NV Energy has issued a request for proposals that could add up to 330-MW of new renewable energy projects to be built in Nevada. This additional commitment to renewables, which includes the potential integration of battery energy storage systems, will provide enough carbon-free electricity to power about 200,000 Nevada homes.

“As important as this opportunity is to further the state’s desire for clean energy, equally important is that we expect to deliver these renewable projects to customers without increasing rates,” said NV Energy’s President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Caudill.

The request for proposals seeks wind, solar, geothermal biomass and biogas technology projects that are compliant with Nevada’s existing renewable portfolio standards. NV Energy will also, for the first time, consider adding supplemental battery energy storage systems that are integrated with the proposed renewable energy resource.

“Since 2009, NV Energy has more than tripled its in-state renewable energy production and our electricity prices today are 15% lower than they were at that time,” explained Caudill. “We expect these new projects to provide some of the lowest-cost renewable energy available in the market, which will directly benefit our customers. In fact, adding these new renewable projects serves to diversify the portfolio we use to provide power across the state and protects against the risk of increases in the price of natural gas used to generate electricity,”

The new projects will be competitively evaluated on a number of factors, including best value to customers of NV Energy and creation of economic benefits to the State of Nevada.

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Deployment of energy storage, especially batteries, will increase substantially in the next few years.

Three underlying trends in the energy markets will drive the growth. They are favorable federal and state regulations on energy storage, falling costs for batteries due to advances in technologies, and an improved ability by energy storage owners to tap into multiple revenue streams.

However, as with any novel technology, the array of opportunities for storage brings new types of risks. Project developers and investors need to understand the risks so that they can plan for contingencies and mitigate risks.

This article describes changes in the market that are driving deployment and improving the economics of storage and then identifies unique risks for storage projects and how participants in such projects can mitigate the risks.

Regulatory drivers

The storage market is poised for exponential growth. By 2022, Greentech Media is projecting an annual market of 2,600 megawatts, which is nearly 12 times the size of the 2016 market.

New market rules will enable owners of energy storage systems to earn revenue from a growing number of sources, such as deferred transmission and distribution upgrades, integration of intermittent resources, reduced demand or increased generating capacity to address peak load, the provision of ancillary services, and enhanced grid reliability and resiliency.

Until recently, storage was a square peg jammed into the round hole of historic regulation.

The existing federal regulation of wholesale power sales and transmission in interstate commerce was designed for a world largely devoid of any significant energy storage. Although pumped-storage hydroelectricity has been around for a long time, it has very different characteristics from modern storage technologies such as batteries, flywheels or thermal energy storage projects.

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With renewable energy generation now cost-competitive with electricity produced from fossil fuels, significant challenges remain in how to integrate renewable energy into power grids and systems, as renewables cannot always match supply with demand.

Sustainable energy company, Vestas, and battery-manufacturer, Northvolt, announced a technology collaboration on the development of a lithium-ion battery platform for Vestas power plants. As an initial phase of the partnership, Vestas is investing 10 million EUR.

The solution to solving this challenge is storing renewably-generated electricity so it can be provided when needed. Battery storage is a key technology to support the large-scale integration of renewable energy into energy systems and to speed up the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

In this context, providers of both wind energy technologies and battery technologies are looking for ways to accelerate this integration.

With the support of Northvolt, Vestas is looking to bring the most competitive and sustainable hybrid storage solutions to the market and to better integrate storage and renewable energy generation technologies as a means to meet broader industry challenges and increase the uptake of more renewables.

This is being done both through existing research and development and by combining it with unique competencies and experiences of new partners. In this way, Northvolt will become a part of Vestas’ hybrid supplier ecosystem.

Northvolt, with the support of Vestas, is looking to better understand the needs of the renewable energy sector in order to develop batteries for solution providers and OEMs. Northvolt is building a next-generation battery factory with the aim to produce the world’s greenest batteries to enable and accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

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To date, distributed-scale ESSs have focused on providing storage benefits to residential or commercial and industrial (C&I) host facilities, including resilient backup power and energy demand charge savings. Companies such as Green Charge Networks, Stem, and Sunverge are Leading Integrators of Distributed-Scale ESSs.

However, stakeholders in the stationary energy storage market also recognize that these ESS installations can deliver grid benefits to regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, as well as local distribution system utilities.

“Leaders in the distributed-scale ESS sector have built on innovative software platform capabilities to focus on playing multiple roles across the delivery value chain,” says William Tokash, Senior Research Analyst with Navigant Research. “As a result, they can drive down costs, enable financing innovation, and establish customer access advantages relative to their peers.”

Grid benefits from distributed-scale ESSs are driving the development of software platforms that can integrate distributed generation and building controls along with storage to reduce demand charge. These software platforms can also serve as virtual power plants (VPPs) capable of analyzing, controlling, and optimizing a portfolio of these ESSs.

As power market rules mature, according to the report, these types of VPPs are expected to emerge as a necessary integration solution for distributed energy resources.

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The California Senate passed a bill that would give consumers more access to clean energy and provide the next critical piece for California to achieve its aggressive greenhouse gas and renewable energy goals. SB 700, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would increase availability of local, customer-sited energy storage for schools, farms, businesses, and homes.

“In California, we are pushing aggressive renewable energy goals because we know that fighting climate change means taking action now,” said Senator Wiener. “This bill will push us down the path to 100% renewable energy. To meet our goals, we need solar, storage, and other renewable energy resources in every city and neighborhood in California, not just those that can afford it.”

Wiener added: “This bill will transform energy storage so that all can reap the benefits of clean, renewable energy.”

