BOULDER, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A new report from Navigant Research examines global energy storage projects, providing a database of more than 1,200 projects encompassing more than 43,000 individual systems, with an analysis of regional technology choices and market shares.

Market activity in the energy storage sector continues to grow, with new project announcements occurring routinely and industry players exploring innovative business cases to make energy storage systems (ESSs) profitable. Nearly two gigawatts (GW) of new ESSs have been announced in 2016 so far, and several projects have reached commercial operation this quarter alone. Click to tweet: According to a new report from @NavigantRSRCH, lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries remain the leading energy storage technology for new projects worldwide (excluding pumped hydro storage), accounting for 83 percent of newly announced ESS capacity through 3Q 2016.

“While Li-ion leads in terms of technology, distributed energy storage systems (DESSs) are becoming increasingly popular in several regions, accounting for around 14 percent of new system capacity announced in 2016—the highest percentage of any year on record,” says Ian McClenny, research associate with Navigant Research. “DESSs are generally much smaller than utility-scale systems and are expected to thrive as they become more cost-effective and productized, leading to more streamlined installation and opening new markets.”

Projects using flow batteries and hybrid battery systems are also becoming more popular, according to the report. These systems are advantageous in that they can provide multiple services to the grid based on dynamic conditions and specific requirements.

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The European-funded project will allow participating homes to store excess solar energy in either batteries or hot water tanks for use in the evenings.

Energy storage technology means less reliance on the grid, creating more sustainable communities. The project will also research the issues and parameters of community energy schemes that sell and share self-generated energy from homes in the project.

It will use ‘communal batteries’ as part of this, located in the area’s schools.

Some 37 homes from across the neighbourhood will take part in the project, and 22 of these will receive technology that will allow them to use significantly more of their clean green energy generated from their own solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Installation begins early 2017.

This innovative project, SENSIBLE, which aims to show positive ways to reduce fuel poverty, is led by The University of Nottingham and MOZES, the Meadow’s ‘Community Energy Group’.

The Meadows is an ideal community to trial the technology as it has a large proportion of houses across different tenures, housing types and ages and socio-economic groups installed with solar PV panels following the receipt of a Department of Environment and Climate Change grant in 2010 which made it one of 11 UK Low Carbon Communities.

Its residents are therefore relatively used to ‘test’ initiatives regarding energy and efficiency because of this and the related work MOZES does within the community. This range of demographics relating to how and when electrical energy is used in The Meadows will go on to help the SENSIBLE researchers to draw more accurate conclusions from the gathered data.

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The first energy storage project in the Midcontinent ISO is up and running, but it is not being compensated for the services it is providing in the MISO footprint.

Indianapolis Power & Light’s 20 MW, 20 MWh Harding Street storage facility went into service in May, but as valuable as those batteries may be, there is no regulatory path for IPL to get paid.

IPL is working on that problem, but it could be a heavy lift.

Late last month, IPL filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking the regulator to find that MISO’s rules for energy storage are deficient and should be revised.

The fast track complaint seeks three changes. IPL wants to see MISO revise its tariff for primary frequency regulation (PFR) by unbundling it and paying locational marginal prices (LMP) for the service under its own schedule. Because it is an automated function, current rules do not consider PFR to be a market operation because there is no bid and dispatch function.

The utility also wants MISO to revise its dispatch protocols for secondary frequency control. As currently designed, lithium-ion batteries wanting to participate in the MISO market would be forced to operate in a way that would degrade their batteries quicker than usual.

Those protocols were designed for flywheel storage devices, but forcing li-ion batteries to provide one hour of injection and one hour of withdrawal prevents batteries from “being used in the most valuable manner,” the filing says.

Cell life of the Harding Street battery would be reduced to three years, instead of the 10 years if it were cycled properly, IPL argues. IPL also wants to be paid, not charged, the LMP when withdrawing power from the grid in response to frequency deviations.

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Battery manufacturer and developer NEC Energy Solutions is to supply Southern California Edison (SCE) with its first grid energy storage pilot system under a procurement programme established last year.

The NEC ES GSS grid storage solution is a ‘plug-and-play’ procurement strategy being used by the Californian utility to pilot energy storage as a grid stabilising solution. It allows SCE to employ energy storage with a variety of features and configurations on-demand and could be installed almost anywhere across the state to support SCE pilot programmes.

The first storage system delivered under the procurement programme will include 3.4MWh of containerised lithium-ion batteries, a 3MW power conversion system and NEC Energy Solution’s software controls.

The energy storage system will be installed to prevent conventional grid upgrades that are becoming increasingly challenging, particularly in dense urban environments such as those found in SCE service territory. NEC Energy will also provide service and maintenance offerings to the utility for the upkeep of the energy storage system.

“Commercialisation of energy storage in a way that allows quick and easy procurement has always been a goal of ours,” said Bud Collins, CEO, NEC Energy Solutions, in a statement. “We worked extensively with SCE on this innovative programme to make energy storage transactional while ensuring safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the technology. Programmes like this will make energy storage – a fast, flexible, clean, and dispatchable resource – an integral part of the grid.”

Recently, SCE and GE announced that they plan to install the world’s first battery storage and gas turbine hybrid. SCE is one of California’s three investor owned utilities that make up around 75% of the state’s electricity supply andare bound by AB2514, the mandate that orders the utilities to put 1.3GW of energy storage on the grid by 2020.

