VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The Chinese government has awarded a major contract to privately held clean technology innovator Pu Neng Energy for the construction of a 12 MWh vanadium-flow battery, as Phase 1 of a larger 40 MWh energy storage project, in Hubei province.

This first phase will be installed in Zaoyang, Hubei, to integrate a large solar photovoltaic system into the grid. Following this 10 MW, 40 MWh project, there will be a larger 100 MW, 500 MWh energy storage project that will be the cornerstone of a new smart energy grid in Hubei province.

This significant project will serve as a critical peak powerplant, delivering reliability and emissions reductions.

According to Pu Neng, this type of project is a tantalising glimpse of the future of the Chinese electricity grid as the country is halting construction of many coal-fired powerplants and pushing the integration of renewable energy with energy storage.

The China National Development and Reform Commission released Document 1701 in September, which outlined its strategy aimed at accelerating the deployment of grid-scale energy storage. The policy calls for the launch of pilot projects, including deployment of multiple 100-MW-scale vanadium-flow batteries, by the end of 2020, with the aim of large-scale deployment over the ensuing five years.

“China has the largest and highest-grade vanadium resourcesin the world and is poised to use this miracle metal to fundamentally transform its electricity grid. With massive amounts of renewable energy and storage coming on line, China will create the most modern, clean and efficient grid in the world,” commented billionaire mining celebrity and chairperson of Pu Neng, Robert Friedland.

The company has developed the most reliable, longest-lasting vanadium flow battery yet, with more than 800 000 hours of demonstrated performance. The combination of Pu Neng’s proprietary low-cost ion-exchange membrane, long-life electrolyte formulation and innovative flow cell design sets it apart from other providers.

Pu Neng’s vanadium redox battery systems store energy in liquid electrolyte in a patented process based on the reduction and oxidation of ionic forms of the element vanadium. This is a nearly infinitely repeatable process that is safe, reliable and non-toxic. Components can be nearly 100% recycled at end-of-life, dramatically improving lifecycle economics and environmental benefits compared with lead-acid, lithium-ion and other battery systems.

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With Tesla adding its Powerwalls and Powerpacks to houses, businesses, and the grid itself, one might think that Li-ion batteries are the ultimate in energy storage systems. That theory doesn’t hold water – but what does hold water is the world’s tallest wind turbine: a 3.4 megawatt GE 3.4-137, sitting atop a Max Bögl tower whose base includes a reservoir for a pumped hydro energy storage system, which the company calls a “water battery.”

Pumped hydropower is a well-established energy storage technique; it’s also one of the most efficient energy storage technologies, which is why pumped hydro represents 95% of the US grid’s energy storage capacity. The concept is simple: when electricity is abundant (production exceeds demand), a pump moves water uphill and stores it in a reservoir. During peak demand times, the water flows downhill, turning the pump into a generator. This is typically done in areas where the natural geography provides both an upper and a lower reservoir. In some cases, a man-made reservoir serves as either the upper or lower vessel.

When the town of Gaildorf, Germany, decided to put four wind turbines on some nearby mountains, officials wanted to incorporate an energy storage system. While the area has a natural body of water in the valley, an artificial reservoir was needed at a higher elevation. Engineers at Max Bögl, a German company that makes hybrid steel and concrete turbine towers, saw an opportunity to increase the wind turbines’ generating capacity and satisfy the need for an upper reservoir at the same time. They designed an innovative tower base that increases the turbine height by forty meters and holds 40 million liters (10.5 million US gallons) of water. The additional tower height allows each turbine to capture strong higher-altitude winds, while the “water battery” can store 70 MWh worth of electricity with a peak power output of 16 MW.

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The energy storage market is growing exponentially, however, as a percentage of total grid capacity it still only makes up a tiny fraction of the whole. Even among energy storage applications, pumped hydropower still retains a 95% market share. The major factor inhibiting further uptake — cost.

One factor emerging as a clear driver of cost reductions is economy of scale. As demand for energy storageincreases, mass production becomes feasible. Take Tesla’s Gigafactories: with a planned annual battery production capacity of 35 GWh — close to the current level of battery production of the entire world.

