One of the top electric vehicle charging station firms in the US, EVgo, has won an Energy Storage North America 2016 Innovation Award for its Stationary Storage + Electric Charging (SSPEC) project, according to an email sent to CleanTechnica.

To explain, the EVgo SSPEC project was created to help develop ways of lowering the cost and immediate power demand of electric vehicle (EV) charging to host facilities. To be more specific, it explores the incorporation of energy storage with DC Fast Charging infrastructure.

The project used 4 BMW Group 2nd-life batteries taken from retired test fleet EVs. The batteries were used alongside a solar photovoltaic (PV) system and intelligent site power control.

“DC Fast Charging plus storage presents an exciting opportunity for drivers and charging companies alike,” stated Terry O’Day, Vice President, Product Strategy and Market Development at EVgo. “This project has the potential to shortcut some of the barriers facilities face when looking to install DC Fast Charging stations by reducing operating costs, improving charging service and convenience for EV drivers, and ultimately can help to put more electric vehicles on the road.”

The email provides more information: “For the SSPEC project, EVgo partnered with the University of California San Diego, which is recognized as one of the top 15 research universities worldwide and operates what is considered one of the world’s most advanced microgrids. EVgo worked with UC San Diego to locate a demonstration site on the campus microgrid that would also ensure the stations would be accessible to the public and which results in the chargers serving over 100 drivers per week. The project is part of the CPUC Technology Demonstration Program, a program designed to help demonstrate the benefits of energy storage coupled with public DC Fast Charging stations.”

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A boom in desalination could create new opportunities for energy storage as developers seek to maximize output from assets powered by wind or solar.

“As soon as solar-plus-storage can compete with [traditional] generation prices, there will be a huge market,” said Thomas Hillig, managing director of Dr. Thomas Hillig Energy Consulting, a consultancy focused on off-grid energy markets.

“It’s pretty important to have high utilization, because the desalination equipment is very capital-intensive. After having done the investment, they want to run it as intensely as possible. If we go off-grid, there has to be storage because utilization has to be high.”

Currently the market for energy storage attached to desalination plants is still in its infancy because of the cost of batteries. With most desalination projects, “You pretty much have the choice of where to put them,” Hillig noted.

In such cases, developers will naturally tend to choose locations where energy is cheap and plentiful. Thus, for the vast majority of desalination plants today, solar-plus-storage is still “not feasible. It’s a nice concept; a market of the future,” he said. 

But the picture is changing as demand for desalination grows and solar-plus-storage becomes more competitive. Currently, desalination serves around 1 percent of the global population, or almost 746 million people.

But desalination capacity increased 57 percent between 2008 and 2013, according the market research organization Global Water Intelligence (GWI) and the International Desalination Association.

GWI said desalination could be needed for up to 14 percent of the world population by 2025, based on United Nations figures for water scarcity. Renewable energy is already being considered as the power source of choice for many new desalination projects.

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Lockheed Martin has implemented an energy storage system at the company’s facility in Syracuse, New York, and selected electric utility firm ENGIE to support operation of the system.

The GridStar lithium storage is designed to help Lockheed reduce power consumption and carbon emissions as well as to provide energy supply to the New York Independent System Operator, Lockheed said Wednesday.

Lockheed’s energy business designed the installation using project analytics tools and ENGIE-made energy storage operating software.

Frank Armijo, vice president of Lockheed’s energy unit, said the company provides turnkey energy storage services to various utilities, independent power producers, commercial and industrial customers and developers in efforts to help clients meet sustainability goals.

GridStar comprises modular, scalable, purpose-built energy storage units and each  storage unit is designed to generate up to 375 kilowatts of power and store up to 600 kilowatt hours of energy.

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Energy storage company Doosan GridTech has won its first project in the US.

The deal will see the US-based firm supply advanced energy storage solutions for solar power generation to the Kingsbury substation, which is operated by Texas utility Austin Energy.

The contract marks the company’s first order since South Korea‘s Doosan Group acquired US-based storage software solutions provider 1Energy Systems three months ago and changed its name to Doosan GridTech, which is now part of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

Doosan GridTech chief executive Dae-jin Choi said: “The global energy storage systems  market is projected to grow exponentially at an average annual rate exceeding 20 per cent.

