Energy storage firm Highview Power Inc. named David Sandalow chairman of the company’s U.S. unit.

The former senior White House, U.S. State Department, and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) official has been a senior advisor to Highview Power as the company develops and deploys utility-scale liquid air energy storage systems in North America.

“Large-scale, long-duration energy storage will play an important role in the grid of the future,’’ said Sandalow. “Highview Power’s liquid air energy storage technology provides a cheap, environmentally-friendly way to manage variable renewable power, relieve transmission congestion, and provide additional grid services. I look forward to working with the exceptional team at Highview Power during a very exciting time for the energy storage and renewable energy industries.”

Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).  He writes and speaks widely on energy policy and has served as Honorary Chair of the U.S. Energy Storage Association’s annual conference. From 2009-2013, Sandalow served in senior positions in the U.S. Department of Energy, where he helped oversee the department’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, fossil energy, nuclear energy, and electricity delivery programs with an annual budget of more than $3.5 billion.

Highview Power’s proprietary liquid air energy storage technology is based on the principle of air liquefaction, which enables the easy storage of gases in cryogenic liquid form. The process involves a 700-fold expansion in volume from liquid back to gas, which releases the stored energy, powering turbines and generating electricity.

This enables Highview’s system to store energy in increments measured in days rather than hours, at half the cost of lithium-ion batteries when deployed at scale, with no siting constraints, and while releasing zero emissions in the process. It uses technology with an economic useful life of over 30 years. The company has already deployed two plants in the UK, the latest the 5 MW/15 MWh Pilsworth LAES plant that was officially launched in June.

One key to making electricity more efficient across the world is figuring out power storage. In recent years, lithium-ion batteries have overtaken lead-acid batteries as the industry-wide standard. But that might be set to change thanks to a new milestone in power storage innovation: zinc-air batteries

NantEnergy, a US energy company, has announced the development of a zinc-air battery which stores energy and is considerably cheaper than other battery types currently on the market, including the popular lithium-ion battery. Compared to lithium-ion battery costs estimated to be between $300 and $400 per kilowatt-hour, NantEnergy says its zinc-air battery has cut cost down to less than $100 per kilowatt-hour—a threshold at which power storage is expected to be affordable enough to have more mainstream impact.

Beyond potential pricing points, zinc-air batteries hold other advantages over lithium-ion batteries as they don’t pose fire hazards or need to prevent overheating. Sourcing cobalt, an essential mineral in lithium-ion battery manufacturing, from DR Congo, the world’s largest producer, has also been problematic as global brands have sought to look elsewhere given the country’s political instability and desire to hike cobalt taxes.

Like lithium-ion, the potential applications for zinc-air batteries range from powering electric cars and also homes and businesses. As the world increasingly turns to renewable energy, optimizing battery storage is crucial to decrease cost, boost uptake among customers and ultimately, reduce carbon emissions.

But in the least electrified regions of the world, like Africa where 450 million people still lack access to power, the need is more urgent. NantEnergy says its zinc-air batteries have already been successfully tested in 110 villages that previously had no access to electricity in parts of Asia and Africa, including Indonesia and Madagascar. But with only 55 megawatt-hours of storage deployed globally, the company is looking to boost scale with a battery manufacturing facility set to open in California next year.

We generally think of energy storage, especially when coupled with renewable energy, as clean and green.

But the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), through its Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), has discovered that SGIP energy storage projects actually increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Once again, the state is leading the way with its environmental policies, this time with a proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) due to energy storage. The CPUC staff has issued a proposal that’s expected to address the problem and possibly create a program replicable elsewhere, as California did with its emissions trading efforts.

“In a similar, data-forward, hands-off approach the CPUC took to introducing ’emissions trading’, the GHG signal proposal would arm the industry with accurate up-to-date data and then get out of the way. That approach scaled to become an essential pollution control across the globe, and I see the GHG signal doing the same,” said Gavin McCormick, executive director, WattTime, who participated in the working group that created the proposal.

The energy storage emissions problem was uncovered by the 2017 and 2016 SGIP Advanced Energy Storage Impact Evaluation reports. They showed that under the current system, SGIP energy storage projects increase GHG emissions — for both residential and non-residential projects, McCormick said.

Bad timing creates emissions

Energy storage’s ability to reduce GHG emissions is all about when batteries are charged using grid power — and what incentives are available to ensure they’re stored at the right time. SGIP storage has led to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, in part because most time-of-use (TOU) rates aren’t designed to reduce charging energy storage when grid power is creating high greenhouse gas emissions, said the CPUC staff in its proposal.

In addition, existing retail rates provide incentives for customers to prioritize demand charge management over TOU rate arbitrage, it said.

Regulatory changes at the national level coupled with policy programmes in leading states will drive residential and commercial energy storage to new heights, according to various sources at this week’s Energy Storage International in California.

The residential sector was particularly well represented in terms of exhibitors at the show, taking place at the same site as Solar Power International in Anaheim between Monday and Thursday this week. As mentioned in our preview blog a few days ago, technology providers including SolarEdge, ElectrIQ and several more including LG Chem and Panasonic Eco Solutions were launching or showcasing products aimed squarely at the US household market.

Behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage – which includes commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors as well as households – is already growing faster than ever in the US, with figures from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables (formerly GTM Research) released at the beginning of September finding that BTM storage constituted 75% of all deployments in megawatts in the second quarter of this year. Analyst Dan Finn-Foley told Energy-Storage.news at the time that he expects BTM could overtake grid-level storage deployments by 2022.

Janice Lin, head of the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), told Energy-Storage.news at the show this week that the overall market for energy is growing fast and that interest is also scaling up from outside sources.

“One of the indicators that [energy storage is] really taking on and taking root on a global scale is that we have a lot of proactive enquiries from regulators, decision makers, governments, that are very pro-actively exploring how to incorporate storage into their respective power sector, or their jurisdiction,” Lin said, adding that NGOs and climate groups and advocates including former US vice president Al Gore are also making positive comments or starting initiatives on energy storage.

Key Capture Energy (KCE) and NEC Energy Solutions (NEC) are teaming up on KCE NY 1, a 20 MW battery storage project in Upstate New York’s Saratoga County.

On Wednesday, executives from KCE and NEC, along with a number of local and industry partners, came together to break ground on the project, whose construction has now begun. NEC will provide KCE with a technology solution for project, as well as turnkey engineering, procurement and construction services.

According to the partners, KCE NY 1 will be the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in New York State. It will support Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s commitment for New York State to reach 1.5 GW of energy storage by 2025, as well as the state’s Energy Storage Roadmap, which was released in June and developed by the Department of Public Service and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) with input from numerous stakeholders, including KCE. Additionally, energy storage can help achieve Cuomo’s goal of getting 50% of New York’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

“Earlier this year, Governor Cuomo announced the most ambitious energy storage deployment target adopted by any state to date – and today’s announcement is evidence that the market is already responding,” says Alicia Barton, president and CEO of NYSERDA. “I applaud Key Capture and NEC Energy Solutions for advancing this innovative project in New York state and for providing clean energy solutions to benefit communities and residents in Saratoga County.”

KCE has been developing energy storage projects in the Northeast for several years and has a portfolio of projects in various stages of development. For this installation, KCE launched a request for proposals in February.

“After careful review and months of evaluation and discussion, we are pleased to select NEC as a partner for the first project of this size in New York State. NEC brings a stellar team, a top-rated technology solution and a proven commitment to using local labor when possible,” says Jeff Bishop, CEO of KCE. “We are pleased to be moving our headquarters to Albany, N.Y., and are fully committed to support the governor’s vision for an aggressive Clean Energy Standard, as well as job growth in the state of New York.”

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is close to completing a pilot project that can turn decommissioned thermal power plants into high-performance storage facilities for renewables.

The facility in Germany can store up to 30 MW – the daily energy requirements of 1500 households – and is set to be commissioned next year.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy worked on the project with scientists from the Institute of Thermo-fluid Dynamics at the Technical University of Hamburg and energy supplier Hamburg Energie, which will sell the stored power on the energy markets.

Siemens Gamesa claims its storage facility “reduces the construction and operating costs of larger storage capacities to a fraction of the usual level for battery storage. In commercial use, the technology can store energy at a cost of well below ten euro cents per kilowatt hour.”

Hasan Özdem, head of technology management and projects at Siemens Gamesa, said: “A very interesting option of our technology is to convert decommissioned thermal power plants into high-performance storage facilities for renewable energies at a low cost. With this second-live option, the majority of components such as grid connection, turbines and generators can continue to be used.”

He explained that the simple thermal principle of the storage facility is based on known components which are used in a new combination. For example, fans and heating elements from series production are used to convert the electrical energy into a hot air flow. The same applies to reconversion: a Siemens steam boiler is used as standard in a steam turbine to produce electricity at the end of the storage chain.

The storage unit is connected to an IT platform which Özdem says “guarantees that maximum possible proceeds are achieved by an optimized storage usage”.

The head of the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has acknowledged that the prospects for the technology are good, but regulations must keep pace if the sector is to flourish in the EU.

EASE Secretary General Patrick Clerens said the association was optimistic about the growth of the European energy storage market, with the technology ‘undoubtedly an essential component of a decarbonized energy system.

“However, in order to reach the energy storage capacity that will be needed to fulfil system needs, we need a forward-looking regulatory framework that recognises the unique value and role of energy storage, while allowing for investment security and long term contracts.”

He explained: “In the past, policymakers have been slow to recognize the role and benefits of energy storage for the energy transition. This is likely because energy storage technologies were considered too expensive and perhaps also because they were not so well understood. Now, this is beginning to change. Renewables deployment is increasing, leading to a higher need to carbon-neutral flexibility services.”

Clerens added that experts are predicting continuous cost declines for many storage technologies, so policymakers are beginning to recognize the immense value of energy storage and are looking to build more supportive regulatory frameworks to allow for the market to develop.

“While our activities are focused at the EU Institutions level, we are always looking to countries’ storage policies to learn from missteps and identify best practices. For example, we are closely following developments in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, where policymakers are looking at ways to incentivise flexibility options including storage.”

“For example, system constraints are leading to the development of new ancillary services, such as Enhanced Frequency Response, that can be provided by energy storage devices.”