Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) has unveiled the Open MG, an initiative aimed at developing micro-grids based on the blockchain technology.

The company’s new concept envisages the development of a micro-grid based on renewables which would be able to, through a power-to-gas technology, convert excess power into hydrogen, store it and then convert it again to electric through fuel cells when necessary.

The blockchain technology, the company said, will be used to enable easy connection, while improving operational efficiency. Furthermore, it claims that the blockchain-based project will allow grid operators, customers and energy players to take part in the marketplace and interact beneficially with each other.

The Open MG project is also said to include the construction of the world’s first MW-sized energy-independent microgrid. No further details were shared, however.

Curiosly, another company named KEPCO, which is one of Japan’s largest utilities, announced in mid-October that it had begun testing a blockchain platform to determine how power consumers and PV system owners can trade surplus electricity.

The number of pilot projects involving solar and blockchain has increased exponentially in recent months. The World Energy Council, in partnership with auditors PwC, recently interviewed 39 top level management energy leaders to ascertain whether blockchain is driving an evolution or revolution in the energy ecosystem.

FERC last week granted ISO-NE’s request to terminate the capacity supply obligation (CSO) for Invenergy’s delayed 485-MW Clear River Energy Center Unit 1, while also denying the developer’s request for a Tariff waiver over the matter (ER18-2457).

The RTO said it wanted to terminate the CSO because the combined cycle plant in Burrillville, R.I., will not be operating in time for the beginning of the capacity commitment year starting June 1, 2019. The unit obtained the CSO in Forward Capacity Auction 10, held in February 2016, but is now scheduled to begin commercial operation after June 1, 2021. Invenergy has covered the plant’s CSO for the capacity commitment periods beginning in 2019 and 2020. (See ISO-NE Asks FERC to End Clear River CSO.)

The commission denied Invenergy’s request for waiver because it “would result in undesirable consequences.”

“We find that, on balance, if Clear River is allowed to retain its CSO, or retain its existing capacity resource status, after failing to achieve commercial operation within 63 months after the FCA in which it initially obtained a CSO, it will have undesirable consequences for both system planning and Forward Capacity Market pricing,” the commission said.

FERC agreed with ISO-NE that continuing to include Clear River in its planning processes would have negative consequences for multiple aspects of system planning and found that doing so would risk misrepresenting capacity availability for the associated delivery years.

“In turn, the FCA may send incorrect market signals for the value of capacity and therefore procure an economically inefficient quantity of capacity overall and/or in certain capacity zones,” the commission said. “Similarly, continuing to account for Clear River as an existing capacity resource may also skew the results of interconnection studies and transmission planning studies.”

In a letter filed Nov. 26, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), alongside a broad coalition of energy trade and advocacy organizations, urges Congress to modify the tax code to include energy storage as an eligible technology for the investment tax credit (ITC).

Following is a statement on the effort from SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper:

“As our letter to Senate and House leadership details, energy storage systems are critically important to the modernization of America’s electric grid and represent a massive opportunity for clean energy, particularly solar power. In the energy world, you’d be hard-pressed to find an example of two technologies that complement each other as well as solar+storage.

“Yet without clear rules of the road, companies continue to face financial uncertainty in their investments. Inclusion in the ITC is a crucial step if we’re going to harness storage’s full potential. SEIA, alongside our partner organizations, is urging Congress to enact the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act, a common-sense bill that will encourage investment, jobs and accelerated deployment of solar plus storage projects.”

The economics of rural electrification using microgrids should be considered an investment for the future, akin to how Silicon Valley tech providers plough money into initially loss-leading products and services, the chief of developer and manufacturer Solar Philippines has said.

Last week, Tom Kenning, deputy editor at our sister site PV Tech, wrote an extensive and in-depth blog from a field visit to Paluan on the island of Mindoro, where a Solar Philippines offshoot company, SPSB (Solar Para Sa Bayan – ‘Solar for the country’), has executed a microgrid project that brings power to about 3,000 customers. The microgrid, which uses solar, batteries and diesel backup, is also anticipated to slash commercial electricity costs by half for local businesses.

From having just 3-8 hours of usable electricity each day, with a connection to a 5MW diesel plant some 30km away disconnected a decade ago due to transmission issues, the villagers will be able to run their homes and businesses from the new 2MW PV and 1.8MW / 1.5MWh energy storage plant, coupled with 1,260kW of diesel generation.

Solar Philippines has aggressively set about developing and executing large-scale and microgrid projects in the country as well as establishing PV module manufacturing capabilities. Company chief Leandro Leviste, son of a prominent senator, is enthusiastic about microgrids, while all of the local residents PV Tech spoke with seemed similarly enthused about the endeavour.

