The Energy Storage Association (ESA) honored Renewable Energy Systems (RES) and Lon Huber, Strategen vice president, at the 28th Annual Energy Storage Conference for their efforts in advancing the energy storage industry.

Huber was chosen as this year’s recipient of the Phil Symons Energy Storage Award, which recognizes an individual who has had the biggest impact in shaping the future of the industry, following an annual survey to ESA members and past award recipients. Outgoing ESA Board Chair Praveen Kathpal credited him as being instrumental in opening up markets for the industry throughout the United States and educating stakeholders along the way.

“I am honored to receive the Phil Symons Award and extend my gratitude to ESA for the recognition,” Huber said. “The Strategen market-based approach in designing policies that benefit consumers and ratepayers has demonstrated that these policies also can successfully advance industry and environmental sustainability; and importantly, advance the broad role energy storage plays in modernizing our grid.”

Global renewable energy company RES received the Brad Roberts Outstanding Industry Achievement by a Member Organization Award. RES contributions included receiving a world first non-recourse debt financing of an energy storage project and close permitting work with the New York Fire Department for a megawatt scale lithium-ion storage system in New York City.

“We are very excited to be the recipient of the Brad Roberts Award, and honored to follow in the footsteps of many prestigious companies in helping to grow the industry,” Craig Horne, vice president of Business Development, Energy Storage and the incoming ESA Board Chair, said. “RES is a leader in the storage industry with a portfolio comprised of 250 megawatts and almost 300 megawatt-hours spanning 19 projects, nine different electricity markets, and four countries. We strive toward realizing achievements that will help improve the commercial viability of all subsequent storage projects, and look forward to working hand-in-hand with the Energy Storage Association to continuing opening up markets nationwide.”

New York State has awarded Cadenza Innovation funding for a demonstration project featuring Li-ion supercell technology, a standalone system that includes a rack-mounted 200kWh, 50kW battery storage unit. The project is part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) drive to pursue nation-leading clean energy goals, including Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s energy storage target of 1500 megawatts in New York State by 2025. As the pioneering provider of energy storage solutions for license to lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery manufacturers, Cadenza Innovation offers unique cell design that combines the best properties from wound jelly rolls and large prismatic cells. That allows for high energy density at low cost for EV, PHEV, and grid markets.

New York State has access to some of the world’s most promising wind and solar energy resources. However, to fully capitalize on those, next-generation energy storage solutions are necessary. Enter Cadenza Innovation’s technology, which incorporates commercial-grade battery pack systems through novel packaging architecture for Li-ion battery technology. The demonstration project will be a unique design delivering high energy and improved safety at low cost. Cadenza Innovation’s recently patented multicore Li-ion battery cell structure, the supercell, serves as the cornerstone of its novel architecture and provides simplification in battery pack design. That, in turn, greatly reduces production and manufacturing costs, overcomes safety issues, and improves the energy density of Li-ion batteries.

In a private interview in September, 2017, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud, Cadenza Innovation Founder and CEO, alluded to the NYSERDA project. “I believe we are on the cusp of something new and different,” she outlined, tracing how, when New York state suffered through Superstorm Sandy and inoperable generators, they realized they “should do something different. They evaluated policies and saw how our battery architecture is so simple and fire retardant. You can touch it.”

The latter point is important, as Cadenza’s new chemistry and packaging lowers the risk of fires — like the ones that plagued the Boeing Dreamliner, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and a couple of early Tesla Model S sedans.

“The world is moving beyond fossil fuels and traditional power plant infrastructures, with utility-scale batteries emerging as a core component for renewable electricity,” said Dr. Lampe-Onnerud, who is among the world’s foremost authorities on battery chemistry and design. “The cost savings achieved by lithium-ion alone are undeniable. By combining that with technology and design that substantially improves safety and energy density, we’re providing a first-to-market, scalable platform to address today’s energy concerns.”

LAES is one of the technologies attempting to stretch out the duration of energy storage systems. LAES technology is similar to compressed air energy storage (CAES) except that it cools air to -169 degrees Celsius to turn it into a liquid.

As with CAES, LAES arbitrages the differences between electricity prices at times of high and low demand. Using low cost power, the technologies use pumps to compress and store air under pressure. When energy prices are higher, the air is released and fed into a conventional turbine to produce electric power.

LAES’ advantage is that, unlike CAES, it is not dependent on geography. CAES requires large storage caverns, such as depleted salt mines, to store air. LAES stores energy in insulated tanks.

