The battery boom is coming to China, California and basically everywhere else—and it will be even bigger than previously thought.

The global energy-storage market will surge to a cumulative 942 gigawatts by 2040, according to a new forecast from Bloomberg NEF published Tuesday, and that growth will necessitate $1.2 trillion in investment. Sharply falling battery costs is a key driver of the boom. BNEF sees the capital cost of a utility-scale lithium-ion storage system falling another 52 percent by 2030.

But cost isn’t the only factor. Governments from China to California are spurring demand, as is the rise of electric vehicles and solar power. There’s also been a greater focus on storage for electric-vehicle charging as well as energy access in remote areas.

“Costs have come down faster than we expected,” Yayoi Sekine, a New York-based analyst at BNEF, said in an interview. “Batteries are going to permeate our lives.”

The implications of cheaper batteries are far-reaching, upending multiple industries and helping spur technologies necessary to help fight climate change. Batteries power the electric vehicles that are popping up on our freeways. They also unlock solar power from the exclusive confines of the sun.

Two important markets come into particular focus. China, which is building up its battery-manufacturing capacity, will be a central player in the boom. California, meanwhile, has pushed through a series of measures in recent years that will directly or indirectly spur more batteries, including legislation that would require all of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2045.

Largest single rooftop

CARMEL, Ind. — A recent MISO workshop on storage providing transmission services made clear how much the technology is blurring the once clear lines between generation and transmission.

In opening the Oct. 31 workshop, MISO Director of Planning Jeff Webb jokingly nodded to the industry’s choice of “SATA” as shorthand for “storage as a transmission asset,” saying: “Happy Halloween. Welcome to what we’re calling SATAN’s workshop.”

MISO last month detailed how SATA would be evaluated in its annual Transmission Expansion Plan reliability studies compared with traditional solutions. The RTO is proposing that costs for storage projects selected as a preferred transmission solution would be recovered in local transmission zonal rates while avoiding double recovery for the same service in the energy market. (See MISO Contemplates Storage as Tx Reliability Asset.)

“I don’t expect … that we’re going to have a lot of energy storage resources that we’re going to consider to be the preferred option,” Webb said.

For now, MISO is only proposing a model for storage to act as a transmission reliability solution, solving thermal, voltage or stability issues. Beyond that, Webb said the RTO will have to pick through more complex Tariff issues.

He said it will hold off on discussions around evaluating storage as economic transmission, competitive storage projects and how regional cost sharing for high-voltage transmission projects applies to storage.

The Interconnection Question

MISO has laid out potential paths for interconnecting SATA, including only requiring the MTEP process — not the interconnection queue — for transmission-only assets. An interconnection queue requirement would kick in if a storage owner decides to begin offering market services.

Alternatively, MISO could require entering the interconnection queue for all SATA, even for assets that don’t plan on participating in the energy market, Webb said. Some stakeholders also contend that SATA providing some market services should not be subject to a queue requirement unless it plans to offer capacity.

Clean tech giant Tesla has delivered its Powerpack battery storage system to a tidal power station off the coast of the Shetland Islands in the UK.

Tesla’s Powerpack can store excess energy generated at the tidal power station, which is operated by Scottish firm Nova Innovation, to be used when the turbines stop producing electricity.

Nova Innovation CEO Simon Forrest said: “By storing the clean energy generated by the natural ebb and flow of the tide, we can control the supply of electricity to the grid to match demand. This creates a consistent source of completely predictable power from a clean, sustainable resource.

“Nova’s expertise in smart grid control, renewable generation and energy storage has delivered this game-changing innovation. We now look forward to expanding our services to other markets and renewable projects.”

The scale of the project, said to create “the world’s first grid-connected ‘baseload’ tidal power station”, has not been confirmed. However, the 600kW tidal system has now been connected to the national grid.

The delivery of Powerpack battery storage system was backed by the Scottish Government, which donated £272,606 in funds to the project.

Scotland’s Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse commented: “This project will utilise both renewable tidal technology and battery storage from one of the world’s pioneers of battery storage, Tesla, to overcome the challenges of current grid constraints and to enable the improved, uninterrupted, provision of low carbon energy not only in Shetland but in other small island communities across Scotland.

“Crucially, however, by undertaking this work in Scotland, we can also play a key role in helping inform the sustainable decarbonisation of energy for communities across the world.”

Tesla has already deployed its Powerpack battery storage system for several renewable solar and wind projects, but this is the first tidal power station using the technology.

Sembcorp has signed an agreement to build 6.2MW of rooftop solar projects on top of two Singapore facilities owned by a major energy industry service provider, including one of Singapore’s largest rooftop projects, standing at 4.7MW.

Both systems together are expected to produce around 7,435MWh of power annually. The solar farm will help power the on-site operations of the customer, with surplus power channelled to the grid. One of the two locations, located in the Tuas area, is also said to be the largest solar installation on a single rooftop in Singapore to date, with more than 12,700 solar panels amounting to over 4.7MW.

Sembcorp Group president and CEO Neil McGregor said: “We are very pleased to sign this 25-year deal and welcome another new client for our solar power solutions that help companies save money and cut their carbon footprint. With this newest project, Sembcorp now has over 115MW peak of solar power assets in operation and under development. As we grow our solar portfolio here, Sembcorp is actively supporting Singapore in its goal of achieving 350MW peak of solar power capacity by 2020.”

Sembcorp also unveiled a range of affordable power plans for residential customers yesterday with a range of options.

Energy storage collaboration

In related news, Sembcorp will collaborate with Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) as part of a pilot programme to support the deployment of energy storage in the country and they will partner on piloting storage systems. EMA will also help Sembcorp explore business models for energy storage systems, and facilitate regulatory and market approvals for Sembcorp’s operation of such systems in Singapore.