Leviste said that the downward trajectory of battery and PV module prices means microgrids for rural power access will reach economic viability sooner rather than later. In the meantime, he said, companies like his might have to be prepared to invest in scaling the technology to meet tomorrow’s demand rather than making projects capable of delivering big returns today.

Unveiled today (26 November), the 3MW system will enable Arsenal to cut electricity bills and avoid peak power prices. Developed by Pivot Power, the 3.7MWh system can power the club’s Emirates Stadium in North London for an entire match – equivalent to powering 2,700 homes for two hours.

The Emirates was the first Premier League stadium to source 100% of its electricity needs from renewables, after the Arsenal extended its supplier deal with Octopus Energy in 2017. Since agreeing to the supplier partnership with Octopus Energy in 2016, Arsenal has cut its carbon footprint by 7 million kilogrammes, equivalent to filling the Emirates Stadium almost four times.

Arsenal’s managing director Vinai Venkatesham said: “This is a big step forward for us in being efficient with energy usage and it builds on our work in reducing our carbon footprint as an organisation. We have been powered by green energy since 2016 thanks to Octopus Energy, and the battery storage system will support our efforts further.”

Funded through investment from Downing LLP, the system will be automatically traded and optimised by Open Energi and has secured a frequency response (FFR) contract from National Grid. Pivot Power will operate the system for 15 years and an additional 1MW of storage will be added next year.

Double Pivot

Pivot Power is also developing the world’s first 2GW network of grid-scale batteries and rapid electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, set to be installed in the UK at a cost of £1.6bn.

The £1.6bn project will see 45 new battery sites developed nationwide at electricity sub-stations, forming the world’s biggest network of grid-scale 50MW batteries. The batteries will collectively store enough electricity to supply 235,000 average homes for a day once a full roll-out is complete.

Commenting on the unveiling, Minister for Energy and Clean Growth Claire Perry said: “The UK is certainly not being left-back on the bench, with Arsenal truly moving the goal-posts when it comes to energy efficiency at Emirates Stadium.

German frequency response service revenues have dropped almost two-thirds in two years as utilities have rushed to deploy energy storage, research shows.

Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables this month said prices in a June 2016 German frequency market auction cleared €23 ($26) per megawatt-hour, but were down to €8 ($9) per megawatt-hour in July 2018, a 65 percent reduction.

The reduction followed big investments in utility-scale front-of-meter energy storage systems for frequency markets.

“As these markets become increasingly crowded, we have seen prices plummet to levels which will make for lower-than-anticipated project returns,” said Wood Mackenzie in a press release.

Germany and the U.K. have led utility investments in energy storage over the last two years, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Europe Energy Storage Landscape 2018 report.

“By investing in energy storage, these companies are able to diversify their portfolio and improve their customer offering by including a clever piece of technology alongside a necessary service,” said report author Rory McCarthy, a senior research analyst.

Although there are gaps across Europe as policymakers struggle to keep pace with new technology, energy storage deployments continue to ramp up, he said. “Europe is now a very real contender for that global top spot in terms of total deployments,” he commented.

The continent is witnessing a glut of developers entering the market across the utility, commercial and industrial (C&I) and residential segments, he said.

Europe’s energy storage markets have received added impetus in the last couple of years from solar developers, which see batteries as a complementary revenue stream to traditional PV system sales that have been hit by a reduction in state subsidies across the continent.

Scale Microgrid Solutions is on a mission to make sophisticated microgrids as easy to deploy and finance as rooftop solar, said Timothy Hade, microgrid specialist for the company.

“Our thesis is that at scale, microgrids have all sorts of great technical aspects that can make our total energy system cleaner, cheaper and more reliable. But the challenge is how to make microgrid deployment as easy as rooftop solar deployment,” he said.

One of numerous challenges to getting more microgrid deployed: High skill levels are generally required. “Most of the projects that get done well are done by one of 50 or 60 different developers that can make these projects work,” he said.

But what if electrical contractors could deploy microgrids, in much the same way they can deploy rooftop solar right now?

“The thing that made rooftop solar take off: The industry made the process simple enough so that an electrical contractor who put time into learning could start offering rooftop installations,” he said.

Scale Microgrid’s farm example

Hade said his company aims to help the microgrid industry take off by offering both a simple, replicable system plus financing packages. Scale Microgrid, which was launched in 2015, now has three microgrid projects up and running. Two are projects the company took over from other developers. The Bowery Farming microgrid in New Jersey is its first new build.

