AES Distributed Energy, a unit of AES Corp., and Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) announced Jan. 10 the execution of a power purchase agreement for a plant that will provide solar energy together with the benefits of battery-based energy storage for optimal balancing of generation with peak demand.

The project consists of 28 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) and a 20 MW five-hour duration energy storage system. The system will be located on former sugar cane land between Lāwaʻi and Kōloa on Kauaʻi’s south shore. It will be the largest solar-plus-utility-scale-battery system in the state of Hawaii.

“We are honored that KIUC has selected AES to help meet their peak demand with a flexible and reliable renewable energy solution,” said Woody Rubin, president of AES Distributed Energy. “We are excited to be able to leverage AES’ energy storage platform, and 20 plus-year history in Hawai’i to help KIUC modernize the grid and provide additional value to its customers.”

“Energy from the project will be priced at 11 cents per kWh and will provide 11 percent of Kauaʻi’s electric generation, increasing KIUC’s renewable sourced generation to well over 50 percent,” said KIUC president and CEO David Bissell. “The project delivers power to the island’s electrical grid at significantly less than the current cost of oil-fired power and should help stabilize and even reduce electric rates to KIUC’s members. It is remarkable that we are able to obtain fixed pricing for dispatchable solar-based renewable energy, backed by a significant battery system, at about half the cost of what a basic direct to grid solar project cost a few years ago.”

Bissell estimates that the project will reduce KIUC’s fossil fuel usage by over 3.7 million gallons yearly. AES DE will be the long-term owner and operator of the project. The project is pending state and local regulatory approvals. If approved, it is expected to come on-line by late 2018.

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The pumped storage project being considered by San Diego could power more than 300,000 homes, while also helping add renewable energy to the grid in times of high demand. The project would also enhance the city’s efforts to run on 100% renewable energy by 2035. The Water Authority and the City of San Diego have a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, allowing the agencies to pursue the development near the San Vicente Reservoir.

“When we filled San Vicente Reservoir last summer, we filled it with more than just water – we filled it with huge potential for energy benefits,” Mark Muir, chair of the Water Authority Board of Directors, said in a statement last week. “Given this new potential for energy from a recently expanded water resource, it’s only prudent to continue to research the potential benefits to our region’s ratepayers.”

The project calls for creating a small reservoir above the existing San Vicente Reservoir, and a tunnel system and underground powerhouse to connect the two reservoirs. According to the city, the powerhouse would contain four 125 MW reversible pump-turbines to move water to the upper reservoir or generating power as it flows down during peak demand. In off-peak hours, water will be pumped into the upper reservoir, the city said in a description. 

Letters of interest are due Feb. 15. An estimated value on the project is not available yet, but further details on the solicitation can be found on the Water Authority’s contracting opportunities page here. 

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Energy storage is having an identity crisis in wholesale markets, and federal regulators are trying to fix it.

The question is simple: how do you define energy storage? For system operators, the answer is varied since storage can be categorized as generation, load or both.

To solve the conundrum, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opened a rulemaking for the nation’s six grid operators in order to make a place for energy storage in the markets.

As storage becomes cost-effective it can provide a litany of grid services and help alleviate concerns over the intermittency of renewable energy.

With that in mind, FERC opened a proceeding with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will amend its regulations to “to remove barriers to the participation of electric storage resources and distributed energy resource (DER) aggregations in the capacity, energy, and ancillary service markets.”

Wholesale electric markets were not designed to consider energy storage, but the FERC proceeding “might solve that problem,” Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research said at at a recent storage summit.

“The rules may not create the economic case,” he said. “But the potential is there to open the markets.”

The new tariffs must accomplish two things, according to the NOPR.

First, they must establish market rules that recognize “the physical and operational characteristics of electric storage resources” and allow them to participate in the wholesale electricity markets.

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Energy storage provider Alevo has appointed Peter Heintzelman as group CFO.

Heintzelman brings a wealth of international management and board level experience, having conducted strategic planning and successful financial management for major energy businesses around the world.

Heintzelman joins from T5 Oil & Gas, a privately-funded exploration and production firm, where his responsibilities as CFO included leading corporate and organic upstream transactions across Africa and the Middle East and maintaining a strong following in the financial markets. He brings over 25 years’ experience in the energy and energy investment banking sectors globally, with a background that includes Head of Energy roles with Standard Bank, and senior management positions at Halliburton and Enron.

“The battery storage market is poised to expand rapidly in 2017 and I am keen to be part of that process,” explained Heintzelman. “Alevo’s GridBank advanced battery technology and the high performance computing and analytics capabilities provided by Alevo Analytics are key differentiators for the company. It is clearly a successful and expanding business and I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”

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The year in energy storage started off with a bang as Italian utility Enel acquired a 100 percent stake in U.S.-based Demand Energy, a developer and operator of energy storage systems and software, for an undisclosed amount.

Enel’s renewables division operates 36 gigawatts of clean energy around the world. The North America subsidiary, which will control Demand Energy, has more than 100 plants spanning hydropower, wind, geothermal and solar energy, with a managed capacity of more than 2.8 gigawatts. That global portfolio now has become a ready and willing customer for Demand Energy’s storage and energy management software, named DEN.OS, for Distributed Energy Network Optimization System.

“Through this transaction, we will be able to greatly strengthen our position in the growing battery storage market with a complementary partner and innovator,” said Francesco Venturini, Enel’s head of global renewable energies, in a statement. “By combining our global presence and expertise in systems integration with Demand Energy’s software and established product offering, we will expand the development of renewables and storage both in the U.S. and globally, delivering a clean, reliable, high-tech and cost-effective energy solution.”

