For anyone who has been paying attention to energy trends over the last year, it’s clear that energy storage is huge in the residential solar market. In fact, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie U.S. Energy Storage Monitor report, Q2 of 2020 saw residential battery installations grow 38% compared to Q1, indicating that installations have remained resilient in spite of the pandemic. Though, even as some homeowners put solar installation plans on hold during the COVID-19 crisis, the urgency of tax credits — which end next year — can’t be ignored.

But after energy storage becomes a mainstay of the solar industry, what’s next? While solar + storage is expected to continue to grow in popularity, the overall energy storage market is projected to reach $6.9 billion annually by 2025. The future is bright as we look to more opportunities to advance solar energy and increase homeowners’ control over their home energy systems.

Personalization

Residential energy storage is customizable to fit every home’s individual needs. But manufacturers differ in their approach to product solutions. Some manufacturers provide customers with a choice between AC- and DC-coupled batteries with a wide range of kilowatt-hour scaling options, whereas others provide a one-size-fits-all approach. After installation, most energy storage systems allow the homeowner to change basic system operation via a smartphone app. These settings typically include operating modes and percent dependence on battery reserve, which may be set to specific times to use the battery during the day, or setting the battery charge level to 100% in anticipation of a grid outage.

As batteries continue to gain popularity among homeowners, the next evolution in energy storage will be wider adoption of solutions that provide more insight into energy consumed by different devices throughout the home, and enable the homeowner to make better decisions in how and when they use energy. Leaders in the industry have the opportunity to bring homeowners “smart” solutions that learn their individual preferences for energy expenditures and automatically optimize the home’s usage via advanced algorithms.

New research from Cornwall Insight Australia (CIA) projects that Australia has approximately 7 GW of battery storage projects in the pipeline. Most of that 7 GW remains in the proposal phase, but CIA sees more than 900 MW of battery energy storage at a stage of commitment or progress that will see delivery by 2024. 

Australia is a hotbed for energy storage innovation and investment. And according to the Clean Energy Regulator’s (CER) latest modeling, rooftop solar capacity is rising at an exponential rate. CIA Principal Consultant Ben Cerini said that the projects highlight the strong pipeline of energy storage across the NEM.

“Despite the challenging economics and the continually developing value streams, which can be volatile,” he said. “But as we have seen, those that move quickly will be rewarded and be in the best possible position to take advantage of new revenue streams when (not if) they arrive.”

Of course, South Australia’s Tesla Big Battery, Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve, has been wildly successful for both the state and the French renewables giant. And Neoen has already completed a 50% expansion of the project. Its success has encouraged Neoen to propose more large-scale energy storage installations, including the massive Goyder South Project – 1,200 MW of wind, 600 MW of solar, and 900 MW of battery storage. 

The success of the Hornsdale Power Reserve has not been overlooked by other states. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government, for example, has promised 250 MW of batteries. Meanwhile, New South Wales and Victoria have expanded their rivalry to the energy storage zone. Both of Australia’s most populous states are pursuing multiple big battery projects, including the Wallgrove Grid Battery project in New South Wales, and Victoria’s 300 MW/450 MWh Victoria Big Battery, which will be constructed on the outskirts of Geelong. 

SUNLIGHT, the energy storage manufacturer and BMG Energy join forces to create a large-scale sales and service organization which will enable them to further expand in the Italian market and become a market leader. This will lead to newly formed joint entity that will be owned 78% by SUNLIGHT and 22% by BMG Energy.

This move is part of SUNLIGHT’s strategy to establish a strong presence in large markets. Especially on the Italian market SUNLIGHT is rapidly increasing its footprint with a total investment plan reaching 5M for the years 2018-2022.  The outlook for the next 5 years is to expand dramatically the revenues targeting a 9 figures range.

SUNLIGHT already has a significant presence in Italy through its assembly unit, SEBA (SUNLIGHT European Battery Assembly), established in 2018 in Verona.  The business model of SEBA was and remains to serve Western European Markets with complete batteries as well as OEMs in Europe.

