South Africa’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy is conducting a fairly unique procurement programme for 2GW of energy capacity, to come from a “range of energy source technologies”.

With a closing date of 25 November this year and projects needing to be in commercial operation by mid-2022, the government, together with the national energy regulator, has determined that it quickly needs to bridge the gap between demand and supply on the grid.

Independent power producers (IPPs) are invited to prepare bids for projects with an installed capacity of between 50MW and 450MW, for 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs). Winning projects will need to be dispatchable under terms defined by the tender: the main requirement being that they can dispatch power to the grid as needed between the hours of 05:00 and 21:30.

With the tender closed off to coal and diesel plants, this opens a pathway for renewable energy projects paired with energy storage, it also leaves the door open for natural gas. Consultancy Clean Horizon has partnered with local renewables consultancy Harmattan to unpick and analyse the tender and how it works.

Clean Horizon head of market analysis, Corentin Baschet, spoke to Andy Colthorpe about what the “almost technology agnostic” tender aims to do and the type of companies and projects likely to be successful in it.

The new tender is called the Risk Mitigation IPP Request for Proposals (RFP) – what’s the element of risk mitigation about and how is that put into the tender’s design?

The Risk Mitigation IPP RFP is a 2GW tender put out by the government of South Africa. ‘Risk mitigation’: because they’re lacking 2GW of capacity in the coming years, they’re risking a lot of load shedding essentially. Coal and diesel cannot participate [in the tender], it’s open to gas, renewables and storage. It’s close to technology agnostic, it’s made so that any distributed generation power plant can participate, except for diesel and coal.

EDISON, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Eos Energy Storage LLC (“Eos”), a leading manufacturer of safe, low-cost and long-duration zinc battery storage systems, today announced an expansion of its partnership with Nayo Tropical Technology Ltd. (“Nayo”), a leading West African mini-grid engineering, procurement, and construction (“EPC”) company. Eos will deploy additional units of its signature Aurora EnergyBlock™ systems, rated at 125kW/500kWh, to four rural microgrid projects in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2021.

In July, Eos announced it had entered into an agreement with Nayo to bring safe, environmentally friendly, low-maintenance, easy-to-deploy energy storage to the African market for the use of residents and local businesses in rural locations. This new contract expands on the success of that program by combining solar photovoltaic generation and energy storage to provide reliable electricity to homes and businesses in remote Nigerian communities, in addition to reducing dependence on diesel generators.

A notable benefit of Eos’ microgrid battery energy storage system is that it can store renewable energy that can be released at a later time and under severe weather conditions, giving rural locations and remote environments a reliable solution for energy storage and generation. High temperatures can be a challenge for other battery technologies, as they require heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (“HVAC”) systems, which get overworked and fail frequently in hot climates. Eos’ batteries do not require HVAC and can operate reliably in hot places without it.

“Eos was quick to prove that its positively ingenious energy storage solutions are uniquely suited to harsh environments and rural deployments with our last deployment,” said Dr. Balki G. Iyer, Chief Commercial Officer of Eos. “We are proud to expand our partnership with Nayo with a follow up in the first quarter, and we look forward to serving the energy needs of additional communities in the future with Nayo as our partner.”

Eos’ clients, including utilities, EPC companies and storage integrators, benefit from additional features including simple installation, minimal auxiliary power requirements to run the system, the ability to power through grid outages, simple maintenance and long-term product life. Remote project sites can often be a challenge, as they can be far from a supply chain and labor pool, but the low maintenance requirements of the Eos battery make it a fitting solution despite these limitations.

Energy storage including short duration and seasonal technologies ranging from lithium batteries to hydrogen could help mitigate the impacts of negative power prices in Europe, an analyst has said.

The day ahead price of power in Europe went below zero for an increasing amount of time in the first nine months of 2020, more than doubling from 2019. On average, power prices in Europe went negative 0.8% of the period studied by power market data analysis company EnAppSys.

Belgium saw prices of €-115.31/MWh on 13 April and Germany saw prices of €-83.94/MWh for eight hours on 21 April. Countries with high wind demand were particularly affected, with EnAppSys pointing to Ireland, Germany and Denmark as examples.

Ireland – which includes both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – saw 36% of its overall energy demand covered by wind generation and negative prices for 4.2% of the time, significantly higher than the European average.

Markets became “much more volatile” in 2020, according to Alena Nispel, business analyst at EnAppSys, due to the lower demand during COVID-19 lockdowns, higher volumes of renewables and increasing interconnection between markets.

Nispel said that battery storage could “reduce these impacts – at least as far as it is economically sensible to do so”. Colleague Rob Lalor, a senior analyst with EnAppSys, said that as as more renewables come onto the grid, increasing volatility, battery storage can shift “large volumes” of wind or solar away from peak output into other periods of the day by charging during peak periods and discharging later on.

