Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is close to completing a pilot project that can turn decommissioned thermal power plants into high-performance storage facilities for renewables.

The facility in Germany can store up to 30 MW – the daily energy requirements of 1500 households – and is set to be commissioned next year.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy worked on the project with scientists from the Institute of Thermo-fluid Dynamics at the Technical University of Hamburg and energy supplier Hamburg Energie, which will sell the stored power on the energy markets.

Siemens Gamesa claims its storage facility “reduces the construction and operating costs of larger storage capacities to a fraction of the usual level for battery storage. In commercial use, the technology can store energy at a cost of well below ten euro cents per kilowatt hour.”

Hasan Özdem, head of technology management and projects at Siemens Gamesa, said: “A very interesting option of our technology is to convert decommissioned thermal power plants into high-performance storage facilities for renewable energies at a low cost. With this second-live option, the majority of components such as grid connection, turbines and generators can continue to be used.”

He explained that the simple thermal principle of the storage facility is based on known components which are used in a new combination. For example, fans and heating elements from series production are used to convert the electrical energy into a hot air flow. The same applies to reconversion: a Siemens steam boiler is used as standard in a steam turbine to produce electricity at the end of the storage chain.

The storage unit is connected to an IT platform which Özdem says “guarantees that maximum possible proceeds are achieved by an optimized storage usage”.

The head of the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has acknowledged that the prospects for the technology are good, but regulations must keep pace if the sector is to flourish in the EU.

EASE Secretary General Patrick Clerens said the association was optimistic about the growth of the European energy storage market, with the technology ‘undoubtedly an essential component of a decarbonized energy system.

“However, in order to reach the energy storage capacity that will be needed to fulfil system needs, we need a forward-looking regulatory framework that recognises the unique value and role of energy storage, while allowing for investment security and long term contracts.”

He explained: “In the past, policymakers have been slow to recognize the role and benefits of energy storage for the energy transition. This is likely because energy storage technologies were considered too expensive and perhaps also because they were not so well understood. Now, this is beginning to change. Renewables deployment is increasing, leading to a higher need to carbon-neutral flexibility services.”

Clerens added that experts are predicting continuous cost declines for many storage technologies, so policymakers are beginning to recognize the immense value of energy storage and are looking to build more supportive regulatory frameworks to allow for the market to develop.

“While our activities are focused at the EU Institutions level, we are always looking to countries’ storage policies to learn from missteps and identify best practices. For example, we are closely following developments in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, where policymakers are looking at ways to incentivise flexibility options including storage.”

“For example, system constraints are leading to the development of new ancillary services, such as Enhanced Frequency Response, that can be provided by energy storage devices.”

Long duration energy storage offers “value-add economics” for microgrids and renewables integrations, according to a recent report from Lux Research.

The research and advisory services firm modeled the cost of deploying different technologies for long duration energy storage for five key services: peaker plant replacement, renewables integration, microgrid energy storage systems, renewable energy backup, and seasonal energy storage. The resulting map shows the lowest-cost energy storage technology for each use case.

“Looking at the long duration market in general, we’re starting to see a shift from shorter power based applications which operate on the half hour to hour time frame, towards solutions that offer discharge durations greater than four hours,” Tim Grejtak, energy storage analyst at Lux Research and author of the report, told Microgrid Knowledge

Driven by renewables

The increasing deployment of renewable energy is fueling the demand for energy storage.

“Greater renewable penetration on the grid means longer duration storage is necessary to start to combat some of the issues that are caused by non-dispatchable generation assets,” explained Grejtak.

The interest in flow batteries is rising for longer durations and larger system sizes. These batteries store energy in liquid, typically vanadium ions, rather than solid chemicals like lead or lithium ions. They scale up more easily than solid chemical batteries, facilitating lower costs for large electrical systems like wind farms.

Long duration energy storage for rural microgrids

In countries like Indonesia, Madagascar and the Philippines, there is a drive to provide electricity to customers who have never had access to it. A quick and cheap way to achieve this is with solar microgrids that use long duration energy storage.

