Seven states in the US have now put some kind of public policy in place that recognises the role that energy storage will play in their future, lower carbon energy system.

On the one hand, it is to be applauded that this is clearly a mark of an ambition that New York, New Jersey, California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Oregon and Virginia share, that the importance of the energy transition and a green economy has not been lost on state leadership. On the other hand, why is it that some of these states have set mandated energy storage procurement plans for their utilities and others see their targets as more ‘aspirational’, vague goals?

The US national Energy Storage Association’s policy director, Jason Burwen, spoke with Andy Colthorpe about the seven early adopter states and whether this is likely to be a spreading pattern across the country.

Why should it really matter whether these goals are met, or not? In a state like California, for example, as the renewables penetration on the grid rapidly grows, is it just perhaps more obvious that energy storage would be desirable or needed there than in other states?

Let me also add a second rephrasing of this question – which we’ve heard a little bit recently: “If we’re going to 100% renewable or clean energy, why do we need storage targets? Storage will just happen, right?”

That’s not how these things work. A really key thing to bear in mind here is that, when you’re procuring resources for resource adequacy, or for system capacity, we’re talking about multi-decadal investment decisions.

Just because you see a future where we’re going to have a tonne of renewables, and the business case for storage will be self-evident in the future, well, the investment decisions that are largely going to determine supply mixes in the future are being made today.

Every year you wait, there’s a certain degree to which there’s a path dependency that you’re putting a lot of jurisdictions on and maybe there’s a plan at the end of the day, to retire assets early – but I don’t know that that’s necessarily going to be a politically savvy strategy. And frankly, it’s not in the interest of ratepayers either.

So energy storage targets are really important because they are in some respects saying, “listen, you know you’re going to need this, so instead of sitting on your hands and kind of doing nothing about it right now because it’s a new resource, it looks different and you might not have experience with it, you have to go figure it out”.

Eos Energy Storage, the leading manufacturer of safe, low-cost and long-duration zinc battery storage systems, is proud to announce plans to deploy its latest technology battery energy storage system (BESS) in partnership with the California Energy Commission(CEC). The BESS will be used to evaluate performance across multiple utility energy storage use cases.

In light of the wildfires impacting much of California in recent years, non-flammable, non-combustible batteries like the one made by Eos provide a way for the state to continue to install more grid-connected battery storage capacity without exacerbating the risk or severity of fires. The energy storage industry has been under increased scrutiny around fire safety after a lithium-ion battery facility in Arizona exploded in 2019 and the ensuing fire reportedly left four first responders injured.

“This project is an important milestone as it marks the first deployment of our latest made-in-the-USA battery system,” said Joe Mastrangelo, Eos’ Chief Executive Officer. “When deployed at scale, our proven and safe, non-flammable technology will help California reach its clean energy goals for various applications like pairing with utility solar, microgrids, non-wire alternatives, and indoor urban storage.”

The project is supported by grant funding from the CEC, which, through its BRIDGE (Bringing Rapid Innovation Development to Green Energy) program, supports the development of emerging clean energy technologies in support of the state’s long-term energy and climate policy. This will be the third Eos deployment to receive a CEC grant, with the previous two having been undertaken in partnership with the University of California, San Diego and other California utilities.

The project will be installed at San Diego Gas & Electric’s Pala Energy Storage Yard and will showcase and benchmark the ability of the Eos BESS to perform grid support, peak shaving, within the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) market.

“Eos batteries have demonstrated great strength on the field for various customer use cases including solar peak shaving. This important work positions Eos as a storage provider of choice for the growing non-wires alternatives (NWA) market which avoids congestion in states like California,” said Balki G. Iyer, Chief Commercial Officer of Eos.

A path forward for ongoing energy storage in Maryland is not yet clear.

“We don’t want to speculate about future operations until we gain a better understanding of how the pilot program benefits our customers,” Durbin said. “We plan to work with the [Public Service Commission (PSC)] staff and Commissioners to accurately identify and quantify the potential benefits that battery energy storage can provide for our customers during the pilot program.”

The Maryland PSC accepted proposals from the state’s four investor-owned utilities — Exelon Corporation’s Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) and Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco), Delmarva Power and Light (DPL) and FirstEnergy Corp.’s Potomac Edison.

Eight projects were proposed by the April 15 deadline, two from each of the four utilities. The Exelon subsidiaries submitted a joint proposal.

