In the concluding chapter for the World Energy Council’s World Energy Resources 2016report, DNV GL asserts that energy storage is playing an increasingly crucial role in the transformation to a cleaner, smarter, safer energy future worldwide.

“Energy storage is pivotal to meeting the challenges facing economies worldwide,” says Paul Gardner, lead author. “With this chapter, which follows sections on a variety of generation resources and technologies, we hope to present the challenges and opportunities in energy storage with a thorough examination of the economic, regulatory and commercial factors surrounding it.”

The chapter examines technical, financial, environmental and regulatory aspects of a variety of energy storage technologies including lithium-ion and flow batteries. It looks at the impact of increasing amounts of battery storage, and battery capacity in electric vehicles. Graphs depict storage technologies according to performance characteristics, using energy capacity and discharge time at rated power. Information gathered directly by PwC shows the levelised cost of storage in 2015 compared to the cost of 2030 in a bar graph, showing a projected decrease in future prices.  The chapter develops three major conclusions:

1. The main areas of growth in the next five years are likely to be in small-scale battery storage in conjunction with solar PV; in utility-scale electricity storage; in electric vehicles; in commercial, communications and software capabilities to allow DER to be aggregated, in a ‘virtual power plant’ or ‘swarm’; in pumped storage hydro; and in islanded use cases integrating renewables.
2. Most commercial interest is in battery storage and the costs of several storage technologies will fall as production volumes increase.
3. The future outlook for energy storage markets is good due to an increasing need, but the regulatory and legal frameworks are failing to keep pace.

According to the World Energy Council, the investment community has good reason to be excited about the innovation and business models that will emerge from new opportunities. With the cost of capturing and storing wind and solar energy coming down, its deployment across the world will increase.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has installed its GridStar™ Lithium energy storage system at the company’s Syracuse, New York, facility. The 1 MW system will reduce electricity bills and emissions for Lockheed Martin’s operations and will also provide services to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the state’s competitive wholesale electricity operator. ENGIE, a global independent power producer and energy services provider, will operate the system and dispatch the power.

“We provide turn-key energy storage solutions for a variety of utilities, independent power producers, commercial and industrial customers and developers,” said Frank Armijo, vice president of Lockheed Martin Energy.  “As we provide customers with advanced energy solutions, we’re pleased also to implement them at our own facilities to further our affordability and sustainability goals.”

System Capabilities

Lockheed Martin Energy used the company’s advanced project analytics capabilities to design the installation.  The project deploys Lockheed Martin’s compact, easy-to-install GridStar™ fully integrated Lithium energy storage system.

Lockheed Martin and ENGIE integrated the GridStar™ system with ENGIE’s energy storage operating software to achieve a multi-functional application of energy storage.  

“This project is a great opportunity to combine multiple capabilities in the growing market for decentralized energy management,” saidJason Goodhand, director of energy storage for ENGIE North America. “By pairing Lockheed Martin’s system with our Green Charge subsidiary’s advanced, patented software as well as ENGIE’s experience in scheduling and dispatching power, we bring together a powerful solution that supports Lockheed Martin’s goals and enhances the flexibility and resiliency of the broader power grid of the New York ISO.”

The Lockheed Martin GridStar™ Lithium architecture consists of modular, scalable, purpose-built energy storage units that contain batteries, local-controls software and all required balance-of-system components. Each GridStar™ energy storage unit can be configured to provide up to 375 kW of power and up to 600 kWh of energy storage. These units can be AC coupled together to scale to multi-MW projects.  Systems also come with extended warranty and long-term maintenance options.

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Eos Energy Storage, the startup that’s attracted utility interest from around the world in its low-cost, zinc-based batteries, is raising money to build more of them, and to get those units out in the field. Deployments are needed to prove the company’s bold claims of multi-hour, long-lasting energy storage at a cost of $160 per kilowatt-hour.

On Tuesday, Eos announced the initial closing of a sale in a private placement of approximately $23 million. The New York-based startup previously raised $23 million in May 2015 in a round led by AltEnergy, and about $27 million in two previous funding rounds from investors including OCI, NRG Energy and Fisher Brothers.

The money will fund the scale-up of contract manufacturing and commercial deployment of its Eos Aurora batteries. These cargo-container-sized, 1-megawatt, 4-megawatt-hour units use cathodes made from zinc, a much cheaper metal than lithium, but one that’s proven to be a challenge for rechargeable batteries.

Eos says it’s solved these problems through a proprietary coating that reduces corrosion over multiple charge-discharge cycles, as well as other materials and design improvements, to yield a battery with 75 percent round-trip efficiency and a 10,000-cycle, or 30-year, lifetime.

