The US government has been urged to recognise the “critical role” energy storage can play in making the grid cleaner and able to accept more renewable energy, by increasing the eligibility of batteries and other technologies to receive the Investment Tax Credit (ITC).

The ITC is applicable to purchases of solar energy equipment in the US and effectively represents a 30% rebate for investors if fully realised. In recent years the policy scheme has been adjusted to include energy storage but for a long time, storage systems could only receive the Federal subsidy if installed at the same time as solar equipment.

However, a bill proposed in 2016 by Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, S.1868, would amend revenue codes to apply either the ITC, similar tax relief measures or include energy stored in batteries, flywheels and pumped hydro in ‘Energy Credits’ policies. Heinrich’s “Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act of 2017″ would therefore see storage units rewarded for the energy they put into service on the grid and now has 11 co-sponsors from the Senate.

Yesterday, a joint letter was sent by the national Energy Storage Association (ESA), Solar Energy Industries’ Association (SEIA), American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), National Electrical Manufacturers’ Association (NEMA), National Hydropower Association, Clearpath Action and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions urging Congress to support these actions.

Addressed to Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, the groups urged Congress to include clarification of the ITC issue as pertains to energy storage as eligible under two tax codes, Sections 48 and 25. Referring to the bicameral and bipartisan support of the 11 co-sponsors, the authors described S.1686 as a “common-sense bill” which would “ensure a level playing field” for storage to compete with other ITC-eligible resources.

“Without clear statutory rules, energy storage industry members face continuing uncertainty from IRS guidance about the eligibility of energy storage equipment for Section 48 and 25 tax credits when paired with ITC-eligible resources,” the letter stated.

Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) has unveiled the Open MG, an initiative aimed at developing micro-grids based on the blockchain technology.

The company’s new concept envisages the development of a micro-grid based on renewables which would be able to, through a power-to-gas technology, convert excess power into hydrogen, store it and then convert it again to electric through fuel cells when necessary.

The blockchain technology, the company said, will be used to enable easy connection, while improving operational efficiency. Furthermore, it claims that the blockchain-based project will allow grid operators, customers and energy players to take part in the marketplace and interact beneficially with each other.

The Open MG project is also said to include the construction of the world’s first MW-sized energy-independent microgrid. No further details were shared, however.

Curiosly, another company named KEPCO, which is one of Japan’s largest utilities, announced in mid-October that it had begun testing a blockchain platform to determine how power consumers and PV system owners can trade surplus electricity.

The number of pilot projects involving solar and blockchain has increased exponentially in recent months. The World Energy Council, in partnership with auditors PwC, recently interviewed 39 top level management energy leaders to ascertain whether blockchain is driving an evolution or revolution in the energy ecosystem.

FERC last week granted ISO-NE’s request to terminate the capacity supply obligation (CSO) for Invenergy’s delayed 485-MW Clear River Energy Center Unit 1, while also denying the developer’s request for a Tariff waiver over the matter (ER18-2457).

The RTO said it wanted to terminate the CSO because the combined cycle plant in Burrillville, R.I., will not be operating in time for the beginning of the capacity commitment year starting June 1, 2019. The unit obtained the CSO in Forward Capacity Auction 10, held in February 2016, but is now scheduled to begin commercial operation after June 1, 2021. Invenergy has covered the plant’s CSO for the capacity commitment periods beginning in 2019 and 2020. (See ISO-NE Asks FERC to End Clear River CSO.)

The commission denied Invenergy’s request for waiver because it “would result in undesirable consequences.”

“We find that, on balance, if Clear River is allowed to retain its CSO, or retain its existing capacity resource status, after failing to achieve commercial operation within 63 months after the FCA in which it initially obtained a CSO, it will have undesirable consequences for both system planning and Forward Capacity Market pricing,” the commission said.

FERC agreed with ISO-NE that continuing to include Clear River in its planning processes would have negative consequences for multiple aspects of system planning and found that doing so would risk misrepresenting capacity availability for the associated delivery years.

