LG Chem, the world’s top battery supplier, said Sunday its latest energy saving technology for use in households received an award in a technology fair, Munich, Germany, last week.

“LG’s New RESU-branded energy storage system (ESS) received an award in the InterSolar 2016 technology fair held in the German city of Munich, last year. LG Chem is the first Korean company to win a prize in the ESS segment in an international tech exhibition,” LG Chem said in a release.

C. S. Song, head of LG Chem’s public relations office, said the award was thanks to the RESU ESS’s improvements in enhancing energy density, reducing costs and cutting weight.

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Greensmith Energy recently announced that it has received 63 MW of energy storage orders, and that at the current pace, the company will install over 100 MW this year.

“The successful execution of this strategy has brought tremendous growth to the company in both grid-scale and behind-the-meter business. Beyond the cumulative megawatts delivered, Greensmith continues to invest in software innovation and integration capacity to serve a growing number of the largest power companies in the world. It is clear that 2016 is a momentous year for Greensmith and the energy storage industry as whole,” explained John Jung, the company’s CEO and President.

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Energy Storage News – Last Thursday, California regulators issued a decision modifying the Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), a 2001 program which provides incentives for energy storage and behind-the-meter generation. Under the new rules, 75% of the SGIP budget will be allocated to energy storage.

Additionally SGIP will move to a declining block grant incentive system, similar to the California Solar Initiative (CSI), with incentives for most systems starting at US$.50 per watt-hour (Wh) in the first step and declining to $0.30 per Wh in the fifth. Large-scale energy storage projects which receive the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) will start at $0.36 per Wh and decline to $0.16 per Wh.

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The world of electric vehicles and energy storage are becoming increasingly intertwined, after German carmaker BMW last week became the second major carmaker in as many months to announce plans to enter the home energy storage market.

BMW told delegates at the Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition 29 conference in Montreal last week it will use the high voltage batteries deployed in its i3 range of electric vehicles to create a new residential storage product in collaboration with German firm Beck Automation.

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Energy Storage News – California State University (CSU) says it is installing what will be the largest battery storage project at an educational institution in the nation—a project that is expected to reduce the university system’s electric utility costs by more than $3.3 million.

University officials say that Advanced Microgrid Solutions, a company that provides energy storage systems for electric utility grid support, will initiate the project by installing and operating a 1 Megawatt energy storage system at the Cal State Long Beach campus. The company also plans to install energy storage systems at the CSU’s Office of the Chancellor and at the Dominguez Hills campus.

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The energy storage industry enjoyed a moment in the spotlight last week when theWhite House hosted a summit on that topic. Now this burgeoning sector will work to capitalize on this new exposure to get policies in place that allow storage markets to grow.

The core message energy storage companies are trying to send is that their products provide a value to the grid, but it’s a value that the markets currently aren’t designed to compensate. The rules were written before this technology came into its own, and now they’ll need to be amended for storage providers to recoup investments that yield tangible services to the grid. As electric generation shifts away from central, thermal plants to more distributed and variable renewable sources, the ability to flexibly store energy will play an ever more critical role. 

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Energy Storage News – On Thursday, the Obama Administration announced a number of initiatives that plan to help the US transition to a smart, more energy efficient, 21st century power grid.

The White House is proposing a number of new executive actions and 33 state and private sector commitments are proposed to “result in at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years.”

A “smart grid,” according to the Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, is a system that uses computer-based remote control and communication technologies to help utility workers to monitor and gather data. It’s used in other industries, but has only recently been introduced in things such as power plants and wind farms.

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Microsoft has partnered with battery technology provider Primus Power to work on a pilot program to advance energy storage at datacenters globally.

Planned to be implemented in partnership with NRG Energy, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and battery technology providers, the project is a part of Microsoft’s broader focus to explore new technologies for energy storage and management for its datacenter.

The team will determine effective ways to store large scale renewable energy to ensure electricity it is inexpensive and available for future needs.

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Government agencies, companies, and organisations in the US have committed to generate a minimum of 1.3GW of energy storage capacity across the country over the next five years.

According to the US Government, any procurement, deployment, and investment commitments made are expected to result in nearly $1bn.

The federal government has also promised to increase its storage and microgrid capacity at both federal and military bases with the establishment of a new 50MW-100MW grid-scale battery project at California’s naval weapons station Seal Beach, alongside other projects.

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Energy Storage News – Money doesn’t make the world go round; energy does. With energy, modern society is capable of achieving the once unthinkable, from face-to-face communication around the world in real time, to sending a man to Mars.

In recent decades, energy research has focused both on capturing power from renewable sources and making our existing electric infrastructure as efficient as possible. Energy storage solutions are vital to both areas of research.

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