SB 700 would create a 10-year rebate program designed to grow the California local storage market and make storage more affordable for consumers.  The rebates would step down as more storage systems are installed and economies of scale are achieved, thereby driving down the installed cost of the systems. Local energy storage enables the integration of large amounts of renewable energy, creates value for consumers by helping them save money on energy bills, and increases grid reliability.

“Thanks to the leadership of Sen. Scott Wiener, Californians are one step closer to taking control of their clean energy future,” said Laura Gray, energy storage policy advisor with the California Solar Energy Industries Association. “This bill would allow homes, businesses, schools and public buildings to use solar and renewable energy at all hours of the day and night.”

“Energy storage is an essential tool to enable Californians to participate in achieving the Golden State’s critical renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals and to curb our reliance on natural gas peaker plants,” said Michelle Kinman, clean energy advocate with Environment California, the sponsor of SB 700. “With uncertainty on climate action at the federal level, it is even more important that California is now one step closer to demonstrating its clean energy leadership by transforming the energy storage market.”

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Developing international standards is vitally important to the growth of grid-scale energy storage systems. These systems can make it possible to feed power to the grid so that production need not be scaled up and down repeatedly to adjust to changing demand levels. They also absorb the over-generation from wind and solar-power facilities and release that power when needed. The MESA (Modular Energy Storage Architecture) Standards Alliance is an industry group of dozens of equipment vendors and utilities working together to grow the energy storage industry by developing an open, non-proprietary set of specifications and standards. Our goal is to accelerate interoperability, scalability, safety, quality, availability, and affordability in energy storage components and systems.

This standardization effort has two main aspects. The first is a software control platform that allows all equipment from different vendors to talk the same “language,” so that when one piece of equipment sends a command or transmits data, it is received and interpreted correctly by the intended recipient.

The second aspect is ensuring that the hardware that makes up an energy storage system (ESS)—the batteries, power converters, metering system, and the energy management system (EMS) − can be intelligently “plugged into” each other and the electrical system.

In turn, the ESS must be intelligently plugged into the utility’s existing information and operations technology. Without established standards, components and systems will come with proprietary connectors, and the process of plugging them together becomes a laborious task repeated for each new project, which will add to project cost and lead time.

The MESA Standards Alliance is currently providing two specifications:

• MESA-ESS is designed to let electric utilities or grid operators scale deployment of energy storage and manage energy storage assets and fleets of multi-vendor assets to meet specific needs and use cases with minimal custom engineering
• MESA-Device Specifications and SunSpec Energy Storage Model address how energy storage components within an energy-storage system communicate with each other and its operational components.

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Silicon Valley energy-storage provider, Adara Power, recently launched its second-generation storage system, the Adara Pulse. The Adara Pulse is an intelligent, stackable to 20-kWh energy storage solution driven by Adara’s iC3 Smart Controls technology.

The Adara Pulse supports AC coupling for off-grid and grid-tied applications. It tightly integrates all elements of the energy-storage system with a modular hardware and software approach, enabling the components to be stocked globally and eliminating the added cost of shipping bulky material to a central manufacturing site and expensive and unnecessary secondary enclosures.

The Adara iC3 Smart Controls with cellular connectivity feature out-of-the-box communication between lithium-ion batteries, Schneider inverters, and a Cloud-based software platform. The solution minimizes field programming and provides remote programmability.

The Adara Pulse can be ordered now to take advantage of the California Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), a ratepayer-funded rebate program available to customers of the major California investor-owned utilities (PG&E, SCE, LADWP, & SDGE). The Adara Pulse will be scheduled for nationwide delivery and installation during the third quarter of 2017.

“The energy storage market is at an inflection point. Energy density and performance of cells have improved and prices now support broad adoption. The Adara Pulse is perfectly aligned with today’s market realities,” said Neil Maguire, CEO of Adara Power.

It can be installed with a new solar installation or retrofitted with an existing system. Adara’s peak-shifting and self-consumption, non-export algorithms ensure compliance with the Federal Investment Tax Credit and adaptability for a wide range of energy storage use cases.

This advanced technology minimizes a homeowner’s electricity bill in regions subject to Time of Use (TOU) rates and support new net metering programs such as California’s NEM 2.0. And unlike many other energy storage systems currently available, the Adara Pulse has a UPS mode utilizing an 8 millisecond internal automatic transfer switch to keep house loads powered when the grid goes down for maximum back-up power.

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The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) recently announced it is prudent for the Commonwealth to adopt an energy storage target for electric companies to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems to be achieved by January 1, 2020. The next step in the process is for DOER to adopt energy storage systems targets by July 1, 2017. To assist DOER in determining “the appropriate target scale, structure and mechanisms for the energy storage systems targets,” DOER has requested stakeholder input by January 27, 2017.

As background, in August 2016, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed into law An Act Relative to Energy Diversity, Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2016. The Act directed DOER to use a two-step process in its evaluation of storage procurement targets. First, DOER was to determine whether to establish energy storage procurement targets that electric companies must adhere to by January 1, 2020. Further, if DOER deemed that it would it be prudent to establish energy storage procurement targets, then the legislation directed the DOER to adopt such targets by July 1, 2017.

Accordingly, the process to establish energy storage procurement targets has now commenced. The legal standards and policy considerations within which DOER must render its decision are complex, especially given other mandates for utilities within the Commonwealth.

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Harvard researchers have identified a whole new class of high-performing organic molecules, inspired by vitamin B2, that can safely store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in large batteries.

The development builds on previous work in which the team developed a high-capacity flow battery that stored energy in organic molecules called quinones and a food additive called ferrocyanide. That advance was a game-changer, delivering the first high-performance, non-flammable, non-toxic, non-corrosive, and low-cost chemicals that could enable large-scale, inexpensive electricity storage.

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