Thanks to the modern electric grid, you have access to electricity whenever you want. But the grid only works when electricity is generated in the same amounts as it is consumed. That said, it’s impossible to get the balance right all the time. So operators make grids more flexible by adding ways to store excess electricity for when production drops or consumption rises.

About 96% of the world’s energy-storage capacity comes in the form of one technology: pumped hydro. Whenever generation exceeds demand, the excess electricity is used to pump water up a dam. When demand exceeds generation, that water is allowed to fall—thanks to gravity—and the potential energy turns turbines to produce electricity.

But pumped-hydro storage requires particular geographies, with access to water and to reservoirs at different altitudes. It’s the reason that about three-quarters of all pumped hydro storage has been built in only 10 countries. The trouble is the world needs to add a lot more energy storage, if we are to continue to add the intermittent solar and wind power necessary to cut our dependence on fossil fuels.

A startup called Energy Vault thinks it has a viable alternative to pumped-hydro: Instead of using water and dams, the startup uses concrete blocks and cranes. It has been operating in stealth mode until today (Aug. 18), when its existence will be announced at Kent Presents, an ideas festival in Connecticut.

On a hot July morning, I traveled to Biasca, Switzerland, about two hours north of Milan, Italy, where Energy Vault has built a demonstration plant, about a tenth the size of a full-scale operation. The whole thing—from idea to a functional unit—took about nine months and less than $2 million to accomplish. If this sort of low-tech, low-cost innovation could help solve even just a few parts of the huge energy-storage problem, maybe the energy transition the world needs won’t be so hard after all.

Independent energy storage solutions developer Convergent Energy + Power (Convergent) has commissioned North America’s biggest behind-the-meter energy storage system in Sarnia, Ontario.

The system, with a storage capacity of 10MW/20 MWh, will help Convergent reduce Global Adjustment charge for an industrial customer.

Global Adjustment, which accounts for nearly 70% of the average industrial electricity bill in Ontario, encourages large electricity users in the region to minimise their power consumption during the most expensive grid periods.

Convergent CEO Johannes Rittershausen said: “This system combines cutting-edge technology and design with Convergent’s unparalleled peak dispatch services, creating maximum savings for our customer.

“Commissioning the biggest behind-the-meter energy storage system in North America would not have been possible without a forward-thinking customer and the innovation of our supplier, IHI.”
Apart from delivering the energy storage system, Convergent has also contracted IHI Energy Storage to provide operations and maintenance services and a capacity guarantee for the system.

The system, which is capable of powering an electric bullet train for 500 miles, has already reached this summer’s peaks causing no interruption to the customer.

With the battery system, commercial and industrial customers can save up to 40% on their electricity bills.

Convergent is said to have become the largest operator of energy storage in the Canadian province with 26MW of energy storage assets. IHI Energy Storage has another 21MW contracted in the region.

Wind energy company Infigen Energy plans to install a 52 MWh Tesla Powerpack battery energy storage system in South Australia.

The battery system will be next to its 278 MW Lake Bonney Wind Farm near Mount Gambier.

The Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) will cost around $38 million to build and install. ARENA and the South Australian government will each contribute funding of $5 million towards the project.

Once built, BESS will be connected to the National Energy Market. It will also enable Infigen to firm up an extra 18 MW of renewable supply.

Tesla Powerpack battery: a more reliabile energy supply

Infigen’s CEO Ross Rolfe said the project will allow the company to enter into additional commercial projects in SA, which he described as being “at the heart” of the company’s strategy.

Rolfe added that BESS demonstrates Infigen’s progress in delivering on its strategy. This includes contributing towards improved energy security and reliability of supply.

SA Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the government is a strong supporter of battery storage to harness the state’s abundant renewable energy. He added that more battery storage will deliver lower prices to households and businesses.

Other options considered prior to BESS

According to an AFR report, Infigen examined other options to improve energy supply reliability, such as pumped hydro and gas. However, the company decided on battery storage because of the state’s dependence on renewable energy supply.

The company also acknowledged that BESS would not have been possible for the company without the $10 million funding it received.

Battery energy storage systems shore up home supply too

Installing a storage battery in this way stores renewable energy such as wind and solar power for later use. This could be at night or during high electricity demand periods. This applies not only to commercial and industrial projects, but also to households and small businesses with solar installations.

With home solar battery storage in place, the solar power generated during the day can be stored and used after dark. This helps to improve clean energy reliability and supply on the home front, as well as drastically reduce electricity bills.

A new lithium-ion based energy storage system for ships has been launched by Rolls-Royce.

Dubbed SAVe Energy, it is said to be cost competitive and highly efficient that can be scaled depending on the energy and power requirements of the ships.

