This summer, Massachusetts became the third state to set an energy storage target. It is not mandatory, and the 200 MWh target was lower than some observers expected, but it still put the Bay State at the top of states encouraging energy storage.

Massachusetts is now continuing to push forward with energy storage, setting up an inquiry into the eligibility of energy storage for net metering benefits. Net metering is a popular policy mechanism that compensates distributed generation for excess energy sent to the grid — usually at the retail rate. Net metering policies vary by state and can include larger projects than typically found on residential rooftops. 

However, the policy is silent on the role of energy storage when paired with net-metered systems, like rooftop solar. 

But stakeholders are seeking to define energy storage’s role, with Massachusetts taking that first step. In part, the inquiry grew out of a petition filed by Tesla in May 2017, seeking a ruling on the eligibility of solar power systems paired with energy storage devices to receive net metering benefits. Last month, the DPU issued a “limited scope” advisory opinion, only applicable to Tesla, that small-scale battery storage and solar systems should be eligible for net metering. 

State regulators will now take up that issue holistically in this inquiry.

The inquiry will also review the current standards and procedures that electric distribution companies use to bid the capacity from certain net metering facilities into ISO-New England’s FCM, and how they use FCM revenues to offset the cost of net metering services.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Elon Musk didn’t need 100 days after obtaining a connection agreement to switch on the Tesla big battery in South Australia. In fact, it took him less than 100 minutes.

That’s how quickly the battery was up and running after the ink dried on the connection deal with the state’s transmission company ElectraNet last Friday.

By the early evening, some 300 Tesla Powerpacks already in place were delivering all the power for the unveiling event, stored from the adjoining Hornsdale wind farm, a three-hour drive north of Adelaide.

Of course, it’s not all in place yet. About half is installed – 30MW/65MWh out of 100MW/129MWh it has contracted to build – and it has yet to fully engage with the grid.

But it has only taken two months since Tesla won a South Australia government tender to get this far, and despite some hints that a demonstration was in the wind, the 500 or so invited guests were stunned by what they saw.

“So much has been done in an incredibly short period of time,” Musk said at the unveiling on Friday night. “Talk is cheap, action is difficult … but this is not just talk, this is reality.”

And, Musk noted – ominously enough for the fossil fuel interests looking on from afar – this is just the start of what he expects will be a rapid transition to renewables.

“The vast majority of the world is still fossil fuel powered and this is really just the beginning. But what this serves as is a great example to the rest of the world of what can be done.”

Talking to some of the energy market officials, developers, and investors at the event, it seems clear that battery storage installations like this will mushroom across Australia in coming years.

Some are already well flagged: Neoen, which owns and will operate the South Australia big battery, plans another 20MW/34MWh storage facility at the yet-to-be-built Bulgana wind farm in Victoria, there is another 30MW/8MWh facility to be built at the Wattle Point wind farm, not to mention the 250MW big battery proposed by AGL to replace the ageing and decrepit Liddell coal generator.

There is also a smaller battery at the soon to be opened Lakeland solar farm in north Queensland, batteries at the Kennedy solar, wind complex also in north Queensland, pumped hydro at the Kidston solar farm, and dozens of other storage project.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Green Charge, a subsidiary of ENGIE, announced plans to develop and operate whats being called the largest utility-scale energy storage system in Massachusetts.

The three-MW system will be installed at the 5.76-MW Mt. Tom Solar, which began operations in January adjacent to the former Mt. Tom Power Station, and will deliver energy to Holyoke Gas & Electric. ENGIE expects the system to be complete by April 2018.

The system will be used to optimize intermittent solar energy and reduce utility capacity costs for HG&E while reducing stress on the HG&E distribution system and improving power quality and reliability.

As part of Massachusetts’ Peak Demand Management Program, HG&E was awarded a $475,000 MA Department of Energy Resources Grant to contract with, schedule, measure, and analyze the energy storage system. UMass Amherst will quantify the peak reduction value to the distribution system, accounting for equipment value, cost reduction potential, and overall project data. The goal of the grant is to provide research and recommendations on the future distribution system value of battery storage devices throughout the state.

“Massachusetts is proud to be a national leader in energy efficiency programs that reduce overall consumption and we are committed to continuing our work to improve energy costs disproportionately affected by times of peak demand,” said Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. “The demonstration projects funded through these grants will strengthen our innovation economy and provide the Commonwealth with a roadmap for reducing our most expensive energy loads and securing our energy future.”

