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The start of construction on India’s largest energy storage project is not only of strategic importance to regulators, but could also drive another wave of utility-scale projects in India, the chief of the country’s storage alliance has said.

AES India, a subsidiary of AES Corporation, and Mitsubishi Corporation started work this week on the 10MW project that will support the network operated by Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (Tata Power-DDL), a distribution company (Discom) that serves the North and North-West parts of Delhi. Energy-Storage.News reported in January 2017 that what is claimed to be India’s first grid-scale energy battery storage project is designed to aid the integration of rooftop solar in particular.

Rahul Walawalkar, executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), told Energy-Storage.News this week: “The AES project is expected to demonstrate the multiple value proposition of energy storage for the distribution grid such as peak shaving, distribution upgrade deferral, reactive power support as well as ancillary services for improving distribution grid reliability.”

Walawalkar also said the project was of “strategic importance” for Indian regulators, given that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) had already released a staff paper on energy storage last year.

The project would act as a “great confidence booster” for policy makers, such as NITI Aayog, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Ministry of Power (MOP), who are working on a National Energy Storage Mission. In this way, the new project will go towards addressing questions about technology readiness, added Walawalkar.

India’s National Solar Mission (NSM) was particularly successful in driving the local PV market to become the third largest in the world last year, and the nation will be eyeing up similar success in energy storage.

The AES, Mitsubishi project being deployed in Rohini, Delhi, at a substation operated by Tata Power-DDL will enhance grid reliability for more than 7 million customers across the Delhi region.

Storage technology and services company Fluence, a Siemens and AES joint venture, will supply AES’ grid-scale Advancion technology platform for the project. The Advancion solution is designed to provide long-term dependability. The project should also demonstrate storage’s ability to balance distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar, said Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing Director, Tata Power-DDL.

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In mid-December 2017, Greentech Media’s Energy Storage Summit kicked off with a live panel discussion. Moderated by Senior Energy Storage Analyst Dan Finn-Foley moderated a panel at Greentech Media’s Energy Storage Summit, the panel featured experts on stage who were asked to interpret and weigh in as 500 senior-level energy professional attendees answered live polling questions on the top themes in the market.

One of the questions asked that could be of interest to EC&M readers involved whether lithium-ion will remain the undisputed king, and if not, who will emerge as its challenger? When asked what technology has the best chance of supplanting lithium-ion as the dominant utility-scale advanced storage technology, flow batteries drew the most optimism (see Figure 1). In fact, nearly half of attendees cited them as the most exciting technology for utility-scale applications (Figure 2).

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When the power went out at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at the start of last year’s holiday season, the lights went on inside the corporate boardrooms. That is, companies realized that if the world’s busiest airport could suffer a power outage, any enterprise would be vulnerable? What to do?

The country’s infrastructure is aging and businesses are susceptible to power outages. It can be the kind of thing that occurred in Atlanta, where a fire knocked out not just its its main source of electricity but also its ancillary sources. Or it could be from weather-related events, such hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes.

Some key technologies are now in the offing that might mitigate such events: on site generation that uses localized microgrids that are beefed up by energy storage. Consider microgrids, which can deliver power to a single building or an entire campus, either as its main source of power or auxiliary electricity if the main grid goes down: businesses can get a continuous flow of power even if there is a major weather event.

“If you have a highly centralized grid with a single large transformer that is taken out by high winds, electricity can still be generated at a smaller scale,” Guildo Jouret, chief digital officer for ABB, told this writer in an interview.

ABB, for example, has provided a microgrid system to integrate solar energy and supply power to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison during the apartheid era. Now a living museum, Robben Island had previously relied on fuel-thirsty, carbon-emitting diesel generators as the only source of electric power.

Essentially a small-scale electric grid, the new microgrid will substantially lower fuel costs and carbon emissions, enabling the island to run on solar power for at least nine months of the year, ABB said. As the main energy source, the microgrid will reduce carbon emissions and the fuel demands of the diesel generators, which previously required around 600,000 liters of fuel a year but now will serve primarily as a back-up.

Meanwhile, Jouret says that battery storage adds value because if there is a momentary lapse of grid power, the storage device can kick on instaneously and supply for minutes and hours, in some cases. That can ensure that business processes are not disturbed.

Consider the case of South Australia, where it has been a task to keep the lights on: Tesla installed a back up battery system there, which kicked in less than the second after the power went out. In this case, the batteries are soaking up excess energy.

So how does all this tie back into the Atlanta airport? A microgrid, for example, would act as an extension of the main grid. But it would have some on site generation and battery storage on site, says Jouret. So, if the main source goes down, the batteries take over. And shortly after that, the on site generators — which could be gas generators or renewable power — would start up.