According to Rolls-Royce, a vessel can operate on batteries alone when in harbour or for a limited period with zero emission, depending on the specified battery capacity, with energy storage providing load smoothing and reducing the number of generators required to be operating.

It has been developed in partnership with ship firms Color Line, Norled and the Norwegian Coastal Administration Shipping Company, ensuring the system covers a wide variety of marine applications, including ferries, cruise vessels and multi-purpose vessels.

The development work was partly funded by the Norwegian Research Council of Norway’s ENERGIX programme.

Rolls-Royce has been delivering energy storage systems since 2010, however, the actual energy storage units were previously supplied by an external party.

Andreas Seth, EVP Electrical, Automation and Control – Commercial Marine at Rolls-Royce said: “The electrification of ships is building momentum. From 2010, we have delivered battery systems representing about 15MWh in total. However, now the potential deployment of our patent pending SAVe Energy in 2019 alone is 10-18MWh.

“Battery systems have become a key component of our power and propulsions systems and SAVe Energy is being introduced on many of the projects we are currently working on. This includes the upgrade programme for Hurtigruten’s cruise ferries, the advanced fishing vessel recently ordered by Prestfjord and the ongoing retrofits of offshore support vessels.”

New battery technology that could see electric vehicles being charged in a fraction of the time of current standards – and powered by either electricity or hydrogen – has been developed by a team of Scottish scientists.

Battery storage or fuel cell storage – this is a polarising topic for those in the game of developing electric car technology.

While a battery electric vehicle has the advantage of instant torque, quiet ride and zero tailpipe emissions, currently the speed with which an electric car can recharge is at best 30 minutes on a fast charger, or more often overnight if charged through a standard 3 phase outlet.

Hydrogen fuel cell technology – which stores the energy for the car in the form of hydrogen – is also tailpipe emission free, and while theoretically a fuel cell vehicle can be refuelled as quickly as a petrol or diesel vehicle, the technology is far more expensive.

Now, researchers at the University of Glasgow say they have created a flexible solution using nanomolecules that allow energy to be stored and output in the form of either electricity or hydrogen gas.

The breakthrough uses what the researchers are describing as an ‘exotic rust’ – a metal oxide that when added to water, can be charged with electricity.

Using this technology – which is still in prototype stage – EV drivers would be able to refuel cars in much the same way as is done at the petrol station today.

First, the used ‘rust’ liquid is removed using a special nozzle at the pump, then the car is refuelled using a second nozzle to replenish the car’s energy stores.

Professor Leroy Cronin, Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, has published the breakthrough research in the journal Nature Chemistry and says the ‘flow’ liquid battery could be the answer to making EVs a real contender against fossil-fuel vehicles.

“Energy storage solutions that can act as both batteries and fuel generation devices (depending on the requirements of the user) could therefore revolutionize the uptake and use of renewably generated energy,” wrote the researchers in the journal.

It may not be smooth sailing for Pacific Gas and Electric’s landmark energy storage projects.

Totaling 567 MW, 2,270 MWh, the four projects were hailed as the largest battery storage investment ever proposed when PG&E submitted them for approval at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in late June. However, comments opposing the projects could slow down their approval and implementation.

Already, the state’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) and the Direct Access Customer Coalition (DACC) have filed comments opposing the projects, prompting the CPUC to extend the approval process by at least 120 days. The comments raise questions about whether or not the energy storage projects are needed and whether PG&E’s proposal conforms to the commission’s directives.

The recently-filed comments have had very little public scrutiny, as they were only sent to the relevant parties and have not been posted on the CPUC website.

The cost of reliability

In their comments, the ORA, which is part of the CPUC, argues that the energy storage projects are not needed because the deficiency they are designed to fill will be met with new and planned transmission projects. The ORA claims the projects do not comply with CPUC resolution (E-4909) that authorized PG&E to issue a solicitation for the projects.

The resolution is designed to alleviate the need for an out-of-market contract for Calpine’s Metcalf Energy Center, a 564-MW gas-fired plant in San Jose. Calpine had told the California ISO that it would have to take the plant out of service because it was uneconomic, but the ISO determined the plant is needed, granting a reliability must run (RMR) contract.

In the resolution authorizing the storage projects, the CPUC expressed its concerns about the impact the RMR contracts would have on ratepayers and the lack of competition in the RMR process that can lead to “market distortions and unjust rates for power.”

The commission ordered PG&E to enter into energy storage contracts at “reasonable cost to ratepayers” and to take into consideration the cost and value and the results of previous, similar solicitations. But the ORA argues PG&E did not meet the CPUC’s requirements because the utility did not provide “analysis or explain how the cost of the four energy storage projects are reasonable taking into consideration the cost of the Metcalf RMR contract.” Nor did PG&E compare the four contracts to previous energy storage solicitations, the ORA said.