While that solves the location problem, it introduces other issues. In particular, the liquefaction process adds to the already inefficient thermal air cycles, Tim Grejtak, energy storage analyst at Lux Research, told Utility Dive via email. It takes more energy to liquefy the air than it does to just compress it and store it.

Grejtak also said it is important to note that the Pilsworth plant is a pilot project to evaluate LAES technology, and “three hours of storage isn’t a suitable duration for a system that is likely very inefficient.” Longer durations typically make better use of poor efficiency technologies, he said. Nonetheless, he noted the importance of developing an efficient and cost effective long-duration storage technology.

The Pilsworth plant is designed to demonstrate how LAES can provide several reserve, grid balancing and regulation services. But Highview sees even greater opportunities. The company says LAES technology can scale to hundreds of megawatts and could easily store enough electricity to power a town like Bury (around 100,000 homes) for many days.

“The market opportunity for LAES is considerable. We estimate that 60% of the global energy storage market comprises long-duration, grid connected storage and that our LAES technology is ready to meet almost half of this,” Highview Power CEO Gareth Brett, said in a statement.

An increasing number of major car manufacturers are developing solutions in a space that at first glance may seem like a strange choice: energy storage.

BMW recently signed a contract that adds 500 of its i3 battery packs to the UK national energy grid. Audi is running a pilot project. Renault is turning some of its Zoe batteries into a home energy storage solution, and in Japan, both Toyota and Nissan have announced that they will offer battery energy storage.

A closer look reveals many good reasons for car companies to pursue energy storage. Here are five of the biggest.

Electric Is the Future

The strangeness of adding energy storage to the mix fades a bit when considering how much money car companies are investing in batteries. Volkswagen recently announced it plans to spend a whopping $48 billion on batteries in the coming years.

The future of transportation is a subject dear to the hearts of car companies. Their view seems to increasingly be that transportation is going to be a) self-driving and b) electric.

The question for companies becomes: why stop at cars? If you are going to be making batteries anyway, why not explore other markets that need batteries?

Tesla

Tesla has been doing exactly that, with big success in both large-scale projects in Latin America and Australia and in general with its Powerpack and Powerwall systems for homes and companies. Last year, it sent heads spinning in top offices of major car manufacturers by briefly overtaking them to become the most valuable American car company.

Tesla’s goal is to be much more than a car company, though. As Elon Musk explained to Fast Company, “This is the integrated future. You’ve got an electric car, a Powerwall, and a Solar Roof. It’s pretty straightforward, really.”

Other car companies seem to be thinking along the lines of “well, if Tesla can do it, so can we—and we better get going before they corner the market.”

The Future Is Smart (and Bundled)

Another important point from the Musk quote is that we are heading towards an integrated future. One of a smart grid consisting of not just stand-alone energy storage units, but also things we attach and detach from the grid. Like electric cars, for example. Our four-wheeled friends can be of use for much more than the short periods of time they ferry us around. Using them as energy storage during stand-still hours makes excellent sense.

Finding ways to link cars and energy storage will be increasingly valuable, as will the ability to offer complete packages. The logic goes that if you have a Tesla or a Powerwall, you are much more likely to buy a product from the same manufacturer than from a competitor.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s update on the electric-car maker’s business on Tuesday afternoon at the company’s annual shareholder meeting obviously impressed investors. The stock surged higher on Wednesday, finishing the trading day up nearly 10%.

For the most part, headlines after the meeting seemed focused on Musk confirming that the automaker is on track with its production and profitability plans. Of course, there’s good reason to believe the news that Tesla is on track to achieve a production rate for its Model 3 of 5,000 units per week by the end of June and GAAP profitability in both Q3 and Q4. Production delays have previously plagued the Model 3 as Tesla attempts to transform into a mass-market auto company, which has weighed on profitability. But another narrative discussed during the shareholder meeting is worth examining: Tesla’s surging energy storage business.

What Musk said about Tesla’s energy storage business

Musk was extremely optimistic about Tesla’s energy storage business, implying energy storage sales will see wild growth at rates that exceed the sharp growth in Tesla’s vehicles sales.

Launched just three years ago, its energy storage business has already swelled to a total of 1 gigawatt-hours of energy storage deployments globally as of May, Musk said during the shareholder meeting. He also said he expects that in “less than a year from now” Tesla will deploy another GWh of energy storage.

