Energy storage systems (ESS) are growing in importance as renewable energy sources like wind power, wave power and solar are being commissioned and connected to the grid at an ever-increasing rate. Energy Storage Systems are needed to help the grid deal with the instability and unpredictability of such power generation systems and match them to equally variable consumer demand. 

In the UK, renewables currently produce over 20% of the country’s electricity and this is likely to exceed 30% by 2020. The current installed capacity is in the region of nine gigawatts indicating the nation’s reliance on more environmentally friendly forms of energy generation into the future.

Battery-based systems are rapidly gaining market share for use as ESSs and gaining acceptance due to advances in their design. Other energy storage approaches can use a range of media, including compressed air, pumped hydro and flywheel. Properly packaged, battery-based systems offer advantages in transportability and size. Advances in battery design and construction have helped manufacturers improve efficiency and lifespan, as well as enhance safety of these systems. 

The configuration of batteries and the set-up of the system can bring a variety of benefits to grid quality. Some configurations are useful for rapid response short-term discharge to maintain grid frequency stability and power quality, others meanwhile can supply a longer duration output to perform load balancing and peak shaving, or even backup power on a microgrid. 

The technical capabilities and benefits of a battery energy storage system (BESS) can address multiple aspects of power quality and storage.

Frequency regulation – Because utilities must maintain their output within a narrow frequency range, this is a common application for a Power Conversion System (PCS)/BESS. High demand can cause a slight drop in frequency, especially on systems of lower capacity. A BESS can compensate for peak loading with a high-energy discharge through the PCS within a second.

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Tesla-SolarCity could become an energy equivalent to an Uber or AirBnB, with a merger between the two creating “an integrated sustainable energy company, which does not own any centralised generation assets”, one expert has commented.

Julian Jansen, analyst and energy storage research manager at Delta Energy & Environment (Delta EE), spoke to Energy-Storage.News about an investor presentation issued by Tesla ahead of the merger talks, which go to a shareholder vote on 17 November.

Tesla, led by CEO and chief product architect Elon Musk, and SolarCity, headed up by Musk’s cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive – CEO and CTO respectively – are seeking to become an integrated provider of electric vehicles, rooftop solar, battery energy storage and now also BIPV solar roof tiles.

At last week’s launch event for the solar roof tiles, Musk also launched Powerwall 2, with an increased 14kWh of storage capacity and a new look. The unveiling of the updated home storage system which will retail at US$5,500, followed the lower key announcement via Tesla’s official blog of the new generation of Powerpack commercial, industrial and utility-scale batteries.

Delta EE’s Jansen said that the unification of Tesla and SolarCity follows the path of convergence seen between energy storage and solar over the past couple of years and the acquisition “is really part of the wider transformation of the energy system”. While it was somewhat novel for an energy storage manufacturer to move into solar through acquisition, there are plenty of examples of other big companies moving from solar PV, automobiles or energy into energy storage, such as Panasonic, Mercedes-Benz and Total.

Jansen said therefore that the new entity created by a potential merger would be in some ways analogous to taxi app Uber, which hires out drivers and their cars rather than owning its own fleet of cars.

“It’s not hard to imagine Tesla evolving into a company that provides new energy solutions for different customers groups, connecting customers and aggregating loads and distributed generation, as well as providing flexibility to the system,” Jansen said.

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When it comes to the future of the solar power industry, some trends have built up enough momentum to be pretty close to inevitable — including the continuing importance of operational cost reductions, the escalating need for storage, and the ongoing development of microgrids, to name just a few. 

These and other important trends in the solar industry are on the radar of the China-based string inverter manufacturer Huawei. 

The quest to push costs down

Already, it’s possible to see the vital role string inverters are playing in boosting solar’s continuing growth — particularly when it comes to driving down costs so that solar can compete with and ultimately replace fossil fuel generation.

“The future trend of the solar plant will be a higher level of reliability and lower operational costs,” said James (Yuyu) Qiao, vice president of operations and product solutions for Huawei Smart PV Solutions North America.

String inverters help with both.

Lower operating costs are directly related to improved reliability, which Qiao notes is a function of both string inverters’ higher reliability design and the evolution toward a distributed solar plant architecture.

Having a multitude of string inverters instead of a few central inverters means solar plant operators are not as susceptible to failure-related downtime. Indeed, if a string inverter at a solar plant stops working, it has only a small impact on generation because only a very limited number of panels are affected.

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Energy storage company Younicos has signed an agreement with strategic partner Panasonic to design and build a solar-plus-storage system at Peña Station NEXT in Denver, Colorado, which includes the operations hub for Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Co. and Panasonic CityNOW.

The system will make use of multiple Younicos Y.Cubes, the “energy storage-in-a-box” solution for C&I applications from the German-American industry pioneer.

