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

NEC Energy Solutions has secured two engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts from Gore Street Energy Storage Fund for UK energy storage projects.

The two projects, totalling 19MW, were developed by Origami Energy and were later acquired by Gore Street Energy Storage Fund.

NEC Energy Solutions CEO Steve Fludder said: “These project awards and the continued success of the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund demonstrate investors’ confidence in the value of energy storage as an attractive, long-term investment in a rapidly growing global market.

“As a global leader in energy storage, we couldn’t be happier with our role in the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund and we look forward to working with Gore Street Capital on future projects as they continue to build out their portfolio.”

The UK energy storage contracts secured by NEC will be full turnkey projects and will be supported by Nippon Koei (NK) to carry out the EPC scope.

The 10MW “front of the meter” project will be located on Lower Road in Brentwood, Essex.

The Lower Road project will be a grid-tied NEC GSS Grid Storage Solution that will provide front of the meter grid services.

With 9MW capacity, the first “behind the meter” project will be built at the Port of Tilbury, co-located with London’s Port of Tilbury industrial port facility.

The NEC GSS Grid Storage Solution behind-the-meter battery storage system will use a metering scheme, installed by Nippon Koei.

Nippon Koei director Hiroyuki Akiyoshi said: “In the future, we would expect more opportunities in this market not only in the UK but also in Japan. This experience will boost our business in the near future.”

Construction of the energy storage facility at Port of Tilbury will begin next month and at Lower Road in January next year.

Both of these projects are expected to commence the operations by mid-2019.

In order to address intermittency in its grid, the South Australian Government has introduced a AU$50 million (US$36 million) Grid Scale Storage Fund (GSSF) to help accelerate the deployment of new large energy storage projects, including pumped hydro, hydrogen, gas storage, solar thermal, bioenergy and battery storage.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the South Australian Government to help coordinate the assessment of projects that may be eligible for joint funding, as well as knowledge sharing. Applications shortlisted for the GSSF may also be eligible for funding from ARENA under the Advancing Renewables Program (ARP).

The technology-neutral funding will be divided into two streams for both behind-the-meter assets and grid-scale assets.

Under the GSSF, applicants must be able to match funding dollar-for-dollar and preference will be given to projects targeting financial close by the end of 2019.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller, said: “The $50 million funding commitment from the South Australian Government will help to realise a number of groundbreaking projects that will help provide stable, reliable and dispatchable power to the state. ARENA has worked closely with the South Australian Government to ensure projects that meet our criteria can benefit from this opportunity, and get off the ground sooner.”

“ARENA has already committed up to $110 million in funding to support a wide range of projects in South Australia, including innovative energy storage projects. As more of our electricity is generated from solar and wind, it is clear that storage technologies will play a key role in delivering secure, reliable and affordable electricity,” he added.

On behalf of the Australian Government, ARENA is already supporting feasibility studies for two prospective pumped hydro plants at Cultana and Middleback Ranges, two virtual power plants trials and has contributed towards two grid-scale batteries – Infigen’s Lake Bonney battery and the ESCRI battery in Dalrymple.

Energy storage, rooftop solar panels and LEED construction used to be expensive, customized options for wealthier homeowners, but they are rapidly going mainstream. The combination of experience, economies of scale and advanced technology is making it possible for more home buyers — and renters — to live a low-carbon life. A case in point is a new Google Home-enabled partnership between two leading companies in the sustainability field, the global cutting edge energy storage company sonnen and the U.S. builder Pearl Homes.

So, what comes next? The new partnership demonstrates what can happen when developers look beyond the benefits to individual home buyers, and design properties with an eye on the connected, distributed energy landscape of the future.

Public policy and sustainable building

Before getting into the details of the new partnership, it’s important to take note of the public policy context.

Pearl and sonnen are pairing up to build a residential development called Hunters Point in Manatee County, Florida.

The name Hunters Point is strictly neutral, but there is no mistaking the sustainability mission. Hunters Point is being billed as a “Net-Zero-Plus and Climate-Positive’ community.”