But this is just the beginning, according to Musk. “I think for many years to come, each incremental year will be about as much as all of the preceding years [in terms of energy storage deployments],” the CEO predicted.

Furthermore, he said deployments are ultimately limited by production, which is notable since Tesla’s Gigafactory has morphed into the world’s highest-volume battery factory when measured by battery capacity output.

Musk put the extraordinary demand for energy storage and the scale of the Gigafactory’s output into perspective:

We would actually be able to do more if we could produce more. And we are producing a lot of batteries. So in fact, next quarter, at the Gigafactory, we expect to make more battery capacity than all other EVs combined worldwide, including China. So I mean, this is a really crazy amount of batteries. This one factory is making — will make more than all the other factories on earth…

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has obtained approval to add 83.5 MW of energy storage facilities in California, the power utility said on Monday.

The company has been given the green light by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to contract five projects envisaging the installation of lithium-ion battery storage facilities in San Diego and south Orange counties. A 30-MW/120-MWh storage system will be constructed in San Diego by Renewable Energy Systems (RES) America, while Advanced Microgrid Solutions will build a 4-MW/16-MWh lithium-ion battery in San Juan Capistrano. Both facilities are planned to be switched on by December 2019.

The approved capacity also includes a 40-MW/160-MW energy storage project in Fallbrook, proposed by Fluence, a business created in January 2018 by Siemens AG (ETR:SIE) and AES Corp (NYSE:AES), as well as a 6.5-MW/26-MWh facility in Escondido, to be installed by Powin Energy. Those two lithium-ion systems are scheduled for completion by March 2021 and June 2021, respectively.

The fifth storage project, under which SDG&E is contracting Enel Green Power, is for a 3-MW/12-MWh facility in Poway, slated for completion by December 2021.

CPUC’s clearance also covers a contract between SDG&E and OhmConnect under which the latter is providing a demand response programme for the equivalent of 4.5 MW.

The projects are seen to improve the reliability of the local power grid and enable the addition of more renewable energy capacity, SDG&E said. They are in line with its goal to develop or interconnect more than 330 MW of energy storage capacity by 2030.

As the electric car (and truck and bus and heavy equipment) revolution sweeps across Europe, policymakers and investors are divided on whether the EU should push an aggressive strategy of constructing lithium-ion battery factories or just let the companies from China, Japan, and South Korea do the heavy lifting while Europe pivots toward next-generation batteries. In fact, with the push from Asian companies already well underway and Northvolt the only European company actually building a new battery factory on the continent at the present time, it may already be too late for the EU to catch up.

A year ago, the EU announced a major initiative called the European Battery Alliance, which was designed to bring battery factories built by European companies to the continent. At that time, Maros Sefcovic, vice president of the European Commission, said, “We have to move fast because here we are in a global race. We need to prevent technological dependence on competitors.”

But Gerard Reid, founder of Alexa Capital, tells Reuters, “I don’t believe anyone in Europe can be competitive with the Asians.” His company advises firms in the energy, technology, and power infrastructure sectors. One factor is that Asian companies often benefit from significant subsidies from their governments. European companies will need billions in subsidies from the EU in order to compete.

Many in Europe remember what happened when local companies tried to cash in on the nascent solar panel market. They were soon swamped by cheaper imports from Asia. (For readers in America, please see Solyndra for more on this subject.) “Once burned, twice shy,” they reason. Maybe it’s better to let the Asian companies devour this particular pie while creating a whole new pie based on next-generation battery technology for the future.

“The development cycle and the speed of technology progress in batteries is so huge at the moment, there’s an opportunity for new and additional players to enter,” says Timo Moeller, head of the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility in Cologne. Diego Pavia, CEO of InnoEnergy, a sustainable energy company that has invested in Northvolt, agrees. “Everybody is developing solid state batteries so the gap (with Asia) will be narrower and narrower as we go along.”

Of course, we here at CleanTechnica know about solid-state batteries and the painfully slow pace of progress transitioning basic research into commercial reality. Based on that knowledge, Pavia’s pronouncements may be entirely too glib. But some European investors are pondering the commercial opportunities presented by making so-called “green” batteries — ones that are made in Europe by European companies using local workers and 100% renewable energy from locally sourced raw materials. Exactly where Europe might find local sources of cobalt is unclear in that scenario, however. Perhaps those next-generation solid-state batteries will require little to no cobalt.