Click Here to Read Full Article

Here’s a fun fact about Russia: it gets a fifth of its energy from hydropower. This might sound shocking for a country whose image is so tightly linked to oil and gas, but Russia has a lot of big rivers and it’s putting them to good use. Now, Moscow is moving into other renewables and, more interestingly, energy storage as well.

Energy Minister Alexander Novak said earlier this week that Russia could find a place among the world’s leaders in solar power generation and energy storage. Russian solar panel makers, the minister added, can already produce an efficiency factor per panel on par with global leaders, at around 20 percent, although some of the world’s leading producers have already exceeded that figure.

Renewables news stories from Russia are not a frequent occurrence, and that’s understandable: there are too many oil headlines and there have not been indications from Moscow that clean energy is a priority. Yet it might well become a priority in the future, as part of the diversification drive among oil-dependent economies.

Earlier this year, Russia launched its biggest renewable power auction to date, seeking bids for 1.9 GW in wind power generation capacity. Bids received topped 2.3 GW, despite unattractive local content requirements.

These envisage a certain percentage of the equipment that will be used in the new installations to be made locally, and this percentage is rising as a way of stimulating job creation. For 2017, it was 40 percent. This did not deter bidders, though. In fact, the world’s top wind turbine producer, Vestas, is opening a factory for turbine blades in Russia to comply with the local content requirements.

Another recent announcement concerns solar power. Despite EU sanctions against Russia, joint research on various initiatives is proceeding as usual: Russia’s state nuclear major Rosatom has partnered with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission on joint research into alternative energy sources and energy storage.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Energy storage is a good option for frequency response, a storage trade group will tell the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month.

Markets would be less efficient and “system costs greater than necessary if resource owners are mandated to provide frequency response service from generators more suited to provide energy and capacity,” the Energy Storage Association wrote in previously filed comments. 

The group is responding to FERC’s request for supplemental comment on its November 2016 notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to begin the process of revising its interconnection rules for both large and small generators. FERC’s concern was that fewer generators were providing primary frequency response.

According to ESA, requiring generators to provide frequency response could produce an oversupply of frequency response headroom, imposing additional system costs. The group noted that many generators are not well suited to provide frequency response because doing so can lower operational efficiency, which will eventually result in higher system costs. Additionally, requiring all generators to provide frequency response would fail to create a market signal.

On the other hand, energy storage, particularly batteries, are well suited to provide frequency response, ESA said. They are fast responding and do not lose efficiency by needing to reserve headroom. In its comments, ESA cited studies by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that found 1 MW of fast responding resources could be substituted for 2 MW of primary frequency response resources during some system conditions.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Four months after its CEO declared to Energy-Storage.News that hybrid vanadium redox flow-lithium systems would be the “optimal” way to deliver multiple applications for energy storage, redT has delivered equipment to its first such project.

UK-headquartered redT, which makes energy storage systems based on the redox flow technology said yesterday that it has sold a 300kW / 1MWh “hybrid” energy storage system to Melbourne’s Monash University in Australia. The company said this marks two firsts: the delivery of Australia’s first flow-lithium hybrid system and redT’s first deal in the country.

CEO Scott McGregor, who has famously banned employees from defining the systems as “batteries”, instead calling them “flow machines”, said in a June interview that combining the “workhorse” properties of vanadium systems with the more high power capabilities of lithium could deliver the “the lowest cost, highest function out of the two technologies”.

The system at Monash uses 900kWh of redT energy storage, combined with a 120kW C-1 rated lithium battery, to be installed at a biomedical research and learning facility at the university. It will be paired to on-site PV generation and will help maximise the use of renewables, reducing energy costs in a country where abundant sunshine, high electricity costs and isolated grid networks have created a sort of perfect storm of market conditions for PV and latterly for energy storage.

It is hoped the hybrid system will generate both revenues and savings for the university, with plans to offer its capabilities into markets for merchant and contracted grid services in future. It is being integrated into a university-wide microgrid project, which is being deployed in partnership with Monash Energy Materials and Systems Institute (MEMSI). Under that project, the reliability and stability of the local grid is being boosted by the integration of renewables and there is also intent to create a peer-to-peer energy trading network using the microgrid.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Green Charge said it expects to complete installation of the Mt. Tom energy storage project by April 2018 in time for peak summer demand when capacity costs are highest.

HG&E said it will use storage system to reduce the burden on its electrical distribution system, increasing overall asset life.

Electricity from the solar farm will be stored in the storage system and will be called on during local and regional peak load periods.

