The growing global emphasis on renewable energy placed a premium on the ability to store electricity from intermittent sources for long periods of time.

Tesla Inc. made the most prominent effort to tackle that challenge in 2015 by bolstering its lithium-ion vehicle batteries for homes, business and utilities.

But other companies are talking a new look at older technologies in hopes that they could provide long-term power more economically than chemical batteries. The Wall Street Journal profiled three such businesses this week.

California-based Eagle Crest Energy plans to convert a former iron mine east of Palm Springs into a pumped hydropower facility.

The $2 billion project would install pumps that send large amounts of water into reservoirs during times of abundant, cheap power — namely, during daylight for solar farms in the nearby desert.

At night, the water would be released down the mineshaft and generate hydropower with the help of gravity alone. The Palm Springs-area project would generate enough electricity to power nearly a million homes for up to 10 hours.

Another California company, Amber Kinetics, developed an advanced version of a flywheel that, after it is powered up by renewable energy, can continue spinning at high speeds — and generating power — for hours at a time.

Finally, the Journal detailed plans by Canadian company Hydrostor to develop an energy storage system based on compressed air that would be pumped into a large, underground tank filled with water.

Each system, proponents hope, could eventually accommodate rising energy demands even when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

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Battery-making gigafactories are about to arrive in Europe, challenging a lead Tesla Inc.is building at a plant in Nevada and opening the way for a quicker shift toward green power for both cars and utilities.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday is scheduled to break ground at a 500 million-euro ($543 million) plant to assemble lithium-ion energy-storage units for Daimler AG, which produces Mercedes-Benz and Maybach luxury cars.

The facility 130 kilometers (81 miles) south of Berlin highlights a push by both major automakers and power companies into energy storage. The technology is crucial to drive the next generation of green vehicles and to hold electricity from wind and solar farms for when it’s needed most. With two dominant industries moving in the same direction, the cost of batteries is likely to plunge quickly, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“As battery costs fall and their energy density increases, we could see cheaper battery-electric cars than their fuel-burning equivalents by 2030,” said Nikolas Soulopoulos, an analyst with the London-based research arm of Bloomberg LP.

Global battery-making capacity is set to more than double by 2021, reaching 278 gigawatt-hours, up from about 103 gigawatt-hours now, according to BNEF. Europe’s market share is expected to almost double over that time from 2.5 percent.

Large-scale factories planned in Sweden, Hungary and Poland, as well as Daimler’s battery assembly plant in Germany, are expected to feed demand from automakers such as Volkswagen AG and Renault SA. That will cut the cost of lithium-ion packs by 43 percent and make electric cars a mainstream reality, the researcher estimates.

For a note from BNEF on when electric cars will rival regular ones on price, click here.

For the utilities, cheaper batteries reduce the cost of storage units that smooth the variable flows of electric power to the grid from renewables. At Enel SpA, the biggest distributor in Italy, pairing a battery with a wind farm helped grid managers improve forecasts for electricity output from the plant by as much as 30 percent.

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Vivint Solar has entered an exclusive strategic collaboration to launch Mercedes-Benz’s customisable home energy storage system in the US.

Vivint Solar and Mercedes-Benz Energy will jointly provide customers with high-performance, German-engineered batteries combined with Vivint Solar’s expertise in designing, installing, and servicing rooftop solar energy systems.

This service will enable Vivint Solar’s customers to gain enhanced control over the renewable power they generate. The new solution will not only provide customers with a backup electricity source, but also help reduce energy costs.

Mercedes-Benz Energy’s Americas chief executive officer (CEO) Boris von Bormann said: “With batteries featuring the best in automotive engineering from Mercedes-Benz, and high-quality solar energy systems from Vivint Solar, our solution allows customers to take the next step toward a sustainable energy future.

“The launch of our home battery system in Europe has been successful and we are thrilled to be working with Vivint Solar to bring a reliable and compelling solar plus storage offering to American homes.”

In regions with time-of-use electricity rates, customers can use the batteries to store excess solarpower generated by the combined system during the day and then use it during periods of peak energy usage in the evening and at night when electricity rates are usually higher.