Pilot projects could include:

• BGE’s proposed 2.5 MW lithium-ion battery system sited at the Fairhaven substation in Southern Anne Arundel County and a third-party owned lithium-ion battery energy storage system at Chesapeake Beach, possibly a Tesla MegaPack;
• Pepco’s proposal for a utility-owned, third-party operated 1 MW lithium iron phosphate battery system at National Harbor and a third-party owned and operated 1 MW nickel metal chloride lithium-ion battery storage system at the Montgomery County bus depot in Silver Spring;
• DPL’s proposal for a third-party owned and operated virtual power plant with a plan to recruit 110 residential customers in the Elk Neck area who would each receive free installation of an LG Electronics 5kW/19.6 kWh lithium-ion battery; and a 1 MW nickel manganese cobalt lithium-ion battery system in Ocean City; and
• Potomac Edison’s proposed 1.75 MW lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery energy storage system on its Town Hill circuit and a 0.75 MW lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery energy storage system on its Little Orleans circuit, which has suffered tree-related outages.

Comments were submitted by the Commission staff; Energy Storage Association; Maryland Department of Natural Resources; the state’s ratepayer advocate, the Office of People’s Counsel (OPC); Maryland-DC-Virginia Solar Energy Industries Association (MDV-SEIA); state legislators; and Eric D. Wachsman, Director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute at the University of Maryland.

The negotiation of an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement for a battery energy storage systems (BESS) project typically surfaces many of the same contractual risk allocation issues that one encounters in the negotiation of an EPC agreement for a solar or wind project. However, there are several issues that merit special attention in the context of an EPC agreement for BESS projects.

Equipment procurement and warranties

Full-wrap, turnkey EPC agreements – where the EPC contractor takes full responsibility for the engineering, equipment procurement, construction, commissioning, testing and turnover of a completed project to the owner – have historically been favored by energy project owners and their project finance lenders, due largely to the benefits of having a single, creditworthy counterparty responsible for all delivery aspects of a fully completed and properly performing project.

That said, as the project finance market for BESS projects is still developing and equity remains the more typical source of financing, alternatives to the full-wrap, turnkey EPC agreement have been utilized on BESS projects, largely to reduce equipment procurement costs to the owner.

EPC agreements providing for owner-supplied equipment will need to address the allocation of responsibilities as between owner and EPC contractor that would typically be borne by the EPC contractor in a typical full-wrap EPC, with respect to all such owner-supplied equipment (most typically the batteries themselves for BESS projects) – including delivery, risk of loss, title transfer, installation in conformance with supplier guidelines/recommendations and equipment warranties. In addition, issues of creditworthiness and/or credit support with respect to the equipment supplier will need to be addressed in a similar manner as the credit of the EPC contractor is resolved in the EPC agreement.

To the extent equipment warranties are provided directly to the owner by the equipment supplier and not wrapped by the EPC contractor in its project-related warranties, care needs to be taken to properly structure the EPC contractor’s warranty obligations such that, together with the equipment supplier’s warranty obligations, they provide full warranty coverage to the owner.

A submission from the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering to the federal government’s proposed technology roadmap has called for “deep and ongoing” investment in renewable energy generation in response to the Coalition’s apparent skew towards gas, carbon capture and storage, and coal.

The submission follows last month’s publication of a discussion paper by federal energy minister Angus Taylor, which cites 140 different technologies ranging across the electricity sector, to buildings, transport, manufacturing and agriculture.

The proposed roadmap, while careful not to “pick winners,” raised serious concerns that the Morrison government was seeking to delay, nobble or handicap wind, solar and storage, while propping up gas, refusing to rule out coal, and even canvassing small modular nuclear reactors.

A submission from the ATSE, however, says Australia can become a world leader in renewable energy, and recommends half-a-dozen crucial actions to achieve this, including by scaling up infrastructure to support greater use of solar and wind power, a rapid transition to electric heating and transport, and developing a hydrogen energy economy.

“Renewable energy is getting cheaper, and the technology exists today to scale up production and introduce mechanisms to ensure the reliability of supply, move towards meeting domestic and industrial energy needs, and transition to electric and hydrogen fuelled transport systems,” the chair of the ATSE’s Energy Forum, Dr John Söderbaum, said in the submission.

“The key next step is to continue to develop and adopt storage solutions that increase our ability to rely on renewable energy and allow generation using older, emissions-heavy fossil fuel technologies to retire.

“We recommend deep and ongoing government and private sector investment to support further research and development, production, storage and network integration of all low-cost and low-emissions energy sources, including hydrogen.”

Industry commentators have expressed shock and surprise that NEC Corporation’s Energy Solutions business has been wound down, while an analyst said the reasons for the energy storage system integrator’s demise are likely to go back further than the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent report carried by Bloomberg said that the Japanese electronics and engineering giant was closing down the Massachusetts-based Energy Solutions division. The report claimed that despite a global reach and a leading position in the early grid-scale battery storage market, the division had never been profitable.

The report’s headline implied that NEC representatives interview by Bloomberg had cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason behind the decision, but within the report itself was the assertion that the coronavirus situation had brought to a premature end the parent company’s search for a buyer for the battery storage system integrator, which NEC had owned since 2014.