Renault is launching today a new  “Advanced Battery Storage” program today.

With the program, the French automaker is aiming to build “the biggest energy stationary storage system using EV batteries ever designed in Europe by 2020.”

While several automakers have now launched “second-life” programs for used electric vehicle battery packs, Renault is in a particularly good position to run those programs because of how it sells many of its electric vehicles.

In some markets, Renault sold most of its Zoe electric vehicles while retaining ownership of the battery packs.

They have also offered battery upgrades – resulting in them having significantly more used battery packs than the average automaker.

Now Renault wants to take advantage of that model with this new energy storage program.

They plan to deploy “at least 60 MWh” of energy storage capacity at several different sites accross Europe.

According to the company, the first facilities will be developed in early 2019 on three sites in France and Germany: at the Renault plants in Douai and Cléon and at a former coal-fired plant in North Rhine-Westphalia.

From there, they plan to “gradually expand over time to contain the energy of 2,000 EV batteries.”

ENGIE North America and Holyoke Gas & Electric (HG&E) today unveiled Massachusetts’ largest utility-scale energy storage system at a ceremony at the Mt. Tom Solar Farm in Holyoke, Massachusetts. ENGIE Storage Services (formerly Green Charge) will operate the 3-MW GridSynergy system, which will be fully integrated into the largest community solar farm in the state at a location adjacent to the former Mt. Tom Power Station. The former coal and oil-fired generation facility, 90 miles west of Boston, operated for more than 50 years and ceased operation in 2014.

The energy storage system will enhance HG&E’s electricity system and help keep electric rates stable by reducing rising capacity charges for the utility and its customers. Additionally, GridSynergy will provide grid stability by responding quickly to electricity demand fluctuations; allow for the increased use of clean energy; and reduce peak load burden on the existing electrical distribution system.

Massachusetts is moving towards generating 45.5% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035 and energy storage is playing an important role in achieving this milestone. Demand-based costs are rising throughout the New England market, and constituting a large portion of energy costs. This has created increasing pressures to reduce energy usage during peak periods. Over a 20-year term, HG&E will use energy storage to reduce demand peak burden on its electrical distribution system, thus increasing overall asset life. ENGIE storage systems are monitored, optimized, and controlled through its GridSynergy software platform.

“This project is the perfect illustration of energy transformation in action—affordable, clean energy replacing traditional fossil fuel power generation,” said ENGIE NA president and CEO Frank Demaille. “Solar energy, optimized by energy storage, is key to a low-carbon, low-cost energy future.”

“HG&E is excited to expand its relationship with ENGIE, through the integration of this energy storage system (ESS) with the existing large-scale community solar farm at Mt. Tom,” said James Lavelle, HG&E’s manager. “HG&E, and its ratepayers, will receive significant value, as this battery can respond instantaneously to relieve stress on the power grid, and help stabilize costs during period of peak demand or volatile pricing.”

The goal of reaching 100% renewable electricity in California is “100% doable”, the chief commercial officer of zinc bromine flow battery maker Primus Power told Energy-Storage.news at Solar Power International/Energy Storage International.

The opening address and a handful of sessions took place Monday at Anaheim Convention Center, California. While the two shows are national and international, it is expected there will be a great deal of attention paid to the state’s SB100 bill, signed into law recently by Governor Jerry Brown which demands all retail electricity by 2045 comes from renewable sources.

The role of energy storage in that is expected to be a big part of that. Jorg Heinemann, CCO of Primus Power and just a few years ago in charge of utility-scale solar projects at SunPower. A resident of Northern California, Heinemann said he is “thrilled” that his home state is gunning for such an ambitious and forward-thinking target.

However, as a residential solar PV owner, Heinemann said he had few incentives to install a battery at home, since California still has net metering policies in place, rewarding solar generation with high retail rates of buyback from the grid.

“California is a net metering state so financially it’s almost stupid to put a battery in. I can spin the meter backwards and get retail rates. In Germany [where the feed-in tariff has closed], they have to consume it, store it or lose it. 100% renewables for California is 100% doable, but there are some policy questions and things lower down that need to be solved.”

