SunPower followed up last week’s tough earnings call with more hopeful news.

The veteran solar manufacturer and developer is launching a commercial energy storage business under the Helix commercial solar brand. It will design, install and operate the battery systems with its own software controls to manage demand charges and optimize solar generation.

In doing so, the company hopes to leverage the experience it has installing and overseeing commercial solar to date, which is unique among commercial storage providers.

“SunPower has a decade of experience monitoring nearly 1.7 gigawatts of commercial solar projects to best understand how they perform, giving us a unique advantage when maximizing the value of a complete solar-plus-storage solution,” said Norm Taffe, SunPower executive vice president for products, in a statement.

SunPower’s focus on a hybrid solar and storage product sets it apart from commercial storage developers like Stem and AMS, which specialize in standalone batteries that reduce customer demand charges and dispatch to serve broader grid needs.

Still, the company’s turn to commercial storage hints at the desperate times that last week’s earnings report detailed.

The U.S. commercial storage market has sustained around 50 projects per quarter lately, almost entirely confined to California, where they rely on the Self-Generation Incentive Program to make deals pencil out.

The ebbs and flows of SGIP disbursements drive wild swings in deployment from quarter to quarter. The U.S. commercial storage market saw a record 13.9 megawatts deployed in Q2 last year, only to plunge 51 percent to 6.8 MW in Q3, according to GTM Research.

But the solar market isn’t looking too balmy either.

Stem, the global provider of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy storage services, is deploying a 2.5-MWh energy storage system in St. Mary’s, Ontario at INOAC Interior Systems. INOAC, a supplier to the automotive industry. The system will save money and help reduce the expensive electricity peaks that impact all electricity consumers in the province.

With Stem, INOAC aims to reduce their Global Adjustment and energy costs automatically—without changing plant operations or making a capital investment.

Based in Japan, INOAC is a diversified manufacturing company established in 1926, with over 100 facilities operating in 20 countries and over 20,000 employees.

“As an environment-friendly manufacturer, INOAC has strong environmental policies that guide our corporate operations. The opportunity to leverage an emissions-free resource while improving cost efficiency were the driving factors in our decision,” said Roger Dawes, President of INOAC Interior Systems Inc. “Stem’s AI-driven platform and execution experience enables an automated way to reduce energy costs with no interference in our operations.”

Each year, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) determines Ontario’s five highest hours of net energy demand for the previous 12 months. Class A eligible customers that participate in the Industrial Conservation Initiative pay Global Adjustment based on their percentage contribution to the top five peak demand hours.

“Unleashing the benefits of energy storage technology is a key focus of Ontario’s 2017 Long-Term Energy Plan and an important part of our continued commitment to improve energy affordability for our province’s job creators,” said Glenn Thibeault, Minister of Energy. “Through our Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI) program, we’re also providing incentives for large electricity consumers, like INOAC Interior Systems, to reduce their consumption during peak hours and lower their electricity costs. This program is benefiting both families and businesses, and the electricity system as a whole by deferring the longer-term need for investments in new peaking generation.”

A key advisory panel to the Department of Energy wants to move ahead on a biennial assessment required by law of how the agency is doing in its support of the U.S. energy storage technology.

But the committee is waiting to hear back from DOE on its response to recommendations in its last report from 2016 before it can move ahead in earnest, said Ramteen Sioshansi, a professor at Ohio State University and the chairman of the Energy Storage Subcommittee of DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC).

“My strong preference would be to have a response to the ’16 assessment before doing the ’18 assessment,” Sioshansi said. While waiting, his panel will “do a little bit of preliminary ground work on the ’18 assessment,” he said.

The storage subcommittee submitted its 2016 assessment in September of that year. The report made recommendations in 15 areas, ranging from program goals, demonstration projects and funding to the economics of energy storage and its interplay with current electricity market designs.

Typically, DOE has responded to such reports from the EAC or its subcommittees in a matter of months, accepting or rejecting recommendations.

“There was a lengthy transition period so I can understand some things may be taking a little longer to get out of the department, so that’s understandable from my perspective,” said Sioshansi. “I understand there are a bunch of eyes looking at [the response],” he added. “They want to put out a response that they’re happy with.”

The biennial assessment on energy storage is required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It is supposed to evaluate how DOE is meeting the goals of a five-year plan to support energy storage industry efforts in electric drive vehicles, electricity transmission, and distribution and stationary applications.

At the meeting of the EAC in Arlington, Va., last week, during a segment on regulatory reforms, members of the committee were presented with a list of options, among which were doing away with the five-year plan and the assessments every two years.

Researchers at Korea’s Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a new type of aqueous energy storage device that they claim can be charged in less than half a minute.

Employing aqueous electrolytes instead of flammable organic solvents, the device is claimed to enable a boosting charge with high energy density, potentially making it suitable for a range of portable electronic devices.

According to the group, which was headed up by Prof Jeung Ku Kang from the Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability the system owes its performance to a design that assembles fibre-like polymer chain anodes and sub-nanoscale metal oxide cathodes on graphene.

Conventional aqueous electrolyte-based energy storage devices have a limitation for boosting charges and high energy density due to low driving voltage and a shortage of anode materials.

