Between the political bickering following a spate of blackouts in South Australia and the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeting that he had a fix, and then the South Australian government announcing that it will build a grid-connected battery storage facility, interest in renewable energy storage has never been higher.

While lithium ion batteries sold by Tesla and others are perhaps the most widely known storage technology, several other energy storage options are either already on the market, or are fast making their way there.

All are hoping to claim a slice of what, by all indications, will be a very large pie. The Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts that more than 1.1m new battery storage systems will be installed in Australian households by 2035. And, according to a 2015 report by the Climate Council, battery storage capacity is expected to grow 50-fold in under a decade.

“The market for storage is huge,” says Kevin Moriarty, the executive chairman of 1414 Degrees, an Adelaide-based thermal storage company hoping to win South Australia’s 100MW storage system tender. The South Australian system will be the largest in Australia so far but Moriarty describes it as “a drop in the ocean” compared with what will be needed as Australia transitions away from carbon-dioxide emitting fossil fuels.

The need for energy storage solutions is the natural consequence of an energy grid that has an increasing amount of renewable energy sources. Solar powerplants don’t produce energy when the sun doesn’t shine and windfarms grind to a halt when the wind doesn’t blow.

At the grid level, the resulting fluctuations in supply, combined with demand that can rapidly spike during hot weather, for example, can play havoc with the steady 50Hz electricity supply needed to power everything from microwaves to factory production lines.

Traditionally, fossil fuel-powered turbines are used to rapidly respond to load changes. If switched on when needed, electricity output ramps up or down so that there is enough electricity, at the right frequency, to supply demand.

Renewable energy storage systems, which include batteries and thermal storage systems, run from small household units to power plant and grid-scale technologies. What they aim to do is enable electricity to be released into the system when it is needed – so-called load shifting – rather than only when solar collectors or wind turbines are operating.

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Solar cells are constantly getting better at collecting energy from sunlight, but their ability to store it isn’t improving quite as fast. Made from graphene and with a fern-inspired fractal structure, engineers at RMIT University have developed a new prototype electrode that could enable solar harvesting and storage systems that are thin, flexible and have high capacity.

While the sun is attractive as an energy source, solar-powered devices usually have to fall into two categories: those with big bulky setups, or smaller ones that don’t need as much power. The RMIT team’s new electrode is designed to bridge that gap, with a better energy density inspired at the microscopic level by the repeating pattern (called a fractal) seen in the veins of a species of American fern.

“The leaves of the western swordfern are densely crammed with veins, making them extremely efficient for storing energy and transporting water around the plant,” says Min Gu, co-author of the study. “Our electrode is based on these fractal shapes – which are self-replicating, like the mini structures within snowflakes – and we’ve used this naturally-efficient design to improve solar energy storage at a nano level.”

Compared to conventional batteries, supercapacitors can be thinner, more durable and output power much faster, meaning they have the potential to eventually spawn thin, flexible power sources for wearable electronics or even cars. Storage capacity is their downside, but RMIT’s new electrode, with a higher energy density granted by its fractal pattern, is designed to address that very problem.

“The immediate application is combining this electrode with supercapacitors, as our experiments have shown our prototype can radically increase their storage capacity – 30 times more than current capacity limits,” says Gu. “Capacity-boosted supercapacitors would offer both long-term reliability and quick-burst energy release – for when someone wants to use solar energy on a cloudy day for example – making them ideal alternatives for solar power storage.”

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Construction will soon be underway on a gigantic solar farm in South Australia that’s set to be the biggest of its kind in the world – thanks to 3.4 million solar panels and 1.1 million individual batteries.

The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, at which point the huge plant should outdo all other solar farms in terms of overall battery capacity – although other solar facilities are larger in terms of land area.

Overall capacity will be 330 megawatts (MW) of power, enough to keep the lights on in tens of thousands of homes, with at least 100 MW of storage capacity for holding energy, according to the site’s developer, the Lyon Group.

“Projects of this sort, renewable energy projects, represent the future,” South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill told reporters after the announcement of the solar farm last week.

Once finished, the plant will cover 4,000 square metres (43,056 square feet) and cost an estimated $1 billion to construct, the Australian Associated Press reports.

The facility will then be able to provide roughly 330 MW power for just over 18 minutes, or 100 MegaWatts of power for 1 hour – handy bursts of electricity that will help get the state through any future blackouts.

The use of renewable energy in South Australia is a much-debated issue right now locally, with recent blackouts prompting new discussions over how the area should meet its energy needs in the years ahead.

Even Elon Musk has offered to lend a hand, saying that Tesla’s Powerwall 2 batteries could fix the reliability problems in a mere 100 days.