The project calls for four Y.Cubes to be installed at the Panasonic facility in Denver, Colorado. The 1 MW storage resource, which will be connected to the Xcel Energy power grid, will provide frequency regulation, solar grid integration through ramp control, grid peak shaving, passive energy arbitrage, and backup power – enabled by Younicos’s Y.Q storage control software.

This multi-mode operating capability will enable Panasonic, Xcel Energy, and other microgrid stakeholders to derive maximum benefits from Xcel Energy’s 1.6 MW solar PV system sited on a parking structure nearby, along with 259 kW of PV on the building’s rooftop.

“The solar-plus-storage microgrid is an anchor, not just of Panasonic’s new Denver operations hub, but also for the broader Peña Station NEXT development, which is a 400-acre, smart and sustainable transit-oriented development in Denver,” said Jamie Evans, managing director of the Energy Solutions Group at Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company. “We are excited to partner with Younicos and Xcel Energy to bring this innovative project to life.”

“We’re very pleased to work with Panasonic on this project, which highlights the advantages of our plug-and-play Y.Cube system for commercial and industrial use cases,” said Stephen Prince, Younicos CEO. “Like Younicos, Panasonic is a technology leader with a strong focus on the benefits of solar-plus-storage for different applications. They and the local grid will benefit enormously from this resource.”

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Tesla’s unveiling of its new Powerwall 2 battery with a built-in AC inverter — along with some upcoming solar roof tile products — takes a leaf from the Apple playbook of vertical integration. It’s the latest step on a corporate path, including the imminent merger with SolarCity, that moves Tesla closer to being a vertically integrated provider of energy solutions.

As with the Apple product ecosystem, this aims to establish Tesla as a single entry point for energy generation and storage systems in the home environment. Tesla has both the name and the resources to become a strong player in this realm.

AU Editor’s Note: Simon Hackett is the executive chairman of Redflow, an Australian battery energy storage company that builds battery systems for residential, commercial and industrial use. Previously the founder of Internode, Hackett also sat on the board of the NBN between 2013 and 2016.

This article was originally published on his website.

Tesla’s vertical stance contrasts with the ‘horizontal’ orientation of the rest of the industry — a commercial ecosystem that offers choice at all layers of the energy storage system, using standardised interfaces to allow mix-and-match assembly of devices in the solution ‘stack’.

Tesla’s evolving approach stands to put it into direct opposition to former allies — both existing inverter/charger vendors that may be cut out of the Tesla solution set and experienced energy system installers, who may see the presence of hardware ‘handymen’ installing generic/entry-level solutions to often complex underlying energy management problems.

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All grid operators know their job is a balancing act, a case of managing supply and demand as efficiently as possible.

But grid operators also know the current trends in global energy generation – rising levels of renewables on the grid, rapidly falling rates of conventional power plant construction – pose a significant challenge to the grid equilibrium they work so diligently to maintain.

Operators are under pressure – particularly those managing ageing grids in America, Canada and the UK – to find a cost-effective way to handle the growing intermittency and volatility of a renewables-reliant grid, and are in turn latching on to utility scale energy storage as the answer.

The sector is forecast to enjoy stellar growth over the next four years, with Navigant Research predicting a compound annual growth rate of 48 per cent between 2016 and 2020.

Leclanché is one of the companies getting a slice of the action. At the beginning of this year the Swiss energy storage firm announced it would supply one of the largest grid ancillary services projects in North America – a 13MW, 53MWh system for Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator.

And yesterday it announced its second North American venture – a 20MW/ 10MWh grid-scale storage project in the US region overseen by PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission operator covering states from Michigan to North Carolina, which is in charge of delivering electricity to a population the size of Germany.

The Marengo Energy Storage Plant, Leclanché’s first US project, will provide real-time frequency regulation services to PJM in the Chicago area, helping to stabilise the grid as it handles the electricity load from conventional power stations and intermittent renewable sources.

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Battery technologies starting to disrupt the electricity and automobile industries may also emerge as a trillion-dollar threat to credit markets, according to Fitch Ratings.

A quarter of outstanding global corporate debt, or as much as $3.4 trillion, is linked to the utility- and auto-industry bonds that rely on fossil fuel activities, the ratings agency wrote in a report published Tuesday.

Batteries have the potential to “tip the oil market from growth to contraction earlier than anticipated,” according to Fitch. “The narrative of oil’s decline is well rehearsed — and if it starts to play out there is a risk that capital will act long before” and in the worst case result in an “investor death spiral.”

While hybrid and battery-only cars are making slow progress in denting sales of gasoline and diesel-driven vehicles, their growth trajectory may be grossly underestimated, said the authors of the study. The clean-energy research unit of Bloomberg LP estimates that battery-electric vehicles, which only run on power from a plug, will displace 13 million barrels of oil a day by 2040.