The initiative, also known as ACCESS (ACCelerating Energy Storage for Singapore), aims to make storage more common in Singapore as it can help counter the intermittency of renewable power sources and enhance the overall stability of the grid. It can also potentially allow consumers to save on their energy bills by storing power for use at peak times.

ISO New England, joined by the New England Power Pool (NEPOOL), has filed revisions with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to codify a new design that would enable batteries and other storage technologies to more fully participate in the New England wholesale electricity markets.

According to ISO New England, the revisions would allow emerging storage technologies to be dispatched in the Real-Time Energy Market in a manner that more fully recognizes their ability to transition continuously and rapidly between a charging state and a discharging state. The revisions would also provide a means for their simultaneous participation in the energy, reserves and regulation markets.

The ISO and NEPOOL filed the changes on Oct. 10 and have requested FERC respond by Dec. 10 so that the changes can become effective on April 1, 2019.

In early 2016, in response to growing interest in storage participation, the ISO began working to build a platform that would enable batteries and other similar technologies to participate more fully in the wholesale markets. When FERC issued Order No. 841 in early 2018, the ISO had already completed the internal design work on the new storage design, and the process of vetting those revisions with NEPOOL was already scheduled.

The new storage design brings the region a long way toward compliance with Order No. 841, according to ISO. The new storage revisions, if approved, will become effective eight months before the effective date contemplated in Order No. 841.

Arlington Energy, a clean energy investment group, has announced plans to build out a 1GW portfolio of energy storage and gas peaker projects across the UK after securing initial funding of £200 million (US$255 million) from an offshore fund of institutional investment.

The sites, ranging from 5-50MW, will be developed over the next three years with the first aiming for completion in July 2019 as part of 250MW slated for completion by October.

Around 40% of the portfolio will be made up of standalone battery storage, with over 100MW anticipated to be in the ground under the first tranche of projects.

While the company has yet to reveal where its projects will be, a 20MW gas site in Chesterfield and a developed 40MW energy storage site in Bedford was recently sold to Arlington Infrastructure, the company set up in May 2018 to build out the portfolio.

Matt Clare, director of Arlington Energy, said: “Securing this level of funding has been a fantastic achievement for us, and for the UK energy sector. We are extremely pleased to be able to deploy so many assets in the UK to support the grid network.”

The company has yet to select its technology partners for the storage projects, and is working with advisory services firm DNV GL to provide technical assistance on procuring and deploying the most suitable assets for the portfolio.

“They will be tendering every top manufacturer and system provider with experience in energy storage globally,” Clare said.

The projects will rely on Capacity Market contracts it hopes in to win in February 2019’s T-4 auction to support a merchant trading strategy in what it sees as a distributed energy market susceptible to system volatility.

This approach was recently called for by a panel of energy storage providers at the UK trade event Solar & Storage Live, which claimed that investors needed to “come to grips” with merchant risk following years of subsidy-backed opportunities.

South Korea’s government is planning for 100MW of battery storage as part of a nearly 3GW hub of solar PV and wind on reclaimed land in Saemangeum, which is an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea.

A spokesperson from Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency (SDIA), an agency run under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, told Energy-Storage.News that the agency will oversee 2.6GW of projects. This will include 2.4GW of solar, 100MW of wind and 100MW of battery storage.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) will oversee 400MW of solar PV.

The project overview was announced this week, but this vision is very much in the early stages and detailed plans are only likely to be brought out at a later date. The projects would be located on reclaimed land at Saemangeum, which the Korean Government is hoping to turn into a global business hub and free trade hub of Northeast Asia, after a major damming operation known as the Saemangeum Seawall Project, completed in 2010, said to be the largest dyke in the world.

Separately, a release from the Jeonbuk Province government announced plans for up to 1GW of offshore windfarms off the coast of the city of Gunsan, as well as plans to build a port behind the offshore wind farm to attract manufacturing companies.

Back in September SDIA issued a release notifying that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Rena International, a foreign investment company established by Korean company, Geumgang ENG, jointly with China-based PV firm Renesola, for them to invest around KRW55.5 billion (US$49 million) in the Saemangeum Industrial Complex from 2018 to 2020, for assembling PV modules and manufacturing energy storage systems, while creating 120 jobs in the process.

Under another MoU, NemoENG would also invest KRW47.5 billion in Saemangeum Industrial Complex (lot 2) to produce floating and mooring systems for solar PV as well as energy storage devices from 2018 to 2022. South Korean state-utility Korea East-West Power Co. (EWP) recently completed a 3.5MW floating solar project at a coal-fired power plant.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given every grid operator in the country a December deadline for submitting plans for integrating energy storage into capacity, energy and ancillary services markets.

We’ve been covering some of the details of this momentous grid policy development at GTM Squared, including a deep dive into PJM’s latest straw proposal for meeting this mandate.

At the same time, FERC has also given each independent system operator (ISO) and regional transmission organization (RTO) leeway to meet Order 841’s requirements in ways that build on energy storage integration work already in progress. And in some cases, ISOs and RTOs are making big changes in energy storage-market integration well ahead of Order 841’s schedule.

That description fits the ISO New England’s recently filed proposal for integrating batteries and other fast-acting storage assets into its energy markets. While the “Storage Revisions” plan filed with FERC earlier this month doesn’t take ISO-NE all the way to full Order 841 compliance, it does contemplate important and valuable changes in market rules for batteries and other “continuous storage facilities” coming as early as April 2019, eight months before Order 841’s implementation deadline.

Much of the energy storage industry’s focus has been on mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM, which holds nearly 40 percent of the country’s existing large-scale battery storage power capacity, and has been updating its straw proposal for Order 841 compliance ahead of a December filing deadline.