As for price, the company has long been targeting $160 per kilowatt-hour, which is about half the cost of the cheapest lithium-ion batteries on the market — although lithium-ion’s massive manufacturing base is sure to drive down those prices in the years to come.

Eos’ batteries sacrifice round-trip efficiency in comparison to lithium-ion, which is in the 90 percent range. But they have a better profile for multi-hour discharge cycles, particularly in the 4- to 6-hour range, where lithium-ion batteries really struggle.

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SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwired – Oct 18, 2016) – Energy Storage North America (ESNA), the largest gathering of policy, technology and market leaders in energy storage, concluded its fourth annual event last week in San Diego. Mirroring the growth and maturation of the storage industry at large, ESNA grew in its attendee numbers, expo floor space, and the number of organizations represented at its conference and expo.

More than 1,900 industry professionals attended ESNA, held October 4-6, hailing from over 1,000 different organizations and 25 countries. The nearly 15,000-square-foot expo floor, the largest ever for Energy Storage North America, provided over 100 exhibitors with an opportunity to showcase the latest software and hardware storage technologies, systems and services.

Senior executives from utilities, grid operators, investors and storage developers took part in panel sessions alongside elected officials and regulators to discuss the changing regulatory landscape, the process of valuing benefits of storage and the latest system deployments and assets, among other trending industry topics. In total, the ESNA conference featured nearly 150 speakers on 21 different panel sessions, 6 keynote addresses and 8 in-depth workshops.

“The optimism, excitement and innovation that underscored ESNA’s program, expo and networking events all point to the tremendous growth of energy storage over the past year,” said Janice Lin, Chair of Energy Storage North America. “By bringing utilities, policymakers, storage developers and financiers into the same room to break down barriers and share successes, we can leverage the potential of storage even further to modernize and strengthen our electric power system.”

Special events at ESNA also highlighted important sectors and stakeholders in energy storage. The annual ESNA Awards Ceremony recognized innovative storage projects in the centralized, distributed and mobility sectors, as well as policy and utility champions who have advanced storage through their work. ESNA hosted its first annual Women in Energy Storage networking event to foster connections among women in the storage industry, and continued its tradition of hosting a utility-only networking reception to encourage dialogue among utility professionals. In 2016, the number of utility employees who attended ESNA doubled compared to 2015, reflecting the increasing utility focus on and investments in energy storage.

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Strategic planning of Chinese industry at a state level could see electrical energy storage installations grow in importance, rocketing to as much as 24GW by 2020, according to one analysis firm.

Asia Europe Clean Energy Advisory Co Ltd (AECEA) said in a report sent out today that electrical energy storage as the “next big thing” could represent China’s “solar PV 2.0” moment. The firm’s China expert Frank Haugwitz included a look at energy storage as the closing segment to a briefing paper on solar market development.

Haugwitz said that while around 105MW of EES systems were installed by the end of 2015, under a business-as-usual scenario AECEA anticipated the market reaching 14GW and 24GW under a more optimistic modelling.

The reasoning given for this was that, in common with solar PV, which received a huge amount of government backing and has gone beyond 10GW of new installations each year since 2013, China has identified opportunities in the energy storage industry. Government officials in Beijing consider the development of an energy storage industry domestically to be “strategically important,” Haugwitz wrote.

The country appears keen to capture the industry’s value domestically and has included electrical energy storage in its “13th Five year plan on science and innovation” as well as its “National energy administration energy innovation action plan (2016-2030)” in which it also included solar as one of 15 key technologies.

“In light of these recent developments, it is obvious that EES applications are high on the political agenda, in order to make sure that Chinese companies will be in the position to meet the anticipated future demand,” Haugwitz wrote.

According to Haugwitz, industry observers now expect that the forthcoming “13th Five year plan for solar energy development (2016-2020)” will include policies designed to drive up demand for EES.

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PV is now producing more electricity than coal in the U.K. But don’t expect a storage boom to follow.

According to GTM Research’s Global Solar Demand Monitor, the U.K. has become the largest market for solar demand. But concerns over the eligibility for subsidies are forcing asset owners to delay adding storage to PV projects, said Jill Cainey, director of the Electricity Storage Network. 

The U.K. PV industry is largely supported through a Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROC) scheme that was designed before the advent of solar-plus-storage plant designs. 

PV asset owners wishing to add storage to their plants would have to reapply for ROC accreditation with their distribution network operator. Payments under the ROC scheme would then be suspended pending the outcome of the accreditation process. 

Even though any interim payments would still be awarded once the accreditation was granted, the temporary halt in cash flow “is something an investor would not be excited about,” Cainey said. 

This month, she attended a U.K. renewable energy trade show, Clean Energy Live, and “there were no solar farms deploying storage.” 

At the same time, the U.K. market for residential solar-plus-storage looks unlikely to take off in the near future because of unfavorable economics. 