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Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has big plans for the first Gigafactory. The battery factory will have 35 GWh of annual production capacity and the capability to assemble another 15 GWh of battery packs each year, bringing the total annual capacity to an astounding 50 GWh of finished products. That will be more than enough to supply batteries for the company’s stated goal of 500,000 electric vehicles, so the additional capacity is being dedicated to a growing portfolio of stationary energy storage products for home (Powerwall) and utility (Powerpack) customers.

The energy storage market is still in its infancy today, as technologies mature and companies iterate business models that work as seamlessly as possible within the complicated ecosystem of power distribution. While the economics work only for a small niche of individual customers, Musk is hoping that an integrated Tesla Powerwall plus solar panels from SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY) will generate more interest and value over time. The economics are slightly easier for utility-scale deployment of Powerpacks in the near term, but only after state and federal incentive programs are factored in. Success in the nascent industry is more difficult to achieve than it looks.

Some speculate that Tesla is willing to take on short-term pain to grow market share, establish relationships with key customers, and build its brand. That, the argument goes, should position the company for long-term success as battery prices fall and the kinks are ironed out of financing models. After all, Tesla has substantially more capital to deploy than nearly all other energy storage manufacturers and wields the largest battery manufacturing facility on Earth. 

There’s just one problem: Lithium-ion batteries probably aren’t the future of home or grid energy storage. Although capital and a Gigafactory provide Tesla with a formidable competitive advantage today, that could evaporate in the next decade as the energy storage market becomes segregated by application.

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Microgrids and energy storage can help U.S. states assure energy supply during disasters, according to two papers recently issued by the National Governors Association (NGA).

The papers emerged from an effort NGA undertook last year to identify best energy practices that have emerged from Superstorm Sandy.

A six-state team studied lessons learned from New Jersey after being pummeled by the storm in 2012. The teams, from Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, then went on to create action items to guide their own state efforts.

The action items are described in the paper, “Improving State Coordination for Energy Assurance Planning and Response.”

Among other things, the states are exploring the feasibility of using microgrids and other forms of distributed energy resources, creating robust energy plans, improving utility/government communications, and cataloging critical energy assets.

For example, Rhode Island is working to identify microgrid sites as part of a statewide program, according to the report. The New England state is funding the microgrid effort with a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

The report also noted that as a result of Sandy, NJ Transit is developing a microgrid to power the transit system during outages, NJ Transit, the nation’s third largest provider of bus, rail and light rail transit, is partnering on the project with New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU), the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Transit Administration.

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We knew the Mercedes-Benz residential battery would be coming to the shores of America in early 2017. Now we know it will arrive with a whole new company.

Parent company Daimler AG has created Mercedes-Benz Energy Americas, LLC to sell stationary storage of all sizes to the U.S. market. Like Tesla, this is a car company that developed electric vehicles (EVs) and then put its battery expertise to work in a stationary storage product.

The Mercedes home batteries will also go head-to-head with fellow German emigrant Sonnen, a competition made all the more personal because Daimler hired Sonnen’s former U.S. CEO, Boris von Bormann, to lead the effort. After three years of working on Sonnen’s U.S. entrance, he’s learned about the American appetite for storage and how to market to it, and now combines that experience with the resources and reputation of Mercedes-Benz.

Energy Americas will act as the U.S. counterpart to Germany’s Mercedes-Benz Energy GmbH. Both companies develop and sell batteries made by Daimler’s wholly owned subsidiary Deutsche Accumotive. This company has been manufacturing lithium-ion battery systems for Mercedes-Benz electric cars, so the batteries have seen rigorous testing and are built for much more intensive use than most stationary systems ever see.

Mercedes isn’t just dipping its tires into the electric mobility craze. By 2025, the company wants to sell 10 or more EV models, and it’s investing 1 billion euros in scaling its battery production capacity. The company has bigger ideas than just cars, too — it’s envisioning an “electric mobility ecosystem” including automation, ride-sharing and home improvements like battery storage and EV chargers.

The residential market will be an early focus for the fledgling U.S. enterprise. The metallic gray modular system looks like a home appliance, stacks from 2.5 kilowatt-hours up to 20 kilowatt-hours and comes with a 10-year warranty. That goes on sale the first quarter of next year, as will larger commercial packages. Mercedes is looking for channel partners to distribute and install the systems.

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The optimism in the energy storage industry is based on soaring demand, rapid technological advances, expanding capacity and, for some, what will likely be a scary competitive environment.

First, the good news. Lithium ion battery packs over the last ten years have declined faster than the cost of solar, said John Carrington, CEO of Stem, which makes behind-the-meter storage systems for hotels and other commercial customers looking to shave peak power costs, during a hallway meeting at Finance West sponsored by the American Council of Renewable Energy this week.

Solar panels have declined by 50% or more in the last five years. Batteries have declined by 80% in three years, he said. Battery packs hit the under $300 per kilowatt hour mark last December, Carrington added. By 2020, battery pack prices could drop to $190 per kilowatt hour. (In 2007, lithium ion battery packs in the wholesale markets sold for around $1,000 per kilowatt hour.)

The volumes of batteries shipped at the same time is expected to grow by 6x 2025, he added, citing a Goldman Sachs report, fueled in part by the rapid adoption  of solar, wind and microgrids. Stem has approximately 75MWh under management. Stem doesn’t generally sell batteries: it installs them at commercial sites and charges a subscription fee based on a formula that takes into consideration the cost of power minus rebates and fees received from utilities for grid balancing. Everybody wins.

Goldman Sachs also predicts energy density will increase from 200 watt hours per kilogram to 500 Wh/kg by 2025 before the still experimental solid-state batteries take over for lithium ion.

Declining prices, improving technology and growing demand—what could go wrong?

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