The company’s batteries are already storing energy for a huge number of communities across the globe; when the Sun sets or the winds drop, the energy stored in the batteries gets released.

The good news is that South Australia has an abundance of wind and sunshine that can be tapped to provide energy – the state is currently the country’s biggest user of renewable energy – but the supply isn’t constant all year round.

That’s where the new facility now being built in South Australia comes in. 

“At times of need, the battery could ensure the entire state does not face outages,” Lyon Group partner David Green told The Advertiser last year, when the plans were proposed.

The South Australian government says the new project is one of several in the pipeline designed to help it hit its target of doubling renewable energy output by 2020.

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An ambitious retrofit process

 This week has seen Carbon Brief publish analyses of the Department of Energy, Business and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) energy use. The subsequent news reports have been focused on the UK’s collapsing coal industry and the consequent impact on the environment. It has been reported that the use of coal fell by a record 50% in 2016, principally as a result of increased domestic carbon taxes. The result, a drop in carbon emissions to 19^th century lows. To provide some perspective, UK windfarms generated more power than coal in 2016 – a real feat for the renewable energy industry. However, even with the decline it has been suggested that carbon emissions were still 381 million tonnes.

As more gas and coal plants are decommissioned, the reliance on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is increasing. Energy storage technology will play a crucial role in the management of the demand for energy supplies in the UK and will contribute vastly to the reduction of the UK’s carbon emissions.

Store it or lose it

 Fundamentally, countries worldwide are actively making steps towards creating more energy efficient and yet cleaner cities. The UK is placing energy storage at the heart of its new Modern Industrial Strategy, due to its potential to support smart energy systems and the automotive sector. As the energy industry moves away from carbon-heavy production, the twin-approach of renewable energy and storage will be critical for delivering on the demand while securing the future of UK energy.

Energy storage has a central role to play in creating a new, evolved UK energy system and will make a significant contribution to decarbonising our energy supply as a whole. Falling costs of battery technology and the new opportunities opening up in this market mean that there is an ever-growing business case for investment in this area.

Storage systems can fulfil multiple roles within the energy market. Energy can be stored when prices are low and used on site when they are high to save consumers and businesses money on their bills. Given the potential of energy storage to stabilise energy supply during periods of high and low demand, suppliers and consumers would be ill-advised to ignore its significance.

Storage enables more renewable energy sources to be integrated into the UK’s overall power supply. This is in addition to helping to balance energy supply and demand more effectively and increasing energy security for an evolving power network.

The National Grid has made a significant move towards a future that embraces energy storage. By committing to support battery storage on a large scale, the increased investment will mean a reliable source of real-time energy to balance the entire grid.

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The energy market has evolved tenfold in recent years, from the way businesses facilitate and monitor usage to how electricity is sourced and supplied.

Technology has infiltrated the utilities market with smart monitoring systems and mobile battery packs, whilst climate change makes us more mindful of our energy choices with a move towards renewable sources. As consumers, this clearly illustrates that people are embracing the shifting energy landscape so why aren’t businesses along for the ride?

With power grids overrun with demand, businesses must play their role in alleviating some of that pressure, by taking the necessary steps to control their own power source particularly at times when demand might outweigh supply.

The falling cost of battery storage creates a timely opportunity to increase the use and grid parity of renewables, granting both commercial users and consumers better control over their energy usage and power bills. This in turn has the potential to strengthen and secure an ageing power grid in the UK.

Making an investment in commercial storage goes beyond a call to help save the environment – there are genuine business benefits which make battery storage systems a valid and feasible approach to storing and monitoring energy capacity on-site, which can provide a route to transformative change for both business and society as a whole.

Empowering businesses

On-site energy storage systems ultimately ensure the smooth running of a workplace. Their ability to enable commercial and industrial businesses to become more sustainable by controlling their power bills, supply risks via a backup power is the pinnacle of energy efficiency.

The most obvious benefit of battery storage though is its flexibility, making it an ideal complement to slower but higher-capacity stores of energy such as pumped hydro or natural gas reserves.

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Earlier this year, Tesla Motors changed their name to Tesla Inc. — a move that signified the company’s intent to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy.

Instead of focusing on just one aspect of ensuring a sustainable future, Tesla wants to ensure that it is able to make broad solutions available to the public. It has determined that transitioning to renewable energy and technology is the best way to accomplish this.

A big part of this grand plan is anchored on the company’s acquisition of the solar energy company SolarCity. Tesla’s purchase will allow it to provide its customers with more comprehensive services, said Kurt Kelty, senior director of Battery Technology at Tesla, who spoke at the International Battery Seminar after the company won Innovator of the Year. He said that his vision was that Tesla customers would be able to have Tesla’s electronic vehicles (EVs) in their garage, Tesla’s solar panels on their roofs, and Tesla’s batteries powering their devices.