Recent research by Delta Energy & Environment suggests the payback time for U.K. residential PV-plus-storage could be 16.9 years for a new system and 24.5 years for a retrofit, not taking subsidies into account.  

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Rival energy storage companies sonnen and Tesla each started the week angling for the emerging smart battery market, with news of financing and partnerships.

Sonnen is positioning to grow its virtual energy business sonnenCommunity, a move it sees boosted by $85 million in new equity investments. The German-based company is expanding on its native turf as well as in the United States, Australia, UK and Italy.

Sonnen wants to become an “energy supplier of the future,” said Christoph Ostermann, CEO of sonnen Group, in announcing two new minority equity partners, including international energy technology company Envision Energy.

“Fast growth and leadership in innovation are the keys to reaching this goal,” he said. “With Envision Energy, we have gained a strategic investor who shares our vision, supplements our technology and has a strong presence in both the U.S. and Asian markets.”

Sonnen’s energy sharing platform, sonnenCommunity, allows customers with solar-plus-storage to feed excess energy into a software-linked pool. Others in the network then tap into the supply rather than purchase power from a utility.

More recently, the company began offering sonnenFlat, a virtual power plant product that allows aggregation of sonnenBatteries into a storage pool that provides balancing energy for Germany’s grid.

Thomas Putter, former CEO and ex-chairman of Allianz Capital Partners, also took a new minority stake in sonnen. Earlier investors include CAPITAL, MVP, SET Ventures, Inven Capital and GE Ventures.

Meanwhile, Tesla and Panasonic have formed a partnership to manufacture solar photovoltaic cells and modules in Buffalo, New York.

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What’s on tap? The makings of advanced batteries and a better way to deal with brewery wastewater.

Engineers at University of Colorado Boulder have come up with a process to make lithium-ion battery electrodes from the sugar-rich wastewater created in the beer-making process. The bio-manufacturing process is not only a sustainable source for battery materials and fuel cells, but it’s also an inexpensive way to deal with the large amount of wastewater breweries produce.

“Breweries use about seven barrels of water for every barrel of beer produced,” said Tyler Huggins, a graduate student in CU Boulder’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and lead author of the new study. “And they can’t just dump it into the sewer because it requires extra filtration.”

The use of biomass in battery and fuel cell technologies isn’t new, but the researchers found that the beer wastewater was especially suited to the task. They found that they could easily cultivate a fast-growing fungus, Neurospora crassa, which then becomes the carbon-based electrode, in the wastewater. The partnership between the researchers and breweries is mutually beneficial: the scientists need a sugar-rich material for cultivating the fungus and the breweries have a lot of wastewater that needs to be treated.

The university said, “By cultivating their feedstock in wastewater, the researchers were able to better dictate the fungus’s chemical and physical processes from the start. They thereby created one of the most efficient naturally-derived lithium-ion battery electrodes known to date while cleaning the wastewater in the process.”

The process could easily be scaled up because everything needed to produce the energy storage material already exists. The engineers are teaming up with Avery Brewing in Boulder to work on a large pilot program. Watch the video below to hear more about the process.

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Carmaker Daimler has completed construction of the world’s largest energy storage facility using second-hand car batteries in Lünen, Westphalia, in Germany.

The new site, which utilises batteries from Daimler’s second-generation smart fortwo electric cars, will provide 13MWh of capacity to the German energy market by the end of the year. Daimler said the first power units are already plugged into the German energy grid.

Daimler said in a statement energy output from the facility will be made available to the “winner of weekly auctions among the network operators for primary controlling power range”.

The project, a joint venture between German firms Daimler, The Mobility House, GETEC and Remondis, will see 1,000 used EV battery systems grouped into a single storage solution.

Each partner takes a distinct role in the new operation, with Daimler covering the initial manufacture and configuration of the battery systems, The Mobility House and GETEC handling their installation and marketing to the energy markets, and Remondis taking charge of their recycling at end-of-life.

Meanwhile, German manufacturer Bosch said in a blog post it has worked with car giant BMW and energy company Vattenfall on a parallel storage project using “second-life” EV batteries. Its project, located in Hamburg, incorporates 2,600 battery modules from 100 electric cars, and provides 2MW of output and 2.8MWh of capacity.

“This energy is available within seconds to stabilize the power grid,” it said in the post.

The German Ministry for the Economy and Energy (BMWi) wants around 45% of power consumed in Germany to be generated from renewable resources by 2025, increasing to around 60% by 2035.

EV batteries remain operational even after the electric vehicles themselves have been scrapped. Daimler said: “If used in stationary power storage, the systems are fully operational even after the service life guaranteed by the manufacturer – with slight capacity losses only of secondary importance. Cost-effective use in stationary operation is possible for at least 10 years longer.”

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