Customer Energy Management programme to be paid for through shared savings

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) will issue a request for bids (RfB) for a 160MW hybrid solar and wind project combined with battery energy storage in the state of Andhra Pradesh on 20 August.

The tender for the hybrid project at Ramagiri, Anantapur District, has been on the cards for some time after SECI reached out to industry to establish how much interest there is in providing EPC services for it via an Expressions of Interest (EOI) issuance back in January.

The contract will be for design, engineering, supply, construction, erection, testing and commissioning of the hybrid plant, including 10 years of operations and maintenance (O&M) services. The contract will be awarded via international competitive bidding.

SECI has applied for financing from the World Bank to go towards the cost of the project.

A pre-bid meeting will be held on 31 August and the deadline for bid submissions will be 1 October.

Shared infrastructure for the project is likely to be provided by New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NREDCAP) while transmission evacuation facilities will be provided by Andhra Pradesh Transmission Company Limited (AP Transco). When first announced, the energy storage element of the project was tabbed at 40MWh capacity.

This project could become the largest and amongst the first of its kind built in India. However a smaller pilot project is also being planned in Kerala, as reported by PV Tech back in December 2017.

In March, Indian power minister R.K. Singh called on battery-based energy storage manufacturers to set up manufacturing units in India, particularly given the new focus on hybrid projects through the government’s recently finalised National Wind-Solar Hybrid policy, under which all forms of energy storage are eligible to be included in projects.

A new type of energy storage system could revolutionise energy storage and drop the charging time of electric cars from hours to seconds.

In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Chemistry, chemists from the University of Glasgow discuss how they developed a flow battery system using a nano-molecule that can store electric power or hydrogen gas giving a new type of hybrid energy storage system that can be used as a flow battery or for hydrogen storage.

Their ‘hybrid-electric-hydrogen’ flow battery, based upon the design of a nanoscale battery molecule can store energy, releasing the power on demand as electric power or hydrogen gas that can be used a fuel. When a concentrated liquid containing the nano-molecules is made, the amount of energy it can store increases by almost 10 times. The energy can be released as either electricity or hydrogen gas meaning that the system could be used flexibly in situations that might need either a fuel or electric power.

One potential benefit of this system is that electric cars could be charged in seconds, as the material is a pumpable liquid. This could mean that the battery of an electric car could be “recharged” in roughly the same length of time as petrol cars can be filled up. The old battery liquid would be removed at the same time and recharged ready to be used again.

The approach was designed and developed by Professor Leroy (Lee) Cronin, the University of Glasgow’s Regius Chair of Chemistry, and Dr. Mark Symes, Senior Lecturer in Electrochemistry, also at the University of Glasgow with Dr. Jia Jia Chen, who is a researcher in the team. They are convinced that this result will help pave the way for the development of new energy storage systems that could be used in electric cars, for the storage of renewable energy, and to develop electric-to-gas energy systems for when a fuel is required.

Professor Cronin said: “For future renewables to be effective high capacity and flexible energy storage systems are needed to smooth out the peaks and troughs in supply. Our approach will provide a new route to do this electrochemically and could even have application in electric cars where batteries can still take hours to recharge and have limited capacity. Moreover, the very high energy density of our material could increase the range of electric cars, and also increase the resilience of energy storage systems to keep the lights on at times of peak demand.”

For an RTO trying to fit energy storage in its system, one of the hardest tasks is how to characterize storage. It is supply and load, but RTO rules generally take a binary approach to power system resources. It has to be one or the other, not both.

That approach can hinder the use of energy storage in the capacity and energy markets, which many analysts say is key to optimizing the economics of energy storage.

FERC’s Order 841 directs RTOs such as MISO to change their rules to give energy storage broader access to participate in wholesale energy, capacity and ancillary services markets.

However, energy storage can not only act as generation and load, it can perform those functions from either side of the meter. Meanwhile, FERC’s jurisdiction only applies to wholesale power markets.

The question of proper jurisdiction could prove to be one of the most pivotal challenges. Existing regulations were not set up to handle distribution-connected storage devices that can also supply the wholesale market.

Stakeholders such as the Transmission Access Policy Study Group (TAPS) and Xcel Energy have filed at FERC arguing that the federal regulator does not have jurisdiction to mandate that energy storage resources on the distribution system be able to participate in wholesale markets.

In that filing, Xcel argued that allowing distribution-connected storage to provide retail and wholesale services “oversteps the limits on the Commission’s jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act by interfering in state jurisdiction over retail sales and affecting the ability to preserve distribution system reliability.”

MISO and other stakeholders in March filed with FERC asking for an extension on the deadline the regulatory agency set for Order 841 compliance, as well as clarification on the jurisdiction issue.