That’s not a bad outcome for the 30-person American startup with just 3 megawatts and 9 megawatt-hours of installed storage capacity under its belt. The goal now is to quickly scale Demand Energy’s resources and capabilities, said President and CEO Gregg Patterson.

“As we were looking at our options, Enel clearly stood out,” he said. “They have a monstrous renewables portfolio worldwide and they really wanted a dependable and capable software platform. We were looking for the ideal partner to scale and grow behind the meter, in front of the meter and in microgrids.”

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FORT DEVENS — These days we plug in everything: phones, flashlights, cameras — sometimes even our cars. We keep recharging them because, with electricity, you either “use it or lose it” unless you store power in a battery.

“The electric grid is the only supply chain in the world where you need to generate electricity and consume it at the exact same time,” says Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Judith Judson.

By 2020, DOER is requiring electric utilities in the state to procure large-scale storage systems for some of the electricity they generate. Just how much is yet to be decided. What technology they use is up to them.

Now, a novel liquid battery is potentially offering unlimited storage capacity.

Power From A ‘Goddess’

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you can see it by the truckload parked behind an Army Reserve building at Fort Devens. Inside, two 53-foot-long shipping containers are huge tanks filled with vanadium — the element named after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty.

“The vanadium, the beautiful part about it is the liquid changes color,” says Vionx Energy CEO David Vieau. “It’s like a rainbow goes through as you charge it. It changes. We can actually tell charge state by the color of the liquid.”

Vieau’s Woburn-based company has been testing a novel kind of battery at Devens for the military that stores energy in liquid form.

“This was an early system that the Army wanted to do to begin to understand from a microgrid standpoint how could they get an independent energy capability,” Vieau explains. “Could you get something that would allow them to get separated from the grid?”

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It’s unclear what’s ahead for federal policy on microgrids and distributed energy with the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C. But the Obama administration pushed the resources in its final energy blueprint issued last week.

“Transforming the Nation’s Electricity System,” the second installment of the Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Energy Review looks at the rapid technology overhaul on the grid and the challenges that result.

The 500-page report sets out 76 recommendations covering a broad range of energy issues. Specific to microgrids and distributed energy, they include:

Expanding federal programs to demonstrate the integration and optimization of distribution-system technologies

Significantly increasing federal research, develop and demonstration of clean electricity

Increasing federal support to help states value and incorporate the resources into their energy plans

The report points out ways the federal government can help microgrids and distributed energy from a technical, market and regulatory position.

For example, it recommends that a federal advisory committee look at ways to harmonize retail and wholesale electric rates. Among other things the committee would explore state and federal roles in pricing and operation of distributed energy, energy storage, and microgrids.

The report also points out a lack of organized commodity markets for distributed energy. This may change over time, the report says, and points to New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) as a possible model.

The report also calls for leveraging existing DOE programs to provide technical assistance in development of microgrids, distribution management systems, communications and sensors, energy storage and cybersecurity.

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A new energy demand response start-up is preparing to launch within weeks which will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to manage a portfolio of storage assets and provide real-time energy reserves to the grid.

Upside Energy’s Virtual Energy Store aims to relieve stress on the grid by using predictive algorithms to manage a number of distributed storage resources to reduce reliance on the spinning reserve capacity provided by traditional power stations.

The energy start-up’s cloud service currently coordinates batteries and other devices at around 40 sites but has the potential to manage thousands more across a broad portfolio of technologies, including small batteries within uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), electric vehicles and solar PV.

The company signed a firm frequency response (FFR) bridging contract with the National Grid in November and is currently qualifying its assets before officially launching its commercial service by early March.

Upside will begin by providing initial service to large batteries at Sheffield and Manchester Universities before seeking to take advantage of National Grid’s decision to lower the minimum entry point for its main frequency response tendering market from 10MW to 1MW from April.

The company will seek to build its access to batteries and other smart devices, such as home storage, intelligent hot water tanks or businesses’ reserve power supplies, by offering a second revenue stream in the form of frequency response.

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Lithium mining and extraction companies have made several recent high profile moves to increase their production of the metal, which is used to make the batteries in many stationary energy storage systems and EVs.

This includes the acquisition of a lithium mining operation in Nevada, US, home of Tesla’s Gigafactory, by Toronto Venture Stock Exchange (TSX-V) -listed LiCo Energy Metals, which has also signalled its intent to acquire exploitation concessions for lithium in Chile. Meanwhile, US-headquartered Albemarle Corporation, which owns the only existing lithium mine in the US – also in Nevada – announced that it too is seeking a big win in Chile, striking a deal to increase its lithium production from an existing facility.

LiCo Energy Metals announced on Friday that it had brokered a deal, subject to stock exchange approval, with exploration company Nevada Energy Metals, for 199 placer claims in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. LiCo would earn an undivided 70% interest, while paying a 3% net smelter return royalty to Nevada Energy Metals. LiCo will pay the exploration company the sum of US$170,000 and issue it with 1.5 million shares upon approval by TSX-V. Then in the first year of the deal it would give Nevada Energy Metals another 1.5 million shares and then the same amount again in the second year. Before the third year LiCo will pay out a US$1,250,000 work commitment as well as paying a cash finder’s fee of US$75,000.

The Black Rock site covers about 2,000 square kilometres. The area in question contains lithium values “well below those of producing lithium brines”, but do represent a “significant source of metal available for evaporative concentration,” LiCo said. 

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