“There are economic limits imposed upon storage based on economic return per storage cycle and number of cycles/usages per year,” Lalor said.

Methods reveal understanding of the location of hydrogen in ferritic steels.

 As the global energy market shifts from coal, petroleum fuel, and natural gas to more environmentally friendly primary energy sources, hydrogen is becoming a crucial pillar in the clean energy movement. Developing safe and cost-effective storage and transportation methods for hydrogen is essential but complicated given the interaction of hydrogen with structural materials.

Hydrogen can cause brittleness in several metals including ferritic steel — a type of steel used in structural components of buildings, automobile gears and axles, and industrial equipment. Recent advancements in experimental tools and multiscale modeling are starting to provide insight into the embrittlement process.

A review of various methods, published in Applied Physics Reviews, from AIP Publishing, has improved the understanding of the structure, property, and performance of ferritic steels that are subjected to mechanical loading in a hydrogen environment. While there are many studies of stainless steel, the researchers concentrated on ferritic steel, a cheaper steel that is used in the construction of pipelines and other large structures.

“Determining the location of the hydrogen in the host metal is the million-dollar question,” said May Martin, one of the authors.

Specifically, understanding where the hydrogen goes under strain in a bulk material is critical to understanding embrittlement.

“We haven’t answered this question but by combining techniques, we are getting closer to that answer,” said Martin.

The researchers highlighted several combinations of techniques and methods, including atom probe tomography. APT is a measurement tool that combines a field ion microscope with a mass spectrometer to enable 3D imaging and chemical composition measurements at the atomic scale, even for light elements like hydrogen.

Other techniques that show promise are 2D mapping by secondary ion mass spectrometry to answer the question of where hydrogen lies in a material. Ion mass spectrometry is a technique used to analyze the composition of solid surfaces and thin films by sputtering the surface of the specimen with a focused primary ion beam and collecting and analyzing the ejected secondary ions.

Salt caverns currently used for gas storage are under investigation as large-scale, organic flow batteries.

The project by RWE Gas Storage West GmbH and CMBlu Energy AG is investigating organic flow technology as a means of harnessing the massive storage potential of huge underground caverns.

The challenge for energy storage is to scale the capacity on different timescales to make the most of the growing renewable generation capacity. Currently Europe’s largest battery located in Jardelund, Schleswig-Holstein, which is based on lithium-ion technology, has a storage capacity of about 50MWh. In comparison, the potential capacity of the caverns is estimated up to several gigawatt hours.

The concept is to use an organic electrolyte solution filling the salt caverns as the primary energy source. As a first step, potentially suitable electrolytes have been identified. In the next stage running up to the beginning of 2021, their suitability for use in salt caverns will be investigated in the lab.

Once a suitable electrolyte has been identified, work will start on constructing and operating a test system. The planned capacity of the system is 100kW/1,000kWh and is expected to be in place by the spring of 2024.

“The future belongs to renewables. In order to make optimal use of green electricity, we need large stationary electricity storage systems,” says Andreas Frohwein, technical managing director of RWE Gas Storage West. “In the future, we may be able to use our salt caverns as batteries for storing enormous quantities of electricity. Using existing technical infrastructure, they could also be connected to the electricity grid quickly.”

The government of Canada unveiled CA$10 billion (US$7.53 billion) worth of “new major infrastructure initiatives” last week, with the inclusion of energy storage warmly welcomed by trade group Energy Storage Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a new Growth Plan to be delivered through the Canadian Infrastructure Bank (CIB) last Thursday. The three-year plan to invest in infrastructure is a key part of a drive to create jobs and economic growth in the wake of the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

With the hope of creating around 60,000 jobs throughout the country, the Growth Plan focuses on areas including agriculture and internet connectivity as well as helping to build a resilient and sustainable low-carbon economy.

A quarter of the pledged CA$10 billion will go towards clean power initiatives, “to support renewable generation and storage,” a government statement read, as well as transmitting clean electricity between Canada’s provinces, territories and regions, with northern and Indigenous communities among them.

With a further CA$500 million to be allocated by the CIB to directly support project development and early construction works, the plan is part of the government’s overall CA$180 billion commitment to investing in new infrastructure in the country. CIB chair Michael Sabia said that “every dollar of investment” in the Growth Plan initiatives is “intended to attract additional dollars from private and institutional investors”.

Justin Wahid Rangooni, executive director of Energy Storage Canada, told Energy-Storage.news that the group, which began as a trade association for Ontario’s booming storage sector but has since encompassed national representation, “is encouraged to see that energy storage was specifically referenced in the Federal Government announcement”.