“Doosan will increase the competitiveness of its integrated solutions by banking on its advanced software technologies, and will be supplying more of its energy-efficient storage system solutions in the North American region.”

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction entered the energy storage and microgrid market in September 2015 when it won a contract to supply a 2.4 MW storage solution to the Korea Power Exchange.

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NEC Energy Solutions, a unit of NEC Corp., announced that it is supplying the Sterling Municipal Light Department of Sterling, Massachusetts with a 2 MW, 3.9 MWh GSS grid energy storage solution.

Once complete in December of this year, it will be the largest battery-based energy storage system installed in New England and the first utility scale project in Massachusetts.

It will improve grid resiliency against weather-related power outages, while providing enhanced clean energy usage and cost savings to the town of Sterling. Town, State and NEC ES officials commemorated the project today in an official groundbreaking ceremony.

To reduce Sterling’s carbon footprint, SMLD has been installing large amounts of photovoltaic solar and is currently ranked seventh in the nation in installed PV per capita. However, SMLD desired greater resiliency and further modernization of its grid.

The energy storage system will work in conjunction with the overall installed base of PV solar to provide the needed energy resiliency, particularly to critical town departments such as police, dispatch, and fire service.

It will also provide transmission capacity charge savings from reducing peak demand, which will deliver energy cost saving benefits to the community. NEC ES is providing its turn-key GSS energy storage solution which includes a single 53’ container housing 3.9MWh of lithium ion batteries, a 2MW power conversion system, and proprietary NEC ES AEROS controls software suite. NEC ES will also provide service and maintenance packages to SMLD for the GSS energy storage installation.

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In the concluding chapter for the World Energy Council’s World Energy Resources 2016report, DNV GL asserts that energy storage is playing an increasingly crucial role in the transformation to a cleaner, smarter, safer energy future worldwide.

“Energy storage is pivotal to meeting the challenges facing economies worldwide,” says Paul Gardner, lead author. “With this chapter, which follows sections on a variety of generation resources and technologies, we hope to present the challenges and opportunities in energy storage with a thorough examination of the economic, regulatory and commercial factors surrounding it.”

The chapter examines technical, financial, environmental and regulatory aspects of a variety of energy storage technologies including lithium-ion and flow batteries. It looks at the impact of increasing amounts of battery storage, and battery capacity in electric vehicles. Graphs depict storage technologies according to performance characteristics, using energy capacity and discharge time at rated power. Information gathered directly by PwC shows the levelised cost of storage in 2015 compared to the cost of 2030 in a bar graph, showing a projected decrease in future prices.  The chapter develops three major conclusions:

1. The main areas of growth in the next five years are likely to be in small-scale battery storage in conjunction with solar PV; in utility-scale electricity storage; in electric vehicles; in commercial, communications and software capabilities to allow DER to be aggregated, in a ‘virtual power plant’ or ‘swarm’; in pumped storage hydro; and in islanded use cases integrating renewables.
2. Most commercial interest is in battery storage and the costs of several storage technologies will fall as production volumes increase.
3. The future outlook for energy storage markets is good due to an increasing need, but the regulatory and legal frameworks are failing to keep pace.

According to the World Energy Council, the investment community has good reason to be excited about the innovation and business models that will emerge from new opportunities. With the cost of capturing and storing wind and solar energy coming down, its deployment across the world will increase.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — 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,” saidJason 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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Eos Energy Storage, the startup that’s attracted utility interest from around the world in its low-cost, zinc-based batteries, is raising money to build more of them, and to get those units out in the field. Deployments are needed to prove the company’s bold claims of multi-hour, long-lasting energy storage at a cost of $160 per kilowatt-hour.

On Tuesday, Eos announced the initial closing of a sale in a private placement of approximately $23 million. The New York-based startup previously raised $23 million in May 2015 in a round led by AltEnergy, and about $27 million in two previous funding rounds from investors including OCI, NRG Energy and Fisher Brothers.

The money will fund the scale-up of contract manufacturing and commercial deployment of its Eos Aurora batteries. These cargo-container-sized, 1-megawatt, 4-megawatt-hour units use cathodes made from zinc, a much cheaper metal than lithium, but one that’s proven to be a challenge for rechargeable batteries.