The project won a $475,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources as part of the state’s Peak Demand Management Program. The funds will be used to contract with, schedule, measure and analyze the storage system. The goal of the grant is to provide research and recommendations on the future distribution system value of battery storage devices throughout the state.

“We are pleased to work with ENGIE on the Mt. Tom energy storage project, which will produce peak demand and asset management benefits that will help HG&E stabilize electric rates over the long term,” Jim Lavelle, HG&E’s manager, said in a statement.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Battery vendors are being hit by a combination of rising prices for raw materials and continuing currency uncertainty, resulting in rapidly changing costs for businesses according to Easystart.

The lead acid battery supplier has reported a recent 30% increase in the cost of producing its products as a result of a higher cost for lead and fluctuations associated with global currencies.

With Brexit continuing to cast a long shadow over all industries alongside the impact of President Trump, the company has experienced a swing of up to 5% in its costs in some weeks. However, Easystart has said it was no choice to accept these variations as part of its businesses instead of passing on the continually changing costs to consumers.

“There’s absolutely nothing to do about it,” a company spokesperson said at Solar & Storage Live, Solar Media’s three-day dedicated exhibition and conference taking place in Birmingham, England, this week.

He added that the UK business was also still subject to the effects of last year’s feed-in tariff cuts, which have put the demand and interest in home storage back to levels seen in 2015, suggesting little progress has been made in boosting the residential market for battery storage.

However, the spokesperson said that while Easystart has little visibility on the applications its range of gel batteries are used for, its customers are purchasing larger quantities suggesting they are expecting business to pick up going forward.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Four months after its CEO declared to Energy-Storage.News that hybrid vanadium redox flow-lithium systems would be the “optimal” way to deliver multiple applications for energy storage, redT has delivered equipment to its first such project.

UK-headquartered redT, which makes energy storage systems based on the redox flow technology said yesterday that it has sold a 300kW / 1MWh “hybrid” energy storage system to Melbourne’s Monash University in Australia. The company said this marks two firsts: the delivery of Australia’s first flow-lithium hybrid system and redT’s first deal in the country.

CEO Scott McGregor, who has famously banned employees from defining the systems as “batteries”, instead calling them “flow machines”, said in a June interview that combining the “workhorse” properties of vanadium systems with the more high power capabilities of lithium could deliver the “the lowest cost, highest function out of the two technologies”.

The system at Monash uses 900kWh of redT energy storage, combined with a 120kW C-1 rated lithium battery, to be installed at a biomedical research and learning facility at the university. It will be paired to on-site PV generation and will help maximise the use of renewables, reducing energy costs in a country where abundant sunshine, high electricity costs and isolated grid networks have created a sort of perfect storm of market conditions for PV and latterly for energy storage.

It is hoped the hybrid system will generate both revenues and savings for the university, with plans to offer its capabilities into markets for merchant and contracted grid services in future. It is being integrated into a university-wide microgrid project, which is being deployed in partnership with Monash Energy Materials and Systems Institute (MEMSI). Under that project, the reliability and stability of the local grid is being boosted by the integration of renewables and there is also intent to create a peer-to-peer energy trading network using the microgrid.

“Why you would look at hybrid is if you think of the flow machine as your workhorse, it’ll do 60%-80% of the work, it’s really boring, just sit there pumping energy and liquid all the way round many times a day, it will never degrade and you want to utilise that as much as you can,” McGregor had said earlier in the year in explaining the appeal and potential strengths of the hybrid concept.

Click Here to Read Full Article

In mid-2017, IKEA announced that it would be ‘launching’ a battery storage offering to sell alongside its solar panels in the UK. The week previous to this announcement, Siemens – another household name – announced that it would be joining forces with AES to create Fluence, a company focusing on the global energy storage industry.

The press release by IKEA was viewed by many in the industry as a big deal, with many excited that such a well-known consumer brand could be ready to push storage into the UK market.

But in a world where energy storage will play an increasingly important role – in balancing renewables, reinforcing the network, and reducing energy costs – how important will ‘brand’ be?

Brand will be important for the following three reasons:

• Confidence in the product is paramount to protect a well-known brand:

Despite the fanfare around the announcement, storage and PV wasn’t a completely new offering for IKEA. The company had been offering storage with its PV systems for some time to any customers who requested it. The company had been soft trialling the products for a while before making any big announcement. The IKEA brand has been built up over more than 70 years and companies of this size and heritage don’t risk it over what will be initially an extremely niche offering (IKEA sells one of its BILLY bookshelves every three seconds with one-tenth of furniture purchased in Britain coming from IKEA).

Click Here to Read Full Article