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Behind-the-meter battery startup Stem has raised $80 million in a Series D round, with three new investors — including one that’s helping bring the company’s lithium-ion battery systems to a new international market. 

The oversubscribed round was led by growth equity firm Activate Capital. It was joined by Singapore-based investment firm Temasek and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which manages about CAD $180 billion Canadian (USD $145 billion) in Canada’s largest single-profession pension fund. 

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is interested in projects serving the province’s unique renewable energy integration needs, Stem CEO John Carrington noted in an interview. While he wouldn’t provide specific details, he did say that Stem is deploying systems in Canada, making it the company’s third international market, after the United States and, more recently, Japan. 

“We are growing very, very fast, and I would say, exceeding [expectations] in a variety of areas,” Carrington said of the company’s recent metrics. In the past six months or so, Stem has grown its portfolio of energy storage systems from 150 megawatt-hours in August to more than 200 megawatt-hours as of this week, with 1,500 sites “operational or in construction.” 

The company now has hundreds of systems under management across five states, mainly in California, where state incentives and high demand charges have aligned to create the country’s largest market for behind-the-meter energy storage. Stem also has its 85-megawatt capacity contract with utility Southern California Edison, part of the utility’s groundbreaking distributed energy resource (DER) procurement in 2014, to provide it a steady pipeline of business. 

Stem is also active in Hawaii and New York. It has a 1-megawatt pilot project with utility Hawaiian Electric on the island of Oahu. And it’s working with utility Con Edison to deploy 14 megawatt-hours of batteries across 80 locations in New York. More recently, Stem expanded into Massachusetts, with a $1.25 million grant to pilot distributed energy storage under the state’s newly created energy storage target, alongside Constellation Energy. 

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Black & Veatch has been selected to serve as owners’ representative for an energy storage facility at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside in San Diego County, California.

The project owners, the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego, are assessing the potential to develop the 500 MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility (SVESF) to increase the availability and efficiency of renewable energy for the region. It will provide enough stored energy to supply approximately 325,000 homes annually.

As the owners’ representative, Black & Veatch will help evaluate proposals, select the full service team and negotiate the project delivery agreement.

The SVESF will store energy by pumping water to an upper reservoir when energy demand is low and releasing water from the upper reservoir through turbines when energy demand is high.

The pumped-storage hydro energy storage solution would support power grid operations and enable significant and sustained integration of renewable wind and solar energy into the power supply mix. The SVESF would also generate revenue that could help reduce upward pressure on water rates driven by aging infrastructure.

The SVESF project includes the establishment of a small reservoir above the existing San Vicente Reservoir as well as a tunnel system and underground powerhouse to connect the two reservoirs. The powerhouse would contain reversible pump-turbines that would lift water to the upper reservoir or generate energy as it flows down.

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AES India, a unit of The AES Corp., and Mitsubishi Corp. started construction on India’s first utility-scale energy storage system, a 10 MW solution that will serve the electric grid operated by Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (Tata Power-DDL).

AES and Mitsubishi will own the Advancion storage solution, which is being supplied by Fluence. The solution is being deployed in Rohini, Delhi at a substation operated by Tata Power-DDL. Once completed later this year, the 10 MW solution will enable better peak load management, add system flexibility, and enhance reliability for more than 7 million customers in the Delhi region.

Fluence, an energy storage technology and services company owned by Siemens and AES, will supply its Advancion technology platform for the project. Tata Power-DDL and its customers will benefit from Fluence’s proven and industrial-strength storage technology, which was designed for long-term dependability. Fluence brings more than a decade of grid-scale battery-based energy storage experience to the project, with nearly 500 MW deployed or awarded across 15 countries.

“AES has always been an innovative company, providing safe, reliable and affordable energy to the markets we serve. The deployment of cutting-edge energy storage technology in India shows the commitment we have to the country. Adding Fluence’s Advancion energy storage solution will allow us to continue to contribute to the modernization and enhancement of the electricity system in India,” said Mark Green, President of AES’ Eurasia Strategic Business Unit.

“Tata Power-DDL has introduced several firsts in the distribution sector and implemented various smart grid technologies. We are privileged to implement India’s first utility-scale storage solution in collaboration with AES and Mitsubishi Corporation. The first of its kind system will help to create a business case for the deployment of storage in India, to address challenges in the areas of peak load management, system flexibility, frequency regulation and reliability on the network. This project will provide a platform to demonstrate energy storage as a critical distribution asset and help to balance distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar,” said Mr. Praveer Sinha, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Power-DDL.