With each storage system featuring modular 2.5KWh batteries, they can be combined to store as much as 20KWH, making customisable and easy to scale.

Under the deal, Vivint Solar will be responsible for customising each system based on the customer’s individual electricity consumption requirements. The company will provide an important tool to help manage energy costs, while utilising clean renewable energy.

In the US, California will be the first Vivint Solar market where the company will provide the new solution directly to households.

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Targeted reform of Australia’s outdated electricity market – rather than long-term public funding – is the key to unlocking the full benefits from energy storage technology as the country shifts to renewable energy, according to a policy paper released by the Clean Energy Council.

CEC chief executive Kane Thornton said energy storage technologies have a critical role to play in the development of an affordable, clean and secure energy system.

“There remains substantial work to do in modernising Australia’s energy rules and allowing energy storage to fully participate in the market, bringing the benefits of the technology to both the grid and consumers more broadly,” Thornton said.

Much higher levels of storage will smooth the way for large-scale wind and solar projects, where generation is variable during the day or in the case of solar non-existent at night.

“Australia currently lacks a strategic package of energy market reforms that will help to turbo-charge energy storage and tear down the barriers that stand in the way to its wider use around the country.”

The paper, which can be found at the CEC’s website, lists 13 recommendations for reforms it considers will speed up introduction of energy storage, including:

• The energy market adopt a five-minute settlement regime to provide a more effective market signal;
• Distributors make it easier to gain approval for grid-connected battery retrofits;
• Governments allow premium feed-in tariffs to be traded in exchange for a subsidy for a battery.
• Introduction of a legally enforceable Australian Standard for product safety of lithium ion batteries.

Energy storage isn’t only about batteries; it can include hydrogen fuels and pumped hydro.

“Energy storage is the last major puzzle piece of an evolved energy system. It can complement more variable sources of generation, like wind and solar power, while also providing services that bolster the resilience of the system,” Thornton said. “It also lightens the load during peak demand, reducing the need for expensive network investment and augmentation.”

Energy storage costs – especially battery storage – are falling, the CEC says, and the briefing paper includes a chart from Nature showing the levelised cost of electricity reduction of lithium ion batteries over 10 years to 2015.

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Stem Inc., which provides intelligent energy storage as-a-service to commercial organisations, will build a 1MW / 4.2MWh energy storage project on the California State University (CSU) Dominguez Hills campus to help the institution save on energy costs.

Combined with an existing Stem storage system at this CSU location, the project will total 2MW / 6.2MWh. The storage systems will eventually be paired with solar to maximise the clean energy generation.

This project will also reduce energy congestion for a local utility through a “virtual power plant” model on the Carson, California campus. This works by the storage system providing capacity for the local utility in the West Los Angeles Basin. Earlier this month, Tesla launched the first aggregated virtual power plant in the country. 

“We are excited about our partnership with Stem in executing this project to deliver real savings for the campus, at an especially important time to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint and control our energy costs,” said Ken Seeton, Central Plant Manager and Energy Manager of CSU Dominguez Hills. “We plan to shift these energy cost savings to better use elsewhere in our services to our students.”

The project also means the Dominguez Hills campus is one of the leaders in sustainability in CSU.

“CSU Dominguez Hills is another example of a higher education leader who seeks Stem’s automated energy savings while also contributing to more intelligent grid solutions,” said John Carrington, CEO of Stem. “California’s universities and colleges want energy storage to help them control their energy choices, play a strong role in their community, and help transition the state to even higher amounts of renewable energy.”

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As battery costs decline and new control technology allows more value to be captured, the storage sector is expected to undergo rapid growth. 

8minutenergy points out that its move “aligns with industry forecasts,” including GTM Research estimates predicting U.S. energy storage capacity will reach 655 MW in 2018 and exceed 2 GW in 2021.

The company, already the largest independent renewables developer in the country, is working with manufacturers to offer lithium-ion and flow batteries, flywheels, and other storage resources. And 8minutenergy said it has also expanded its existing solar research facility by adding energy storage facilities to test performance innovations and grid balancing capabilities.