Tesla’s ambitious factory plans may be getting the most press, but they’re far from the only game in town. Accumotive (Germany), Energy Absolute (Thailand) and a consortium including Boston Energy and Innovation (BEI), Charge CCCV, C&D Assembly, Primet Precision Materials and Magnis Resources (USA) all have large-scale manufacturing plants in the pipeline.

These new large factories will allow energy storage to benefit from spreading the hefty upfront costs over the number of units produced. Tesla also expects that implementing innovative manufacturing processes will further drive cost reduction.

Lithium-ion based technologies account for close to 95% of new deployments of energy storage. They will undoubtedly see the most reductions in cost in the near future, however, production growth will still have to contend with the scarce quantities and precarious supply chains of the required raw materials.

The supply chain concerns for lithium-ion batteries is a main driver of research into new battery technologies — cost reduction is another. While redox flow batteries are not a new technology, this area of energy storage is seeing continuous development of new battery chemistries.

Some of these chemistries are already being tested and manufactured commercially, while others are only just being proven in university laboratories. In almost every case, the focus is on making effective batteries with common, cost-effective and safe raw materials.

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Toshiba and NRG Energy have completed a new battery energy storage system that will benefit the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.

The Elbow Creek Energy Storage project is a lithium-ion based Toshiba battery system that is able to store and provide up to 2MW of electrical power. The project located near major generator and utility NRG’s and NRG Yield’s Elbow Creek Wind Farm in Howard County, Texas, was designed to enhance the stability of the local electric grid. Transmission system operator ERCOT is repsonsible for the provision and maintenance around 90% of Texas residents’ electricity network, run as a non-profit corporation and overseen by the state’s Public Utilities’ Commission (PUC).  

The battery system is expected to help solve short-term grid issues by offering high-speed frequency regulation services. The project was manufactured at Toshiba’s 1 million sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas and features Toshiba’s SCiBTM Rechargeable Battery.

It has been part funded by Texas’ environment agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and it is hoped that the project can contribute to the state’s efforts to meet decarbonisation targets. TCEQ introduced the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) in August 2016, which gives out grants for individuals and businesses seeking to implement technologies that reduce diesel, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide, aimed primarily for air quality purposes, rather than explicity for decarbonisation. 

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Having been subject to discussion for years within the academic sphere, energy storage projects have become a topic of high interest to energy sector focused investors in recent years.

Decreasing cost curves, changing regulatory environments within the energy markets such as deregulation and shifts away from subsidised renewables to market pricing modes, and evolving software capabilities, are increasing investor confidence in energy storage investments and result in increased demand for investment opportunities.

While this seems to be true especially for more mature renewable energy markets like Europe, the United States and several others, investors are facing the problem that energy storage projects as investments are – in most cases – discussed on a very abstract basis. Only considering the “big picture” and seeing the project as a future pillar of the energy market leaves out details such as the complexity coming with energy storage investments in practice.

In my opinion, the propensity to drastically reduce complexity by discussing energy storage as high-level topic has developed based on two major factors:

Firstly, energy storage is still a new topic in the market compared to the long history of energy generation and transmission. Hence, while accumulators and especially batteries seem to be part of consumers’ lives ever since, the discussion about energy storage as a viable part of the electricity market structure is relatively trendy and new. In addition, due to the high diversity of technology types and their evolution, economies of scale and market consolidation (as seen currently in the photovoltaic market) are not yet reached. This leads to different potentials, resulting in an ultimate mess of investment cases. Supported by the fact that storage investments are often declared as a “venture capital topic”.

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Renewable energy is, undeniably, on the rise: solar and wind farms are popping up in the U.S., Europe, China, and Australia, while many companies are planning to source 100 percent of their energy from renewables. Side-by-side with this growing interest in clean energy are equally increasing energy storage needs. According to Spencer Hanes, a business development managing director at the North Carolina-based utility provider Duke Energy, batteries—like Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack—are going to take over the U.S. electric grid in five years.

“There’s going to be a lot of excitement around batteries in the next five years. And I would say that the country will get blanketed with projects,” Hanes said on Thursday, speaking as part of a panel at Solar Power Midwest in Chicago, according to Forbes.