India’s renewable energy sector is experiencing remarkable growth and India recently expanded its renewable energy target to 175 gigawatts of solar and wind generation by 2022. Deploying energy storage will help network operators mitigate solar and wind resources’ variability and reduce congestion on the region’s transmission system, delivering more affordable, clean energy and enabling new sources of revenue from frequency regulation and other grid services.

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Six months after a target was set, energy storage in Massachusetts is beginning to take off, albeit slowly, as policies continue to evolve.

Ongoing challenges to wider adoption include questions about whether storage is eligible to net meter under the state’s rules and who retains the capacity value of storage in ISO New England’s forward capacity market.

Target spurs projects

In June, the state’s Department of Energy Resources set a 200 MWh-by-Jan. 1, 2020, target for energy storage.

Since then, the state’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has approved a rate increase for Eversource Energy utilities NSTAR Electric and Western Massachusetts Electric that includes $15 million for a 5 MW storage facility on Martha’s Vineyard and up to $40 million for a 12 MW energy storage project on Cape Cod.

In October, ENGIE North America and Holyoke Gas & Electric said they would build a 3 MW, 6 MWh storage project, the largest to date in Massachusetts, at the 5.7 MW Mt. Tom solar farm that went online in January 2017.

In November, National Grid said it plans to install a 6 MW, 48 MWh battery storage system on Nantucket to back up a new diesel generator on the island. 

And in mid-December, Massachusetts awarded $20 million in grants to 26 energy storage projects, doubling the state’s original $10 million commitment. The grants were awarded under the state’s Advancing Commonwealth Energy Storage (ACES) program that is part of the Energy Storage Initiative (ESI) funded by the Department of Energy Resources.

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Black & Veatch has been selected to serve as owners’ representative for an energy storage facility at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside in San Diego County, California. The project owners, the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego, are assessing the potential to develop the 500 MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility to increase the availability and efficiency of renewable energy for the region. It will provide enough stored energy to supply approximately 325,000 homes annually.

As the owners’ representative, Black & Veatch will help evaluate proposals, select the full service team and negotiate the project delivery agreement.

The SVESF will store energy by pumping water to an upper reservoir when energy demand is low and releasing water from the upper reservoir through turbines when energy demand is high. The pumped hydro energy storage solution would support power grid operations and enable significant and sustained integration of renewable wind and solar energy into the power supply mix. It would also generate revenue that could help reduce upward pressure on water rates driven by aging infrastructure.

The SVESF project involves the establishment of a small reservoir above the existing San Vicente Reservoir as well as a tunnel system and underground powerhouse to connect the two reservoirs. The powerhouse would contain reversible pump-turbines that would lift water to the upper reservoir or generate energy as it flows down.

During peak energy demand, water would flow downhill to turn hydroelectric turbines. During off-peak periods, including daytime when renewable energy supplies exceed demand, water would be pumped to the upper reservoir.

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What are energy storage projects under federal law? Are they eligible for certain favorable long-term contracts with utilities? Or are they subject to less attractive rules and regulations that apply to solar energy?

That’s the question that Franklin Energy, which develops distributed energy resources, is asking in Idaho, where it has proposed four energy storage facilities, each 25 MW.

In doing so, Franklin Energy is raising fundamental questions about how energy storage, a relative newcomer on the energy scene, fits in with a 40-year-old law known as the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA.

PURPA requires electric utilities to buy power from other producers, if the cost is less than or equal to the utility’s avoided cost rate to the consumer. Right now, most energy storage projects are developed by utilities, businesses and for pilot projects. However, as prices for energy storage drop, more and more energy companies like Franklin Energy are expected to propose projects and seek contracts with utilities. That’s most likely to happen in areas where energy storage is less expensive than the utility’s avoided costs, or the marginal costs of producing power.

Now before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the issue involves four energy storage facilities, each owned by a different entity. They meet the standards for being qualifying facilities (QF) that, under PURPA, are eligible to seek contracts with utilities.  The question is: Should they receive Idaho Power’s more attractive long-term contracts and rates?

The precedent-setting case raises interesting questions about the definition of energy storage projects as qualifying facilities, said Richardson.

“This is the only PURPA battery storage project in the country that I could find,” he said. All the other battery projects he could identify are utility-owned, developed for companies’ own use, or pilot projects.

Franklin Energy knew it was taking a risk when it proposed the projects as qualifying facilities and waded into unknown territory, he said.

“We’re making this a shotgun wedding under PURPA. We knew what we were getting into,” Richardson said.

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