“We are working on storage solutions that are already cost-competitive across the board, improve energy yield, and maximize renewable incentives. Now with fully dispatchable renewable energy, we can complement any existing utility portfolio,” said 8minutenergy Vice President of Storage Integration Carl Stills.

8minutenergy boasts that members of its team have “initiated and/or managed” several of the country’s largest energy storage projects, including a 30 MW lithium-ion energy storage project in the western U.S., and the first utility-scale wind and storage project in Hawaii.

In April, the company announced it had received approval on a power purchase agreement to develop the 90 MW (AC) Springbok 3 Solar Farm, located in Kern County, Calif. 8minutenergy signed the Springbok 3 PPA with the Southern California Public Power Authority on behalf of its participating member, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

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Energy storage in the home has always been something of a holy grail for those who love renewable energy. Solar panels on your roof could power your home during the day, and any excess could be saved in a battery for later use. Heck, even an electric car could be powered with solar energy generated at home.

The realities of the market are that residential energy storage never really made much sense. Net metering meant solar customers could export solar electricity to the grid at the price they pay for electricity, meaning there was no need for energy storage, and the economics of a battery that cost thousands of dollars never really made sense in the past. But that may be changing as net metering rules are changed across the country and energy storage finds value for the grid. 

The new rental Powerwall

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Green Mountain Power are launching a program that will allow customers to get a Powerwall to back up power to their home for only $15 per month. That makes the price of a Powerwall — which starts at $5,500 for the battery itself and costs around $7,000 for full installation — much more affordable for consumers. 

It may not seem logical that Green Mountain Power would allow a customer to rent a Powerwall with a 467-month, or 39-year, payback, but they can do it because the rental fee isn’t the only value stream. Using utility data and Tesla’s GridLogic, the utility and Tesla will be able to provide value to the grid by reducing peak demand or filling supply gaps when sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing. And that will be cheaper than installing new power generation capacity. 

This is the bleeding edge of energy storage

Long term, this could be a model that makes sense for residential energy storage, as long as utilities and regulators create a framework that will allow customers and solar or energy storage companies to generate value from batteries in the home. Tesla has been the most aggressive moving into this market so far, but SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) and Sunrun(NASDAQ:RUN) are exploring the space as well. 

SunPower has been testing energy storage in homes for years and is installing 4 MWh of battery storage with Sunverge Energy in Con Edison‘s territory in New York. SunPower’s management has said in the past that it will expand its energy storage offerings soon, giving customers the option to maximize value or self consumption. 

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In a series of tweets in early March, Tesla founder, CEO and Chairman Elon Musk made a dramatic offer to help address the issues bedeviling South Australia’s electricity grid: he offered to install 100MW of battery storage within 100 days — or the system would be free. This led to talks between Musk and South Australia’s Premier, and with Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

At the time of writing, it was unclear whether the offer would be taken up, and there are serious questions as to whether such a system would be an appropriate solution to the blackouts plaguing the Australian state. But the attention that Musk’s offer generated is testament to the increasingly important role that battery storage, at scale, is playing in modern electricity systems.

Storage technology is the vital missing element in the struggle to enable the transition to clean energy, allowing grids to accommodate ever-growing volumes of intermittent generation and transforming the economics of renewable energy systems. But, along the way, the growth of battery storage promises to transform power markets, accelerate disruption of the utility business model and challenge regulators to rethink how they oversee generation, transmission and distribution.

The growing penetration of batteries is, essentially, a solution to a problem that dates back to the construction of the first electricity grids. “The electricity supply chain is the longest supply chain in the world with almost no ability to store the product,” says Matt Roberts, Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based Energy Storage Association (ESA). “That means we have scaled everything to meet the absolute peak of demand — it’s an incredibly costly and inefficient way to build a network.”

The inability to store surplus power (beyond the limited capacity of older storage technologies such as pumped hydro systems) is becoming a more pressing problem with the greater penetration of wind and solar technologies. Solar output, while relatively predictable, dips in cloudy conditions, while local wind speeds are hard to predict with confidence more than a few days into the future.