That kind of climate action pitch might not touch a particular chord among prospective buyers in some areas. It will, however, resonate in Manatee County.

Manatee County hosts the Florida west coast city of Bradenton, and is also close to Sarasota, Tampa and St. Petersburg. The county of 385,000 people has a clearly defined sustainability policy:

Being sustainable remains in the forefront of decision making for Manatee County as leaders balance the environment, the economy, and the human/social needs of our community. As science, technology, and information change on the issues of sustainability, we adjust our path but consistently take steps toward this goal.

The European energy storage market is nearing the global top spot for deployment, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewable.

The research firm cites interest from major utilities and a patchwork of favourable policies.

“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, Rory McCarthy, senior research analyst, Wood MacKenzie. “Although there are obvious gaps across Europe as policy makers struggle to keep pace with new technology, energy storage deployments continue to ramp up. Europe is now a very real contender for that global top spot in terms of total deployments,” he added.

The report, ‘Europe Energy Storage Landscape 2018’, looks at all scales of energy storage. Germany is a top performer across all three with the UK close behind in all but the residential sector.

“As it stands, the UK and Germany lead the way for utility-scale policy and storage development. Frequency markets are the only real game in town, however, they are limited in size,” said McCarthy. “As these markets become increasingly crowded, we have seen prices plummet to levels which will make for lower-than-anticipated project returns. For example, in the German frequency market, a June 2016 auction cleared at €23/MWh, while in July this number sat at just €8 – a 65% reduction.

“We are witnessing a glut of developers enter the market across all segments. There are solar developers diving into a new complementary technology area, which has been driven by a European solar subsidy cull and tough market conditions. Additionally, major utilities who see the strategic value of this most flexible asset have the balance sheets to enter into ultra-low bid auctions and accept the unattractive returns that will go alongside these in the near term,” added McCarthy.

The report found that the levelized cost of electricity for solar-plus-storage in Germany had fallen dramatically since 2013 but remained some way above of the €0.30/kWh that consumers pay.

The market for energy storage is rapidly gaining momentum around the world. The growing cost-competitiveness of carbon-free energy sources, coupled with improving technology and more environmentally conscious government policies are driving a demand boom for batteries in both the transportation and utility power sectors. But just how big is this boom expected to be?

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts that the global energy storage market will grow to a cumulative 942GW by 2040, attracting a whopping $620 billion in investments. This makes sense, given that combined wind and solar power generation capacity is expected to eclipse that of natural gas shortly after 2040 – at least according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). And those renewable energy stations, which produce power intermittently (the sun is not always shining and the wind is not always blowing), will require adequate storage to make them economically viable.

That’s to say nothing of battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), where the global fleet has been expanding at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 52% over the past 5 years. That rate is expected to level off to about 25% between now and 2025. There are currently 3 million EVs on the road today, and an estimated 1.2 million of them were sold in 2017. That’s around 1.5% of all car sales last year.

The Market Driver

Fall in costs of lithium-ion (LI) batteries are a key driver of increasing demands for battery storage. Lithium-ion is the leading battery storage technology to date, though alternatives are beginning to crop up. The price of LI batteries fell 80% between 2010 and 2017 ($/kWh) with costs projected to fall another 52% between 2018 and 2030. Head of Energy Storage at BNEF expects to see ‘energy storage growing to a point where it is equivalent to 7% of the total installed power capacity globally in 2040.’ Nothing to sneeze at considering all (non-hydro) renewable power accounted for 8% of worldwide electricity production in 2017.

Market Players

China, US, India, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, South Korea, and the UK lead the energy storage markets, together accounting for two-thirds of 2040’s installed capacity

The major players operating in the battery energy storage system market include ABB (Switzerland), LG Chem (South Korea), NEC (Japan), Panasonic (Japan), Samsung SDI (South Korea), AEG Power Solutions (Netherlands), General Electric (US), Hitachi (Japan), Siemens (Germany), and Tesla (US). Keep an eye on these companies as battery deployment and investment continue to rise.