Energy storage is a good option for frequency response, a storage trade group will tell the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month.

Markets would be less efficient and “system costs greater than necessary if resource owners are mandated to provide frequency response service from generators more suited to provide energy and capacity,” the Energy Storage Association wrote in previously filed comments. 

The group is responding to FERC’s request for supplemental comment on its November 2016 notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to begin the process of revising its interconnection rules for both large and small generators. FERC’s concern was that fewer generators were providing primary frequency response.

According to ESA, requiring generators to provide frequency response could produce an oversupply of frequency response headroom, imposing additional system costs. The group noted that many generators are not well suited to provide frequency response because doing so can lower operational efficiency, which will eventually result in higher system costs. Additionally, requiring all generators to provide frequency response would fail to create a market signal.

On the other hand, energy storage, particularly batteries, are well suited to provide frequency response, ESA said. They are fast responding and do not lose efficiency by needing to reserve headroom. In its comments, ESA cited studies by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that found 1 MW of fast responding resources could be substituted for 2 MW of primary frequency response resources during some system conditions.

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Four months after its CEO declared to Energy-Storage.News that hybrid vanadium redox flow-lithium systems would be the “optimal” way to deliver multiple applications for energy storage, redT has delivered equipment to its first such project.

UK-headquartered redT, which makes energy storage systems based on the redox flow technology said yesterday that it has sold a 300kW / 1MWh “hybrid” energy storage system to Melbourne’s Monash University in Australia. The company said this marks two firsts: the delivery of Australia’s first flow-lithium hybrid system and redT’s first deal in the country.

CEO Scott McGregor, who has famously banned employees from defining the systems as “batteries”, instead calling them “flow machines”, said in a June interview that combining the “workhorse” properties of vanadium systems with the more high power capabilities of lithium could deliver the “the lowest cost, highest function out of the two technologies”.

The system at Monash uses 900kWh of redT energy storage, combined with a 120kW C-1 rated lithium battery, to be installed at a biomedical research and learning facility at the university. It will be paired to on-site PV generation and will help maximise the use of renewables, reducing energy costs in a country where abundant sunshine, high electricity costs and isolated grid networks have created a sort of perfect storm of market conditions for PV and latterly for energy storage.

It is hoped the hybrid system will generate both revenues and savings for the university, with plans to offer its capabilities into markets for merchant and contracted grid services in future. It is being integrated into a university-wide microgrid project, which is being deployed in partnership with Monash Energy Materials and Systems Institute (MEMSI). Under that project, the reliability and stability of the local grid is being boosted by the integration of renewables and there is also intent to create a peer-to-peer energy trading network using the microgrid.

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Green Charge said it expects to complete installation of the Mt. Tom energy storage project by April 2018 in time for peak summer demand when capacity costs are highest.

HG&E said it will use storage system to reduce the burden on its electrical distribution system, increasing overall asset life.

Electricity from the solar farm will be stored in the storage system and will be called on during local and regional peak load periods.

The project won a $475,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources as part of the state’s Peak Demand Management Program. The funds will be used to contract with, schedule, measure and analyze the storage system. The goal of the grant is to provide research and recommendations on the future distribution system value of battery storage devices throughout the state.

“We are pleased to work with ENGIE on the Mt. Tom energy storage project, which will produce peak demand and asset management benefits that will help HG&E stabilize electric rates over the long term,” Jim Lavelle, HG&E’s manager, said in a statement.

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Battery vendors are being hit by a combination of rising prices for raw materials and continuing currency uncertainty, resulting in rapidly changing costs for businesses according to Easystart.

The lead acid battery supplier has reported a recent 30% increase in the cost of producing its products as a result of a higher cost for lead and fluctuations associated with global currencies.

With Brexit continuing to cast a long shadow over all industries alongside the impact of President Trump, the company has experienced a swing of up to 5% in its costs in some weeks. However, Easystart has said it was no choice to accept these variations as part of its businesses instead of passing on the continually changing costs to consumers.

“There’s absolutely nothing to do about it,” a company spokesperson said at Solar & Storage Live, Solar Media’s three-day dedicated exhibition and conference taking place in Birmingham, England, this week.

He added that the UK business was also still subject to the effects of last year’s feed-in tariff cuts, which have put the demand and interest in home storage back to levels seen in 2015, suggesting little progress has been made in boosting the residential market for battery storage.

However, the spokesperson said that while Easystart has little visibility on the applications its range of gel batteries are used for, its customers are purchasing larger quantities suggesting they are expecting business to pick up going forward.