Mapping out the full effect of battery technologies on the fossil fuel economy currently exceeds the time frame of rating methodologies, according to Fitch. It advised utilities to lower their risk by diversifying into clean energy technologies.

“Diversification will help guard against the risk that the markets turn against” the oil economy,” Fitch wrote.

Battery prices fell 35 percent last year and are on a trajectory to make electric vehicles as affordable as their gasoline counterparts over the next six years, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 

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Tesla’s new Powerwall 2 is part of Tesla Energy, the company’s new comprehensive approach to green, all-electric power delivery. The updated home energy storage product is similar to the last one, in that it’s a large, rectangular (now with more rectangularity) device designed to live on a wall in your home (likely in the garage or somewhere similar) – but the big differences are on the inside.

The Powerwall 2.0 has more than twice the energy storage capacity of the original version with 14 kWh capacity. Over double the capacity means double the ability to keep your home humming with guilt-free electric power, culled from the new solar roof offering for private homes that Tesla also unveiled today. Musk said that the Powerwall 2 has enough power to charge lights, sockets and refrigerator for a standard 4 bedroom home for an entire day.

The new flatter design and more angular look, and will be available for $5,500 per unit. Improving supply for power storage has been one of Musk’s key goals with Tesla recently, and it’s clear it wants to do even more with Powerwall 2.

Production for Powerwall 2 begins in the next few weeks, and then installations will start in early December, according to Tesla.

In a Q&A following the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that they full “expect to sell more Powerwalls than cars,” since the product has so much appeal in parts of the world where power isn’t reliable, or widespread, or is very expensive.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 28, 2016 /3BL Media/ – Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has installed its GridStar™ Lithium energy storage system at the company’s Syracuse, New York, facility. The 1 MW system will reduce electricity bills and emissions for Lockheed Martin’s operations and will also provide services to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the state’s competitive wholesale electricity operator. ENGIE, a global independent power producer and energy services provider, will operate the system and dispatch the power.

“We provide turn-key energy storage solutions for a variety of utilities, independent power producers, commercial and industrial customers and developers,” said Frank Armijo, vice president of Lockheed Martin Energy.  “As we provide customers with advanced energy solutions, we’re pleased also to implement them at our own facilities to further our affordability and sustainability goals.”

System Capabilities
Lockheed Martin Energy used the company’s advanced project analytics capabilities to design the installation.  The project deploys Lockheed Martin’s compact, easy-to-install GridStar™ fully integrated Lithium energy storage system.

Lockheed Martin and ENGIE integrated the GridStar™ system with ENGIE’s energy storage operating software to achieve a multi-functional application of energy storage.  

“This project is a great opportunity to combine multiple capabilities in the growing market for decentralized energy management,” said Jason Goodhand, director of energy storage for ENGIE North America. “By pairing Lockheed Martin’s system with our Green Charge subsidiary’s advanced, patented software as well as ENGIE’s experience in scheduling and dispatching power, we bring together a powerful solution that supports Lockheed Martin’s goals and enhances the flexibility and resiliency of the broader power grid of the New York ISO.”

The Lockheed Martin GridStar™ Lithium architecture consists of modular, scalable, purpose-built energy storage units that contain batteries, local-controls software and all required balance-of-system components. Each GridStar™ energy storage unit can be configured to provide up to 375 kW of power and up to 600 kWh of energy storage. These units can be AC coupled together to scale to multi-MW projects.  Systems also come with extended warranty and long-term maintenance options.

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One of the nation’s leading residential solar companies has teamed up with the world’s largest automotive battery supplier to provide energy storage for homes.

San Francisco-based Sunrun Inc., which bills itself as the largest dedicated residential solar company in the country, said Wednesday it will offer LG Chem’s energy-storage technology. Sunrun will offer lithium-ion batteries as part of its BrightBox solar generation plus energy storage systems.

BrightBox is available only to residential customers in Hawaii and is expected in more states in coming months, although Sunrun did not give a time frame.

“The energy-storage market is advancing at a breakneck pace,” Michael Grasso, Sunrun’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement. “We are enabling a home energy management service that integrates rooftop solar generation with onsite energy storage.”

Wonjoon Suh, a global marketing department leader for LG Chem, said the partnership will produce a product at the forefront of solar and storage technologies. 

“Sunrun understands the importance of giving consumers control of their energy by integrating storage with solar,” Suh said.

LG Chem is Korea’s largest diversified chemical company. It operates three main business units: petrochemicals, IT & electronic materials and energy solutions.

Solar panel companies increasingly have been creating partnerships with storage companies to offer similar products, including through such mergers as battery maker Tesla Motors and SolarCity.

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