Solar and wind farms generate energy at peak periods, when the sun is out and the winds are strong, but these don’t always match the needs of the grid. To remedy this, solar and wind farms, and even utilities, are turning to energy storage batteries. Tesla has a number of projects like this in Australia, while Google parent company Alphabet is working on a similar project in Malta.

CLEANER AND CHEAPER

Aside from batteries in larger energy farms, batteries are also becoming more popular domestically. Soon, more houses are going to be equipped with home batteries, like the Powerwall and Ikea’s home battery packs, as a reaction to the shift to renewables—and because they bring down energy costs. In the U.S., home developers in a number of state, which include New York and California, are making batteries part of their houses. “With the way that the cost curves are coming down it’s a big opportunity for all of us to deliver what customers want,” Hanes added.

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Indian state-owned company Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) has invested $12m in the 28MW Basin 1 and 2 battery storage project in the Canadian province of Ontario.

EESL has partnered with UK advisor EnergyPro to form EESL EnergyPro Assets Limited (EPAL) for the project. The JV has invested $12m in the scheme.

The 28MW/14 MWh project will provide services to the Independent Energy Systems Operator that oversees and manages the power grid of the province of Ontario, and is interconnected to Toronto Hydro, the largest municipal electricity distribution company in Canada.

“We are excited to be working with our joint venture partner EESL and Leclanché on this significant utility scale energy storage project,” said EnergyPro managing partner Steven Fawkes.

“We see it as a first step to deploying energy storage solutions at a range of scales, something that will be essential to the energy transition in all economies.”

EPAL chairman Saurabh Kumar added: “It has been our constant endeavour to make future-ready technology solutions accessible. We are confident that this partnership will help bring a new era of clean energy solutions for the world.”

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Energy storage is hot, but some new entrants into storage struggle financially. However companies, like CALMAC and Ice Energy that use cooled liquid storage, say their profits are robust.

Cooled liquid storage uses low-priced nighttime electricity to freeze or cool a liquid and then uses the chilled liquid to help offset electric air conditioning loads when power prices peak during the day. Even before the announced merger, CALMAC was working with Trane to integrate its ice storage tanks with Trane commercial HVAC systems to take pressure off of the energy grid.

CALMAC says its thermal storage systems reduce energy usage by roughly 35% by decreasing need for carbon-emitting peaking power plants. Its business model targeted building owners, wooing customers by simply cutting their electricity bills, and impacting how high demand charges from peaking air conditioner use can be controlled.

“We made the decision to join Trane because of our long tenure and history with Trane’s people, application expertise and system design,” CALMAC President Mark MacCracken, said in a statement.

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The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has refused to provide any clarity over when a decision on the potential derating of energy storage assets within the capacity market (CM) will be made despite a senior policy advisor stating the judgement is “imminent”.

In July BEIS proposed significant changes to how their generation classes are de-rated within the CM, suggesting that the majority of storage assets could lose their current 96% de-rating status in place of a mechanism designed to reflect the discharge duration of assets in the instance of a stress event.

With the exception of a methodology update in September, no further notices have been issued. Since this time, storage developers have entered their projects into pre-qualification for the next CM auctions scheduled for January/February 2018, with no knowledge of whether their applications will be affected by the rule change.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Solar Trade Association (STA) Market Access and Systems Integration conference, Alexander Berland told Clean Energy News the decision would soon be forthcoming.

“A publication is imminent; we are expecting a decision on that to be very soon. We do want to give clarity as soon as we possibly can as important decisions on investment are relying on that,” said the senior advisor for smart energy at BEIS.

He added that this information had come from the government’s security of supply team who govern the CM.

When asked to elaborate today on Berland’s comments, BEIS refused to clarify when this “imminent” publication would be issued, adding only that the department “will be publishing in due course”. The department would not be drawn on if this would be before the T-1 auction to be held 30 January or the T-4 auction on 6 February.

A number of developers have expressed concern that the rules may be implemented ahead of these dates, severely impacting the business case used to build their applications.

One developer that submitted at least two projects into CM pre-qualification told CEN in September that to do so would “lack common sense”, as it would see a number of projects likely pulled from the CM at a time when government has expressed its intention to promote energy storage.

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