Tesla Motors Inc may source batteries from Samsung SDI Co Ltd for its energy systems in homes, companies and utilities, rather than for its electric cars, the U.S. company’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

Shares of Samsung SDI, an affiliate of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, rebounded 3 percent early Thursday.

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Energy Storage News – AES Philippines, a unit of AES Corp. of the US and Electricity Generating Public Company Ltd. of Thailand, expect to complete the country’s first 10-megawatt, battery-based energy storage facility in Masinloc, Zambales province late this month.

EGCO president Chanin Chaonirattisai said in a statement the 10-MW lithium-ion battery energy storage located at the 600-MW Masinloc coal-fired power plant aimed to provide reserve power and grid stability services to the Luzon grid.

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With Daimler AG’s stationary lithium-ion battery energy storage business now getting its feet, the company has gone ahead and established a new body — Mercedes-Benz Energy GmbH — to handle the development and global sale of Mercedes-branded energy storage products, according to a new press release from the company.

Production of these Mercedes-Benz energy storage products will remain “the core expertise of Daimler’s other wholly owned subsidiary, Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE GmbH & Company KG.”

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Energy Storage News – NSW-based transmission group Transgrid has signaled a major push into smaller, grid-scale battery storage, saying it is looking at installing a number of 1MW-sized installations at commercial customers.

Transgrid’s Anthony England says the company is looking to partner with commercial businesses – hardware chains, supermarkets, data centres and others – “with room for a container out the back and solar PV on their roof.

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I spend a good deal of time at energy storage conferences, trying to figure out where the various technologies and business models are headed. I thought I had most of the nuances figured out – until I ran into Sam Jaffe at the Energy Storage America conference in Charlotte in April. After a brief discussion, I realized I had some more understanding to do, and was able to arrange a follow-up conversation. I first met Jaffe when he was active at Navigant Research as their main energy storage analyst, and he has since moved on to become Managing Director at Cairn Energy Research Advisors (Cairn ERA). Jaffe’s spent more than 10 years in energy storage as an analyst, consultant, entrepreneur and executive from all ends of the business. So he’s practically been watching this space since before it became relevant.

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Energy storage has been hailed as the missing link and even an essential ingredient to higher levels of wind and solar power, but anew paper from Argonne National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology questions that premise.

The authors of the report, “The value of energy storage in decarbonizing the electricity sector,” conclude that the value of shorter-duration storage technologies, up to about two hours, is only justified by generation cost savings under the most stringent carbon emissions limits, and even then, only at low storage penetration levels. Hence, continued innovation and cost declines for lithium-ion batteries and other electrochemical energy storage technologies will be necessary to economically justify large-scale deployment in future low-carbon power systems.

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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has issued a landmark resolution that requires a major utility to procure energy storage capacity as quickly as possible.

There has been a moratorium on gas injections at the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility ever since Southern California Gas Company members of staff discovered a now infamous methane gas leak in October last year.

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Energy Storage News – In the quest for a radically better lithium-ion battery, a promising direction is the so-called “lithium-rich” cathode, in which the cathode contains a higher proportion of lithium than normal. While it has the potential to have far higher energy density, scientists have lacked a clear picture of the chemical processes, especially the role of oxygen.

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Energy Storage News – Variable output renewable energy systems, such as wind turbines and solar panels, are growing across Europe and contribute to supply and price volatility in electricity markets. 

Systems for energy storage, for example reversed hydro power plants, large scale compressed air systems and batteries, provide ways to compensate for this variable power supply by storing excess power and releasing it when there is a production shortage. 

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Energy Storage News – Jay Whitacre is a former Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor whose work was featured in the Mars Rover Program. He is also the creator of the “edible battery”, better known as the Aquion Energy Battery System.

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