In addition, thermal power plants currently play an important role in balancing generation and load to maintain the frequency of power grids within a constant range, which protects electric equipment. Renewable energy generation is unable to provide the on-demand balancing power needed for grid stability.

This means that battery systems — predominantly, to date, using the lithium-ion technology seen in electric vehicles — have multiple uses, and multiple market needs they can address.

“The opportunity for battery storage exists in all areas of the utilities value chain — in generation, transmission and distribution, as well as on the consumer side, behind the meter,” says Manish Kumar, Managing Director of Arlington, Virginia-based AES Energy Storage, an arm of power company AES Corporation.

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DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Developments in Energy Storage, Capacitors, Superconductors, and Tidal Energy” report to their offering.

This TOE focuses on advances in lithium-ion batteries, tidal energy, and advanced materials for superconducting applications. It emphasizes on innovations in dielectric material for high-power applications and advanced power factor correction capacitors. The TOE also provides brief insights on the recent developments in solid state batteries and solar energy storage solutions.

The Energy and Power Systems (EPS) TechVision Opportunity Engine (TOE) provides insights on the latest advances in the broad range of technology related to the energy industry. The topics regularly presented range from energy storage technologies (batteries, fuel cells, flywheels and other advanced energy storage devices) to non-renewable energy such as oil and gas. Special emphasis is given to emerging areas in the renewable sector such as photovoltaics, wind energy, and geothermal energy, and emerging alternative fuels such as hydrogen, syngas, ethanol and biofuels. The EPS TOE keeps clients abreast of the latest R&D developments at major corporate and academic research centers, provides competitor intelligence and helps create strategic alliances.

The Energy and Environment cluster provides global insights and intelligence on a wide variety of disruptive emerging technologies and platforms ranging from energy storage, advanced batteries, solar and wind energy, to unconventional oil, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and energy transmission.

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Eos Energy Storage added two new members to the company’s executive team Wednesday. Jeff Wiener, former director of global sales— energy storage at General Electric, joins as the company’s senior vice president of global sales, and Chris Gerlach, former vice president of finance at Solar Reserve, joins as the company’s chief financial officer.

“We’re incredibly excited to add these industry veterans to the team,” says Jim Hughes, Eos chairman of the board and former First Solar CEO. “Their combined experience strengthens capabilities around product deployment, bankability and financing, and will reinforce Eos’ position as the go-to supplier for safe, cost-effective energy storage.”

As senior vice president of global sales, Wiener will build and scale Eos’ brand globally, finding new opportunities and applications for the Eos Aurora battery. Wiener spent 36 years in GE’s power segment, playing roles in wind, thermal and hydro services, and most recently directed sales for the company’s energy storage division.

 “I watched Eos for a number of years as they brought the Aurora product to market, constantly meeting key business milestones: It is now ready to go mainstream,” Wiener said. “In addition to its industry leading cost position, I believe the Eos Aurora has significant advantages over other technologies in terms of full depth of discharge operation, modular design, installation simplicity and system safety. With industry leaders like Jim Hughes and CEO Michael Oster, I have great trust and belief in the leadership team, and I’m glad to be a part of it.  I’m delighted to be working with Chris.”

Gerlach has a diverse background in finance and banking in the renewable energy sector as well as in the oil and gas, conventional power and telecommunications industries. In his previous role at Solar Reserve, Gerlach was instrumental in financing the first commercial-scale power tower with storage which entered into commercial operation in late 2015. The project involved 1,100 MWh of storage capacity.

“I was drawn to the versatility of Eos’ revolutionary battery product, which can be brought to bear on a vast array of applications, from peak shaving and reliability-enhancing backup power to renewables integration and microgrids,” Gerlach said. “The cost effectiveness of Eos’ proprietary technology creates an enormous opportunity to disrupt the market and lead lithium ion from a price, safety and longevity perspective. With commercial deployments now going into the field, Eos is setting a new standard in the industry.”

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