“In turn, the FCA may send incorrect market signals for the value of capacity and therefore procure an economically inefficient quantity of capacity overall and/or in certain capacity zones,” the commission said. “Similarly, continuing to account for Clear River as an existing capacity resource may also skew the results of interconnection studies and transmission planning studies.”

In a letter filed Nov. 26, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), alongside a broad coalition of energy trade and advocacy organizations, urges Congress to modify the tax code to include energy storage as an eligible technology for the investment tax credit (ITC).

Following is a statement on the effort from SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper:

“As our letter to Senate and House leadership details, energy storage systems are critically important to the modernization of America’s electric grid and represent a massive opportunity for clean energy, particularly solar power. In the energy world, you’d be hard-pressed to find an example of two technologies that complement each other as well as solar+storage.

“Yet without clear rules of the road, companies continue to face financial uncertainty in their investments. Inclusion in the ITC is a crucial step if we’re going to harness storage’s full potential. SEIA, alongside our partner organizations, is urging Congress to enact the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act, a common-sense bill that will encourage investment, jobs and accelerated deployment of solar plus storage projects.”

The economics of rural electrification using microgrids should be considered an investment for the future, akin to how Silicon Valley tech providers plough money into initially loss-leading products and services, the chief of developer and manufacturer Solar Philippines has said.

Last week, Tom Kenning, deputy editor at our sister site PV Tech, wrote an extensive and in-depth blog from a field visit to Paluan on the island of Mindoro, where a Solar Philippines offshoot company, SPSB (Solar Para Sa Bayan – ‘Solar for the country’), has executed a microgrid project that brings power to about 3,000 customers. The microgrid, which uses solar, batteries and diesel backup, is also anticipated to slash commercial electricity costs by half for local businesses.

From having just 3-8 hours of usable electricity each day, with a connection to a 5MW diesel plant some 30km away disconnected a decade ago due to transmission issues, the villagers will be able to run their homes and businesses from the new 2MW PV and 1.8MW / 1.5MWh energy storage plant, coupled with 1,260kW of diesel generation.

Solar Philippines has aggressively set about developing and executing large-scale and microgrid projects in the country as well as establishing PV module manufacturing capabilities. Company chief Leandro Leviste, son of a prominent senator, is enthusiastic about microgrids, while all of the local residents PV Tech spoke with seemed similarly enthused about the endeavour.

Leviste said that the downward trajectory of battery and PV module prices means microgrids for rural power access will reach economic viability sooner rather than later. In the meantime, he said, companies like his might have to be prepared to invest in scaling the technology to meet tomorrow’s demand rather than making projects capable of delivering big returns today.

Unveiled today (26 November), the 3MW system will enable Arsenal to cut electricity bills and avoid peak power prices. Developed by Pivot Power, the 3.7MWh system can power the club’s Emirates Stadium in North London for an entire match – equivalent to powering 2,700 homes for two hours.

The Emirates was the first Premier League stadium to source 100% of its electricity needs from renewables, after the Arsenal extended its supplier deal with Octopus Energy in 2017. Since agreeing to the supplier partnership with Octopus Energy in 2016, Arsenal has cut its carbon footprint by 7 million kilogrammes, equivalent to filling the Emirates Stadium almost four times.

Arsenal’s managing director Vinai Venkatesham said: “This is a big step forward for us in being efficient with energy usage and it builds on our work in reducing our carbon footprint as an organisation. We have been powered by green energy since 2016 thanks to Octopus Energy, and the battery storage system will support our efforts further.”

Funded through investment from Downing LLP, the system will be automatically traded and optimised by Open Energi and has secured a frequency response (FFR) contract from National Grid. Pivot Power will operate the system for 15 years and an additional 1MW of storage will be added next year.

Double Pivot

Pivot Power is also developing the world’s first 2GW network of grid-scale batteries and rapid electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, set to be installed in the UK at a cost of £1.6bn.

The £1.6bn project will see 45 new battery sites developed nationwide at electricity sub-stations, forming the world’s biggest network of grid-scale 50MW batteries. The batteries will collectively store enough electricity to supply 235,000 average homes for a day once a full roll-out is complete.