Energy storage device capacity is determined by the two electrodes, and the balance between cathode and anode leads to high stability. In general, two electrodes show differences in electrical properties and differ in ion storage mechanism processes, resulting in poor storage and stability from the imbalance.

The research team came up with new structures and materials to facilitate rapid speed in energy exchange on the surfaces of the electrodes and minimise the energy loss between the two electrodes.

The team made anodes with graphene-based polymer chain materials. The web-like structure of graphene leads to a high surface area, thereby allowing higher capacitance.

For cathode materials, the team used metal oxide in sub-nanoscale structures to elevate atom-by-ion redox reactions. This method realised higher energy density and faster energy exchange while minimising energy loss.

The device can be charged within 20 to 30 seconds using a low-power charging system, such as a USB switching charger or a flexible photovoltaic cell.

New York’s vision for cleaner a more distributed utility grid will rely heavily on energy storage, and last week regulators took two steps to help grow the resource.

The commission in a statement explained that the new rules for Con Edison “significantly increase” energy storage technologies’ ability to export power to the utility’s primary and secondary voltage distribution systems. According to PSC Chairman John Rhodes, the new rules crafted a more straightforward process to allow private energy storage systems to export electricity to ConEd’s distribution system.

In the commission’s second decision, regulators increased the maximum-rated capacity for storage projects from 2 MW to 5 MW. The change boasted support from several stakeholders including the Natural Resources Defense Fund, Pace Energy and Climate Center, Solar Energy Industries Association and Vote Solar.

The decision comes as Cuomo is targeting 1.5 GW of storage by 2025. But observers say the final number could be even higher, and will likely use 2030 as a target year to remain aligned with the 50% renewables goal set in its the state’s Clean Energy Standard.

To achieve the storage goal, the PSC and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority are developing an Energy Storage Roadmap. Commission staff are expected to release the report for comment in the second quarter.

Researchers have claimed a breakthrough in energy storage technology that could enable electric cars to be driven as far as petrol and diesel vehicles, and recharge in minutes rather than hours.

Teams from Bristol University and Surrey University developed a next-generation material for supercapacitors, which store electric charge and can be replenished faster than normal batteries.

This could allow cars to recharge in 10 minutes, rather than the eight hours it can take to replenish the lithium-ion batteries in current electric vehicles.

The technology has sufficient energy density to comfortably surpass the 200 to 350-mile ranges of leading battery-powered cars such as Teslas, according to its backers.

Dr Donald Highgate, the director of research at Superdielectrics – a company that worked with the universities on the research, said: “It could have a seismic effect on energy, but it’s not a done deal.”

Supercapacitors have existed for decades and can store and release power rapidly. Tesla’s Elon Musk has said a breakthrough in transportation is more likely to come from supercaps than batteries.

Superdielectrics was originally developing a polymer that could be transparent and hold electronic circuits for potential use in Google Glass-style applications.

But after realising the energy storage capabilities of the material, it changed tack in 2014 and has produced 10cm² demonstrations that can power a tiny fan or LED bulb.

There are drawbacks to the technology, however. If you left a supercap car for a month at an airport car park, it would have lost much of its charge by the time you returned, the researchers admitted. For this reason, they expect the first such cars to also have a small conventional battery.

The Bristol-Surrey teams believe the polymer they are using could be more energy-dense than lithium ion, holding 180 watt-hours per kilogram compared with 100W⋅h/kg-120W⋅h/kg for commercial lithium ion.

LONDON, Feb. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan’s latest analysis, European DC Power Distribution Market, Forecast to 2025, finds the market is expected to reach $40.1 million in 2025 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.2% over the forecast period 2017-2025, driven by the increasing integration of solar photovoltaic system (PV) and energy storage in residential and commercial buildings. Despite combined savings opportunities from direct current (DC)-powered LED lighting and energy efficiency regulations and targets, the market is challenged by strong barriers such as existing AC infrastructures and lack of DC-ready end-user products.

“The United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Nordic countries will witness faster growth than other countries due to energy efficiency renovations and successful pilot project implementations,” said Anirudh Bhaskaran, Energy & Environment Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Office, retail, and industrial warehouses will be immediate targets with LED lighting serving as the gateway for participants to enter the DC power distribution market.”

The analysis provides an assessment of disruptive trends and technologies, drivers and restraints, market share, and competitive analysis of significant players such as Siemens, Schneider Electric, ABB, Bosch, and Legrand. Revenue forecast by country and end-user vertical are also provided.

Strategic imperatives for success and growth include:

• DC-powered LED lighting and USB-C complied electronic products are critical for successful implementation of DC power distribution in homes and commercial buildings;
• Distributed energy sources and LED lighting are key growth opportunities for participants to create additional revenue in this highly emerging market;
• Using LED lighting as a test bed for implementing DC power distribution in buildings due to its scalability and economic feasibility;
• Focusing on buildings installed with solar PV and battery energy storage to convert full AC into hybrid AC-DC infrastructures;
• Partnerships between end-use product manufacturers and DC infrastructure suppliers for the adoption of DC power distribution; and
• Collaboration between governments, industry associations, and manufacturers to promote and accelerate DC power distribution in buildings.