Eos says it’s solved these problems through a proprietary coating that reduces corrosion over multiple charge-discharge cycles, as well as other materials and design improvements, to yield a battery with 75 percent round-trip efficiency and a 10,000-cycle, or 30-year, lifetime.

As for price, the company has long been targeting $160 per kilowatt-hour, which is about half the cost of the cheapest lithium-ion batteries on the market — although lithium-ion’s massive manufacturing base is sure to drive down those prices in the years to come.

Eos’ batteries sacrifice round-trip efficiency in comparison to lithium-ion, which is in the 90 percent range. But they have a better profile for multi-hour discharge cycles, particularly in the 4- to 6-hour range, where lithium-ion batteries really struggle.

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SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwired – Oct 18, 2016) – Energy Storage North America (ESNA), the largest gathering of policy, technology and market leaders in energy storage, concluded its fourth annual event last week in San Diego. Mirroring the growth and maturation of the storage industry at large, ESNA grew in its attendee numbers, expo floor space, and the number of organizations represented at its conference and expo.

More than 1,900 industry professionals attended ESNA, held October 4-6, hailing from over 1,000 different organizations and 25 countries. The nearly 15,000-square-foot expo floor, the largest ever for Energy Storage North America, provided over 100 exhibitors with an opportunity to showcase the latest software and hardware storage technologies, systems and services.

Senior executives from utilities, grid operators, investors and storage developers took part in panel sessions alongside elected officials and regulators to discuss the changing regulatory landscape, the process of valuing benefits of storage and the latest system deployments and assets, among other trending industry topics. In total, the ESNA conference featured nearly 150 speakers on 21 different panel sessions, 6 keynote addresses and 8 in-depth workshops.

“The optimism, excitement and innovation that underscored ESNA’s program, expo and networking events all point to the tremendous growth of energy storage over the past year,” said Janice Lin, Chair of Energy Storage North America. “By bringing utilities, policymakers, storage developers and financiers into the same room to break down barriers and share successes, we can leverage the potential of storage even further to modernize and strengthen our electric power system.”

Special events at ESNA also highlighted important sectors and stakeholders in energy storage. The annual ESNA Awards Ceremony recognized innovative storage projects in the centralized, distributed and mobility sectors, as well as policy and utility champions who have advanced storage through their work. ESNA hosted its first annual Women in Energy Storage networking event to foster connections among women in the storage industry, and continued its tradition of hosting a utility-only networking reception to encourage dialogue among utility professionals. In 2016, the number of utility employees who attended ESNA doubled compared to 2015, reflecting the increasing utility focus on and investments in energy storage.

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Strategic planning of Chinese industry at a state level could see electrical energy storage installations grow in importance, rocketing to as much as 24GW by 2020, according to one analysis firm.

Asia Europe Clean Energy Advisory Co Ltd (AECEA) said in a report sent out today that electrical energy storage as the “next big thing” could represent China’s “solar PV 2.0” moment. The firm’s China expert Frank Haugwitz included a look at energy storage as the closing segment to a briefing paper on solar market development.

Haugwitz said that while around 105MW of EES systems were installed by the end of 2015, under a business-as-usual scenario AECEA anticipated the market reaching 14GW and 24GW under a more optimistic modelling.

The reasoning given for this was that, in common with solar PV, which received a huge amount of government backing and has gone beyond 10GW of new installations each year since 2013, China has identified opportunities in the energy storage industry. Government officials in Beijing consider the development of an energy storage industry domestically to be “strategically important,” Haugwitz wrote.

The country appears keen to capture the industry’s value domestically and has included electrical energy storage in its “13th Five year plan on science and innovation” as well as its “National energy administration energy innovation action plan (2016-2030)” in which it also included solar as one of 15 key technologies.

“In light of these recent developments, it is obvious that EES applications are high on the political agenda, in order to make sure that Chinese companies will be in the position to meet the anticipated future demand,” Haugwitz wrote.

According to Haugwitz, industry observers now expect that the forthcoming “13th Five year plan for solar energy development (2016-2020)” will include policies designed to drive up demand for EES.

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