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Four months after its CEO declared to Energy-Storage.News that hybrid vanadium redox flow-lithium systems would be the “optimal” way to deliver multiple applications for energy storage, redT has delivered equipment to its first such project.

UK-headquartered redT, which makes energy storage systems based on the redox flow technology said yesterday that it has sold a 300kW / 1MWh “hybrid” energy storage system to Melbourne’s Monash University in Australia. The company said this marks two firsts: the delivery of Australia’s first flow-lithium hybrid system and redT’s first deal in the country.

CEO Scott McGregor, who has famously banned employees from defining the systems as “batteries”, instead calling them “flow machines”, said in a June interview that combining the “workhorse” properties of vanadium systems with the more high power capabilities of lithium could deliver the “the lowest cost, highest function out of the two technologies”.

The system at Monash uses 900kWh of redT energy storage, combined with a 120kW C-1 rated lithium battery, to be installed at a biomedical research and learning facility at the university. It will be paired to on-site PV generation and will help maximise the use of renewables, reducing energy costs in a country where abundant sunshine, high electricity costs and isolated grid networks have created a sort of perfect storm of market conditions for PV and latterly for energy storage.

It is hoped the hybrid system will generate both revenues and savings for the university, with plans to offer its capabilities into markets for merchant and contracted grid services in future. It is being integrated into a university-wide microgrid project, which is being deployed in partnership with Monash Energy Materials and Systems Institute (MEMSI). Under that project, the reliability and stability of the local grid is being boosted by the integration of renewables and there is also intent to create a peer-to-peer energy trading network using the microgrid.

“Why you would look at hybrid is if you think of the flow machine as your workhorse, it’ll do 60%-80% of the work, it’s really boring, just sit there pumping energy and liquid all the way round many times a day, it will never degrade and you want to utilise that as much as you can,” McGregor had said earlier in the year in explaining the appeal and potential strengths of the hybrid concept.

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In mid-2017, IKEA announced that it would be ‘launching’ a battery storage offering to sell alongside its solar panels in the UK. The week previous to this announcement, Siemens – another household name – announced that it would be joining forces with AES to create Fluence, a company focusing on the global energy storage industry.

The press release by IKEA was viewed by many in the industry as a big deal, with many excited that such a well-known consumer brand could be ready to push storage into the UK market.

But in a world where energy storage will play an increasingly important role – in balancing renewables, reinforcing the network, and reducing energy costs – how important will ‘brand’ be?

Brand will be important for the following three reasons:

• Confidence in the product is paramount to protect a well-known brand:

Despite the fanfare around the announcement, storage and PV wasn’t a completely new offering for IKEA. The company had been offering storage with its PV systems for some time to any customers who requested it. The company had been soft trialling the products for a while before making any big announcement. The IKEA brand has been built up over more than 70 years and companies of this size and heritage don’t risk it over what will be initially an extremely niche offering (IKEA sells one of its BILLY bookshelves every three seconds with one-tenth of furniture purchased in Britain coming from IKEA).

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One of the reasons California is a leader in energy storage are the multiple laws aimed at encouraging and supporting the technology, including AB 2514, enacted in 2010, that directs utilities in the state to energy storage resources.

The most recent energy storage related legislation, AB 546, is aimed at helping communities navigate the often confusing process of obtaining permits for energy storage projects. Though there are multiple state mechanisms for encouraging energy storage, the process can be very confusing.

AB 546 aims to speed that process by directing communities of 200,000 and more to provide web based resources and to provide a basis for making the permitting process and related fees more consistent from community to community.

The bill says that the implementation of energy storage is “not a municipal affair, but is a matter of statewide concern.”

The bill comes as municipal utilities invest in energy storage to meet ambitious renewable energy goals. 

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Senator Martin Heinrich has proposed granting tax relief for purchasers of energy storage systems, in a similar way to how the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is applied to residential solar PV purchases.

Heinrich, democratic senator for the state of New Mexico, along with Minnesota’s Al Franken, also a democrat, last week introduced S.1851, a bill in Congress to create research and demonstration programmes for energy storage systems. Heinrich, with Franken as co-sponsor, also that week introduced S.1868, “a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax credits for energy storage technologies, and for other purposes”.

At present in the US, the only nationwide, federal support scheme applied to purchases of energy storage systems is the solar ITC, which gives consumers the right to claim back 30% of the cost of installing a PV system from federal taxes. The ITC is applied to both residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) systems. However, at present, the tax credits are only available for energy storage system purchases if installed at the same time that a solar PV system is being deployed.

