demand from solar co-location, growth in the Chinese market and incentives given for residential installations in various global territories.

A report out a few weeks ago from another analysis firm, Wood Mackenzie said that China and the US are the world’s fastest-growing markets, expected to account for more than half of all installations worldwide by 2024. According to IHS Markit, the US has in 2019 been the world’s leading market, overtaking South Korea which saw huge growth during 2018.

The need to replace peaking capacity on the grid – traditionally provided by combined cycle gas turbines – and the growing sturdiness of the business case for solar-plus-storage have been the primary drivers of large procurements in the US, IHS found.

Front-of-meter and behind-the-meter deployments of energy storage will eventually begin to take an even split of the global market, but today, each segment is developing at different rates in each territory energy storage has taken hold. While the US sector was dominated by front-of-meter activity in 2018, Japan and Germany have seen more going on behind-the-meter in the residential space.

That growing case for solar-plus-storage mentioned as seen in the US will be observed in more parts of the world from now until 2025. Utility-scale, front-of-meter energy storage will, therefore, take more than a 50% share of annual additions in the next six years, Jansen and his team predicted.