We see Italy as a strategically significant market and value the long market experience of our partners” says Lampros Bisalas, CEO of Sunlight. “Our long and close cooperation has helped us form a unique partnership. We believe this move will increase our footprint in the region, help us enrich our product and services portfolio offering and meeting the needs of our customers in the Italian market”.

Sunlight Group will appoint Mr Davide Pesce of its Italian operations and Sunlight Italy will focus in the local Italian sales and service expansion in both lead and lithium technologies across all industries. Mr Pesce has a wealth of experience in the storage energy market with a proven track record in international competitors such as Enersys and Exide. He holds a bachelor’s degree on Physics from Università degli Studi di Bari.

“Joining forces with SUNLIGHT will only provide a unique leverage to us and our customers. The innovative product portfolio along with SUNLIGHT’s mission to become a technology agnostic company, provide confidence to our leadership team that this can only be a fruitful partnership.” said Mr. Wilhelm Menghin & Mr. Flavio Scaramuzza, BMG Energy CEOs.

This strategic move contributes to the company’s staggering upward trajectory which has seen capacity increase by 25% (2020), enter the US market, and expand its R&D division for lithium technologies.

California is set to host one of the world’s largest standalone renewable hybrid projects. Slated to come online in the fourth quarter of 2022, the Edwards & Sanborn project in Kern County will feature 1,118 MW of solar and 2,165 MWh of energy storage. 

Renewable developer Terra-Gen on Dec. 10 announced an agreement with engineering firm Mortenson to proceed on the project, anticipating site construction will begin in the first quarter of 2021. 

Mortenson, the full engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor on both the solar and energy storage scopes, said solar production on the site will utilize more than 2.5 million modules, while the and energy storage component will utilize more than 110,000 lithium-ion battery modules. At peak construction, more than 700 people will be employed on-site at the project, it said.

The project is Mortenson’s 78th solar project and 11th energy storage project, it said. However, Trent Mostaert, Mortenson’s vice president and general manager of Solar, said the project is “industry-changing and during this challenging 2020 will redefine the impact these systems will have on our clean energy future.” 

Terra-Gen, a subsidiary of private equity firm ECP, is a renewable energy developer that operates about 1.3 GW of wind, solar, and geothermal facilities. “Selecting the right partner to execute a project of this scale coupled with cutting edge battery experience was paramount for Terra-Gen, and Mortenson was a natural fit,” said Brian Gorda, Terra-Gen’s vice president of Engineering. “Terra-Gen is excited to push the industry to new heights and build a plant that provides energy for all hours of demand.”

Kern County, once known as California’s “oil capitol” owing to a thriving oil industry in Bakersfield, has quickly grown into a key renewable energy hub. According to the Kern County administrative office, more than 5,000 wind turbines have been installed in the Tehachapi-Mojave wind corridor. “Wind energy is set to expand with the completion of the Wind Hub Substation and 500 KV transmission line that is being constructed by Southern California Edison,” it said. Solar investment is also on the rise with more than 19 commercial projects (of 20 MW of less) in the permitting process and two utility-scale solar projects (200 MW or more) in the approval pipeline.

The award of contracts to battery storage developers in a recent auction by Italy’s transmission system operator proves the technology’s competitiveness in providing grid services once again, an analyst has said.

Terna, which manages the Italian electricity grid, awarded just under 250MW of contracts to provide the Fast Reserve service to the grid a few days ago. It assigned three tranches of contracts, in the Central and Northern regions, in the Centre-South and on the island of Sardinia. The systems are expected to be online by 2023, having won five-year contracts to the end of 2027.

A range of stakeholders won out, led by utilities ENGIE and Enel’s innovation and new technologies arm Enel X, which got 70MW and 65MW of the contracts respectively. Other winners included EPC company METKA EGN, solar company Trina Solar and Italian oil and gas company Eni. Contracts were awarded at an average weighted price of €29,500 (US$35,870) / MW / year.