The Primus Power CCO claimed business for his company’s systems, larger scale, long duration flow batteries – among the flow systems from four providers recently profiled in this feature article – has been brisk. As with Hugh McDermott, VP for sales of ESS Inc, another of those companies profiled and who we also spoke to outside SPI on Monday, Heinemann said orders and enquiries have been building up in quantity and scale.

NEC Energy Solutions (NEC) announced today that they have introduced a DC-coupled energy storage solution for solar adding to their existing AC-coupled solution to leverage the rapidly expanding solar+storage market. NEC’s DC-coupled and AC-coupled solutions combined with the company’s proprietary AEROS® controls system allow for seamless integration of new and retrofit PV systems. Both options for adding energy storage to solar are available on NEC’s GSS® grid energy storage platform.

NEC’s new DC-coupled solution for solar is scalable for applications up to hundreds of megawatts in 500kW increments and durations ranging from 1 to over 4 hours. The proven benefits of DC-coupled energy storage for solar are numerous including:

• Lower overall equipment costs – allows for the sharing of inverters, transformers and switchgear across PV and storage.
• Lower operating costs – improves round trip efficiency and cuts energy losses compared to AC-coupled architectures by up to a third.
• Interconnect maximization – uses more of interconnection ‘bandwidth’ by shifting some PV output to a different time of day.
• Easier to ensure Solar ITC eligibility – DC coupled architectures ensure charging of storage from PV only.

“The addition of storage is one of the most exciting trends in solar today, to help shift solar power to more important times of day, enable better interconnection utilization with applications like clipping recapture, smooth and shape solar power output, or prevent curtailed solar energy from being lost forever. In keeping with our commitment to increase the value of our customers’ power, NEC is increasing the value of solar with our scalable, flexible DC-coupled offering,” said Roger Lin, VP of Marketing at NEC Energy Solutions. ”With the addition of our new DC-coupled solution, we now have a complete set of storage solution options for solar systems with the myriad of benefits DC-coupling offers, in addition to our existing AC-coupled product.”

The technology group Wärtsilä has released a new solution, GridSolv, the company’s first standardized energy storage solution.

GridSolv is an advanced energy storage solution that is designed to offer maximum flexibility and speed of deployment. This innovative and standardized architecture supports both standalone energy storage deployments as well as integrated hybrids with thermal or renewable generation assets. Coming in three sizes, the GridSolv solution is typically housed in an ISO 40-foot container and contains: batteries, power distribution, safety, fire suppression, and air conditioning systems.

“Much like how a smartphone delivers more value than simply a processor, a camera, and a touch screen, our new GridSolv solution goes well beyond batteries, inverters and container,” said Akshay Ladwa, Vice President of Engineering at Greensmith Energy. “We designed GridSolv to complement our industry-leading GEMS software platform so that utility partners and customers can have the most robust optimization of their grid assets and protect their energy storage investment for years to come.”

Greensmith’s GridSolv solution is already delivering results for Sinergy Kft, subsidiary of ALTEO Group, in Budapest, Hungary. ALTEO’s existing power plant, which was running on three Wärtsilä 34SG engines, is now optimized with the addition of GridSolv and GEMS, enabling the energy company to participate in the electricity market by providing frequency and secondary regulation to the national grid operating in virtual power plant mode.

Wärtsilä energy storage solutions enable power companies and developers to integrate and optimize a diverse mix of grid resources and deliver flexibility, reliability and resilience for customers seeking best-in-class system performance.

Globally, GEMS has become the most-used energy storage software and integration platform, operating in over 70 systems in nine countries. GEMS offers the widest selection of use-case applications, often integrated with renewable or thermal generation assets. In addition to energy storage applications, GEMS is able to manage any complex composition of energy assets, including wind, solar, thermal and storage. GEMS was also recently RIG certified by CAISO, the transmission operator for California, the seventh largest economy in the world.