“You have solar, battery pack, the EV, and you’ve got all the controls on your cell phone,” Kelty said at the seminar. “This is the kind of future we see for [your] house.”

Kelty explained that Tesla’s energy storage solution makes the brand a “one-stop shop… it’s all a well-integrated system and it just makes it that much easier for the customer to use.”

ELON MUSK’S GRAND PLAN

Tesla Inc. CEO, Elon Musk has always been very vocal about his grand plan to usher in a sustainable future. And Tesla’s pioneering legacy in car manufacturing is now lending itself to the development of Tesla’s energy storage technology — the Powerwalls and Powerpacks. Kelty described the rise of additional applications of these micro-grids in Hawaii and California.

“There are a lot of applications for the Powerpack that we’re just starting to explore,” Kelty said at the seminar. “We’re just starting to penetrate the market now, and the market potential is absolutely huge.”

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As we reported yesterday, Tesla’s energy division is about to ramp up quickly with the deployment of another 50 MW/200 MWh of Powerpack projects.

In a new and updated patent application, Tesla explains how these grid-tied projects are using its Powerpacks and inverters for what the company describes as a scalable “turnkey” solution.

Tesla first applied for this patent back in September 2015, a few months after it launched ‘Tesla Energy’, and it updated it and applied again a year later when it was working on the second generation of its Powerpack.

It was released publicly yesterday.

In the background of the application, Tesla explains why they focused on making the system “scalable and flexible”:

Various approaches for energy storage have been tried. Some batteries that are designed for large scale energy storage have smaller cells arranged in series and parallel. For example, some cells are arranged in parallel, and then that unit is arranged in parallel with another similar unit, and so on. This can require the system to have a disconnect and fuse, and to apply some management strategy that occurs at the high level. These systems can be configured so that they are paralleled at an electrical interface, which can make them complicated to parallel.

One problem with such approaches can be that when batteries are paralleled, one must match their voltage characteristics precisely because they in parallel electrically. This can significantly limit scalability of the system. For example, one may need to use very similar chemistry, or similar cells, or come up with particularized balancing strategies, to manage the different cells within their ranges of operating characteristics. Also, with regard to the individual cells, the system is in a sense limited by its weakest link. That is, if one cell malfunctions this typically renders the whole array of batteries out of service.

That’s why they came up with turning hundreds of cells into dozens of pods which in turn go into the actual ‘Powerpack”:

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Energy storage is on. CIT Bank will lead debt financing for 50 megawatts of battery storage in a project that represents a new way to manage electrical grids and renewable energy generation.

The storage projects were acquired last summer by Macquarie Group, a large infrastructure manager, from Advanced Microgrid Solutions, a San Francisco startup that is pioneering the use of banks of batteries to manage loads and reduce costs.

Cost-effective energy storage is key to the broad deployment of intermittent solar and wind power, and gives grid operators, such as Southern California Edison, reserve capacity to manage demand peaks.

SoCal Edison has a 10-year contract to buy power from the projects, which will also generate revenues from Cal State Long Beach and Irvine Co., where the battery banks will be installed.

Macquarie expects billions of dollars of energy storage financing deals in the next few years.

Advanced Microgrid is one of the biggest buyers of Tesla’s Powerpack 2 lithium-ion batteries and the two companies share an early investor, Nancy Pfund’s DBL Partners.

“The era of energy storage has begun,” declared Advanced Microgrid’s Susan Kennedy.

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Inspired by an American fern, researchers have developed a groundbreaking prototype that could be the answer to the storage challenge still holding solar back as a total energy solution.

The new type of electrode created by researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, could boost the capacity of existing integrable storage technologies by 3000 per cent.

But the graphene-based prototype also opens a new path to the development of flexible thin film all-in-one solar capture and storage, bringing us one step closer to self-powering smart phones, laptops, cars and buildings.

The new electrode is designed to work with supercapacitors, which can charge and discharge power much faster than conventional batteries. Supercapacitors have been combined with solar, but their wider use as a storage solution is restricted because of their limited capacity.

RMIT’s Professor Min Gu said the new design drew on nature’s own genius solution to the challenge of filling a space in the most efficient way possible — through intricate self-repeating patterns known as “fractals”.

“The leaves of the western swordfern are densely crammed with veins, making them extremely efficient for storing energy and transporting water around the plant,” said Gu, Leader of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence Nanophotonics and Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship at RMIT.

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