Corentin Baschet, head of analysis at energy storage consultancy Clean Horizon told Energy-Storage.news that most market regulators in Europe are “in the process of opening their different ancillary services to batteries: this auction proves again that batteries are very competitive to provide a fast symmetric frequency regulation service”.

“Frequency regulation services are the easiest starting point to deploy batteries in a given country,” Baschet said.

“I don’t know of many countries in which batteries would not be cheaper to provide these services than conventional power plants which are missing out on wholesale revenues while reserving capacity for the frequency response products.”

Fast Reserve is a bi-directional ancillary service that helps to maintain the operating frequency of the grid within boundaries that prevent it from experiencing failures through the imbalance of supply and demand of electricity. As the name implies, assets participating in this service have to do so quickly, within 1 second of receiving a signal from the grid that an error needs correcting.

Renewable energy developer and operator Terra-Gen announced an agreement with Mortenson to proceed on the Edwards & Sanborn solar and energy storage project located in Kern County, Calif. The project consists of 1,118 MW of solar and 2,165 MWh of energy storage. It is currently the largest single solar and battery energy storage project to reach this milestone. The project is Mortenson’s 78th solar project and 11th energy storage project.

“Selecting the right partner to execute a project of this scale coupled with cutting edge battery experience was paramount for Terra-Gen, and Mortenson was a natural fit,” said Brian Gorda, Terra-Gen’s vice president of Engineering. “Terra-Gen is excited to push the industry to new heights and build a plant that provides energy for all hours of demand.”

Details: The Edwards & Sanborn project is located near several operating wind and solar projects in Kern County, California. Mortenson is the full engineering, procurement, and construction contractor on both the solar and energy storage scopes. Site construction will commence in early 2021 with expected completion in late 2022. Solar production on the site will utilize more than 2.5 million modules to produce enough energy to power 260,000 homes in California and energy storage will utilize more than 110,000 lithium-ion battery modules. At peak construction, more than 700 people will be employed on-site at the project.

“The Edwards & Sanborn solar and energy storage project is industry-changing and during this challenging 2020 will redefine the impact these systems will have on our clean energy future,” said Trent Mostaert, Mortenson’s vice president and general manager of Solar. “We are proud to combine our solar and energy storage design and construction expertise with Terra-Gen’s development capabilities to deliver a world-class energy facility.”

Arizona Public Service (APS) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 300-400MW of renewables capacity and for energy storage to be retrofitted at its solar plants.

The renewables RFP, which is open to all technologies, has been designed to address peak capacity needs of about 200-300MW per year to maintain reliable electric service during times of highest energy usage. Proposed projects must have in-service dates in either 2023 or 2024.

Separately, APS is requesting a total of 60MW of battery storage additions at two of its existing solar facilities in Arizona: the Red Rock and Chino Valley plants. Proposed projects must begin delivery no later than June 2023.

The news comes after APS announced its plan earlier this year to deliver 100% clean energy by 2050, with an interim target of 65% clean energy by 2030. Brad Albert, APS vice president of resource management, said the company has made “steady progress” since setting those goals.

The utility previously called for the deployment of 850MW of energy storage by 2025 and said it would enlist sustainable infrastructure developer Invenergy to install battery systems at six of its solar PV facilities by 2021. APS said this week it has now executed the agreement after working with Invenergy “to incorporate enhanced safety standards in battery energy storage”. The battery systems are now expected to be operational in early 2022.

While APS announced its clean energy goal back in January, Arizona regulators recently approved measures that will require all utilities in the state to receive all their power from carbon-free sources by 2050. The Arizona Corporation Commission ruling also includes interim carbon reduction targets for regulated utilities of 50% by 2032 and 75% by 2040.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Arizona is the state with the fourth-highest amount of installed solar in the US, at 4,820MW. The trade body says the state’s solar market has “huge potential”.