Energy-Storage.news was unable to receive confirmation or clarification from NEC directly, with the company declining to comment. It is understood that while the company will remain committed to battery servicing contracts, some of which run to 2030, since the Bloomberg report just over a week ago, leading members of the Energy Solutions team including CEO Steve Fludder, have already left, according to sources close to the company.

Several energy storage industry sources, who asked not to be named, in addition to expressing shock at the news, expressed sympathy with the exiting employees, with one noting that NEC ES’ had “really great people” working there.

Meanwhile, California-headquartered “intelligent energy storage system” provider Stem Inc, which had only recently started a partnership with NEC ES with a view to delivering solar-plus-storage projects from “coast-to-coast” across the US, also declined to comment on NEC’s reported exit from the business when asked by Energy-Storage.news.

Carlton Power and Highview Power are partnering to build a massive cryogenic liquid-air energy (LAES) plant in Manchester.

Carlton has been trying to build a combined cycle gas turbine power station at Trafford for years. It now hopes to finally build that CCGT alongside the 250MWh LAES storage plant, creating a new kind of hybrid.

The two firms have formed a joint venture and intend to build four ‘CryoBatteries’ totalling 1GWh.

The Trafford plant, which has £10m grant funding from Beis, is expected to be delivering power within two years.

Cool running

Highview commissioned its first large scale plant last year, a 5MW/15MWh plant in Bury, greater Manchester.

Then CEO, Gareth Brett, told The Energyst that it intended to build a 50MW plant and bid it into the Capacity Market – and that building large plants was actually much easier than the 5MW Bury development because parts are easier to come by.

“At 50MW scale, the refrigeration plant and turbo expander are at a size that suits all of the big machinery manufacturers,” said Brett.

He added that LAES technology, while not as quick as lithium-ion batteries, “can do anything pumped storage can do.”

Later that year, Javier Cavada joined the firm as CEO and president to scale and commercialise Highview’s technology.

Researchers have presented a novel electrode material for advanced energy storage device that is directly charged with oxygen from the air. Professor Jeung Ku Kang’s team synthesized and preserved the sub-nanometric particles of atomic cluster sizes at high mass loadings within metal-organic frameworks (MOF) by controlling the behavior of reactants at the molecular level. This new strategy ensures high performance for lithium-oxygen batteries, acclaimed as a next-generation energy storage technology and widely used in electric vehicles.

Lithium-oxygen batteries in principle can generate ten times higher energy densities than conventional lithium-ion batteries, but they suffer from very poor cyclability. One of the methods to improve cycle stability is to reduce the overpotential of electrocatalysts in cathode electrodes. When the size of an electrocatalyst material is reduced to the atomic level, the increased surface energy leads to increased activity while significantly accelerating the material’s agglomeration.

As a solution to this challenge, Professor Kang from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering aimed to maintain the improved activity by stabilizing atomic-scale sized electrocatalysts into the sub-nanometric spaces. This is a novel strategy for simultaneously producing and stabilizing atomic-level electrocatalysts within metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

Metal-organic frameworks continuously assemble metal ions and organic linkers.

The team controlled hydrogen affinities between water molecules to separate them and transfer the isolated water molecules one by one through the sub-nanometric pores of MOFs. The transferred water molecules reacted with cobalt ions to form di-nuclear cobalt hydroxide under precisely controlled synthetic conditions, then the atomic-level cobalt hydroxide is stabilized inside the sub-nanometric pores.

For many of us, the last two months have felt like two years. But some of us – like those at DNV GL – have been launching the Australian Battery Performance Standard (ABPS) project during that time.

The lack of standardized performance data in what is one of the world’s leading markets for energy storage spurred both the DNV GL ABPS project, and the ITP Renewables Battery Trial, funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

According to the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, the country has the highest uptake of solar globally, with 2.37 million of 21% of all homes boasting rooftop solar. And, of course, rooftop PV without energy storage is like art without memory. However, energy storage uptake is not yet a given like solar, and part of the reason for this is customer confusion about choosing the right battery system.

In June 2018, the ABPS project started toward the development of a draft standard addressing which energy storage system is best suited to residential and small-scale commercial applications. Under the banner of DNV GL, and with the support of AU$1.44 million (US$989,930) in ARENA funding through its Advancing Renewables Program, and the Victorian Government through its New Energy Jobs Fund, the project is comprised of various groups, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Deakin University, and the Smart Energy Council.

“Energy storage is shaping up to be an important feature of our rapidly evolving energy system,” said ARENA CEO Darren Miller. “As rooftop solar penetration continues to increase, and more people look to store their solar energy during the day and minimize what they consume from the grid in the evening, it is important that consumers are informed about how well batteries perform over their lifetime to aid their investment decision.”