Among other diversified topics, the sessions will deal with current findings on test procedures, problems with energy storage usage, safety and protection for batteries as well as new technologies such as ceramic batteries. The conferences include the 8th Energy Storage Europe Conference (ESE) of Messe Düsseldorf and the 13th International Renewable Energy Storage Conference (IRES) of EUROSOLAR e.V. and will take place parallel to the exhibition.

The International Energy Agency is organizing the symposium “Energy Conservation through Energy Storage” (ECES) as part of the Energy Storage Europe Conference. ECES is an IEA program for technical cooperation and accompanies the research, development, implementation and integration of electrical and thermal energy storage technologies.

Bastian Mingers, Head of Energy Storage Europe: “We continue the successful concept of the IRES scientific conference and the ESE business conference and extend it with specialized sessions on important questions, where researchers and practitioners can exchange ideas directly”.

Storage applications and flexible sector coupling

The new Energy Storage Europe focus on storage applications is also reflected in the lecture program. In addition to a separate conference session on best-practice examples, exhibitors will present selected projects in the trade fair forum, which is also open to trade fair visitors without a conference ticket.

Flexible sector coupling will again play a major role in the conferences and at the trade fair. The focus will increasingly be on multi-technology systems that combine different storage technology approaches and thus pave the way for versatile applications. These also include power-to-mobility, power-to-liquids and power-to-valuables approaches for industrial use.

Information about the conference program and access to the ticket shop: www.energy-storage-online.com/conference and www.energy-storage-online.com/2130

NEC Energy Solutions has secured two engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts from Gore Street Energy Storage Fund for UK energy storage projects.

The two projects, totalling 19MW, were developed by Origami Energy and were later acquired by Gore Street Energy Storage Fund.

NEC Energy Solutions CEO Steve Fludder said: “These project awards and the continued success of the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund demonstrate investors’ confidence in the value of energy storage as an attractive, long-term investment in a rapidly growing global market.

“As a global leader in energy storage, we couldn’t be happier with our role in the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund and we look forward to working with Gore Street Capital on future projects as they continue to build out their portfolio.”

The UK energy storage contracts secured by NEC will be full turnkey projects and will be supported by Nippon Koei (NK) to carry out the EPC scope.

The 10MW “front of the meter” project will be located on Lower Road in Brentwood, Essex.

The Lower Road project will be a grid-tied NEC GSS Grid Storage Solution that will provide front of the meter grid services.

With 9MW capacity, the first “behind the meter” project will be built at the Port of Tilbury, co-located with London’s Port of Tilbury industrial port facility.

The NEC GSS Grid Storage Solution behind-the-meter battery storage system will use a metering scheme, installed by Nippon Koei.

Nippon Koei director Hiroyuki Akiyoshi said: “In the future, we would expect more opportunities in this market not only in the UK but also in Japan. This experience will boost our business in the near future.”

Construction of the energy storage facility at Port of Tilbury will begin next month and at Lower Road in January next year.

Both of these projects are expected to commence the operations by mid-2019.

In order to address intermittency in its grid, the South Australian Government has introduced a AU$50 million (US$36 million) Grid Scale Storage Fund (GSSF) to help accelerate the deployment of new large energy storage projects, including pumped hydro, hydrogen, gas storage, solar thermal, bioenergy and battery storage.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the South Australian Government to help coordinate the assessment of projects that may be eligible for joint funding, as well as knowledge sharing. Applications shortlisted for the GSSF may also be eligible for funding from ARENA under the Advancing Renewables Program (ARP).

The technology-neutral funding will be divided into two streams for both behind-the-meter assets and grid-scale assets.

Under the GSSF, applicants must be able to match funding dollar-for-dollar and preference will be given to projects targeting financial close by the end of 2019.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller, said: “The $50 million funding commitment from the South Australian Government will help to realise a number of groundbreaking projects that will help provide stable, reliable and dispatchable power to the state. ARENA has worked closely with the South Australian Government to ensure projects that meet our criteria can benefit from this opportunity, and get off the ground sooner.”

“ARENA has already committed up to $110 million in funding to support a wide range of projects in South Australia, including innovative energy storage projects. As more of our electricity is generated from solar and wind, it is clear that storage technologies will play a key role in delivering secure, reliable and affordable electricity,” he added.

On behalf of the Australian Government, ARENA is already supporting feasibility studies for two prospective pumped hydro plants at Cultana and Middleback Ranges, two virtual power plants trials and has contributed towards two grid-scale batteries – Infigen’s Lake Bonney battery and the ESCRI battery in Dalrymple.