Heinrich’s bill, which is also known under the abbreviated title “Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act of 2017”, has been read twice and now referred to the Senate’s Committee on Finance. The bill was first floated in mid-2016, where it gained support from both Democrat and Republican senators. There are separate provisions for providing an ‘Energy credit’, defined by the internal revenue code as “the energy percentage of the basis of each energy property placed in service during such taxable year” and for residential energy efficiency measures on private properties.

The bill’s ‘Energy credit’ definition would include energy storage equipment from batteries to mechanical energy storage with compressed air, pumped hydropower, hydrogen storage, fuel cells, thermal energy storage, flywheels, capacitors, superconducting magnets and any other applicable technologies. Systems must however have a capacity of 5kWh or above. For the residential energy efficiency tax credit, systems would have to be 3kWh capacity or over.

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A new report from Navigant Research examines the global market for energy storage for microgrids (ESMG), providing an analysis of trends and market dynamics, with forecasts for capacity and revenue that extend through 2026.

Interest in energy storage-enabled microgrids is growing alongside an increase in solar PV and wind deployments. Although not required for microgrids to operate, energy storage systems (ESSs) have emerged as an increasingly valuable component of distributed energy networks because of their ability to effectively integrate renewable generation.

“There are several key drivers resulting in the growth of energy storage-enabled microgrids globally, including the desire to improve the resilience of power supply both for individual customers and the entire grid, the need to expand reliable electricity service to new areas, rising electricity prices, and innovations in business models and financing,” says Alex Eller, research analyst with Navigant Research. “Innovations in business models and financing will likely play a key role in the expansion of the ESMG market during the coming years.”

According to the report, the most successful companies in this industry will be those that can unlock the potential of new business models to reduce the risk and upfront costs to customers. This is particularly true in Asia Pacific and North America, which are projected to be the largest regional markets for new ESMG capacity by far.

The report, “Market Data: Energy Storage for Microgrids,” outlines the key market drivers and barriers within the global ESMG market. The study provides an analysis of specific trends and market dynamics for each major world region to illustrate how different markets are taking shape. Global ESMG forecasts for capacity and revenue, segmented by region, technology, and market segment, extend through 2026. The report also briefly examines the major technology issues related to ESSs for microgrids.

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GRIDSTOR is an independent set of recommendations combining all key standards and guidelines with credible industry experience and insights, to help guarantee the safe implementation and operation of energy storage systems for all stakeholders such as end users, manufacturers, investors or insurance companies. The updated version, compiled by an international consortium of experts from 15 global organisations, incorporates the latest storage technologies and market developments and provides the most up to date recommendations on safety, operation and performance for grid-connected energy storage systems.

The Recommended Practice requires regular updates as the energy sector undergoes rapid developments and innovations. Currently over 200 other guidance documents are available that can be applied to grid-scale energy storage systems or components. As the grid-scale energy storage market is rapidly growing, it relies on independent risk mitigation, to ensure growth happens with the required quality and safety standards, further enabling the energy transition.

Energy storage is a key measure to provide flexibility, as increasing renewable generation is needed to allow electricity systems to continue to operate stably and economically. DNV GL’s recently published Energy Transition Outlook report forecasts that renewable sources will account for 85 percent of the world’s electricity production. Additional ‘flexibility’ functions such as storage technology are needed to allow electricity systems to continue to operate stably and economically.

“Energy storage is playing an increasingly important role in providing a reliable and secure power supply” said Ditlev Engel, CEO at DNV GL – Energy. “Whether this is with regards to the integration of renewables into the energy mix, ancillary services, bulk energy services or any other form of the wide variety of applications. GRIDSTOR provides the most relevant Recommended Practice allowing all stakeholders to safely develop the vital technological and system advancements using energy storage”.

David Lentsch, Senior Manager Energy Storage at Maxwell Technologies, added that the new and updated global standard on advanced utility and microgrid energy storage explains how storage performs as a Swiss army knife delivering multiple streams of value to utilities, ratepayers and their regulators.

The international consortium that has updated GRIDSTOR includes experts from: Alaska Centre for Energy and Power, Alfen, Alevo, ATEPS, Conergy, Datawatt, DNV GL, Enexis, Gaelectric, Highview Power, Hybrid Europe, Maxwell, PNNL (in support of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity energy storage safety strategy), RWTH and Wärtsilä.

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