Commenting on the unveiling, Minister for Energy and Clean Growth Claire Perry said: “The UK is certainly not being left-back on the bench, with Arsenal truly moving the goal-posts when it comes to energy efficiency at Emirates Stadium.

German frequency response service revenues have dropped almost two-thirds in two years as utilities have rushed to deploy energy storage, research shows.

Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables this month said prices in a June 2016 German frequency market auction cleared €23 ($26) per megawatt-hour, but were down to €8 ($9) per megawatt-hour in July 2018, a 65 percent reduction.

The reduction followed big investments in utility-scale front-of-meter energy storage systems for frequency markets.

“As these markets become increasingly crowded, we have seen prices plummet to levels which will make for lower-than-anticipated project returns,” said Wood Mackenzie in a press release.

Germany and the U.K. have led utility investments in energy storage over the last two years, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Europe Energy Storage Landscape 2018 report.

“By investing in energy storage, these companies are able to diversify their portfolio and improve their customer offering by including a clever piece of technology alongside a necessary service,” said report author Rory McCarthy, a senior research analyst.

Although there are gaps across Europe as policymakers struggle to keep pace with new technology, energy storage deployments continue to ramp up, he said. “Europe is now a very real contender for that global top spot in terms of total deployments,” he commented.

The continent is witnessing a glut of developers entering the market across the utility, commercial and industrial (C&I) and residential segments, he said.

Europe’s energy storage markets have received added impetus in the last couple of years from solar developers, which see batteries as a complementary revenue stream to traditional PV system sales that have been hit by a reduction in state subsidies across the continent.

Scale Microgrid Solutions is on a mission to make sophisticated microgrids as easy to deploy and finance as rooftop solar, said Timothy Hade, microgrid specialist for the company.

“Our thesis is that at scale, microgrids have all sorts of great technical aspects that can make our total energy system cleaner, cheaper and more reliable. But the challenge is how to make microgrid deployment as easy as rooftop solar deployment,” he said.

One of numerous challenges to getting more microgrid deployed: High skill levels are generally required. “Most of the projects that get done well are done by one of 50 or 60 different developers that can make these projects work,” he said.

But what if electrical contractors could deploy microgrids, in much the same way they can deploy rooftop solar right now?

“The thing that made rooftop solar take off: The industry made the process simple enough so that an electrical contractor who put time into learning could start offering rooftop installations,” he said.

Scale Microgrid’s farm example

Hade said his company aims to help the microgrid industry take off by offering both a simple, replicable system plus financing packages. Scale Microgrid, which was launched in 2015, now has three microgrid projects up and running. Two are projects the company took over from other developers. The Bowery Farming microgrid in New Jersey is its first new build.

Among other diversified topics, the sessions will deal with current findings on test procedures, problems with energy storage usage, safety and protection for batteries as well as new technologies such as ceramic batteries. The conferences include the 8th Energy Storage Europe Conference (ESE) of Messe Düsseldorf and the 13th International Renewable Energy Storage Conference (IRES) of EUROSOLAR e.V. and will take place parallel to the exhibition.

The International Energy Agency is organizing the symposium “Energy Conservation through Energy Storage” (ECES) as part of the Energy Storage Europe Conference. ECES is an IEA program for technical cooperation and accompanies the research, development, implementation and integration of electrical and thermal energy storage technologies.

Bastian Mingers, Head of Energy Storage Europe: “We continue the successful concept of the IRES scientific conference and the ESE business conference and extend it with specialized sessions on important questions, where researchers and practitioners can exchange ideas directly”.

Storage applications and flexible sector coupling

The new Energy Storage Europe focus on storage applications is also reflected in the lecture program. In addition to a separate conference session on best-practice examples, exhibitors will present selected projects in the trade fair forum, which is also open to trade fair visitors without a conference ticket.

Flexible sector coupling will again play a major role in the conferences and at the trade fair. The focus will increasingly be on multi-technology systems that combine different storage technology approaches and thus pave the way for versatile applications. These also include power-to-mobility, power-to-liquids and power-to-valuables approaches for industrial use.

Information about the conference program and access to the ticket shop: www.energy-storage-online.com/conference and www.energy-storage-online.com/2130