Generac Pivots From Generators Into Residential Energy Storage & Solar At #SPI2019

on October 7, 2019
Cleantechnica

I’ll be honest. When a company known for installing more than 2 million backup generators for homes reached out to me for a meeting at Solar Power International 2019 last week, I was not excited. Was the company making the move to green its image, to woo new investors, or to gauge customer interest? We have seen too many legacy companies over the years dabble in clean tech with most of those roads leading to dead ends, but I figured what the heck. Let’s give it a shot. Boy was I wrong.

Walking up to the booth, the show floor around the Generac booth was abuzz over the new home energy storage product it was working on. Earlier this year, Generac acquired the residential energy storage company Pika Energy, who we first talked to at SPI last year at the Panasonic booth. Stacking onto the excitement, Generac aqui-hired the team of energy storage intelligence experts at Neurio Technology Inc. The news was exciting, but with the residential energy storage market moving as quickly as it is today, it was anyone’s guess whether Generac would be able to integrate the two new companies into the fold and translate their disparate technologies into a single set of customer-facing products quickly enough for it to matter.

We connected with Generac’s Chief Marketing Officer and president of its new clean energy business, Russ Minick, at SPI 2019, to talk about its big pivot into energy storage products to learn more about where that strategy came from. Right off the bat, Russ said that Generac had been eyeing the residential energy storage market for quite some time, but until recently, felt that, “it wasn’t worth the diversion of focus.”

“We’ve had our eye on solar and storage for some time,” but the company was really trying to hit the sweet spot in the market. “If you go in too soon, the market isn’t mature enough…if you go in too late, the leaders will already be entrenched.” In early 2019, it started dabbling with the technology, assembling a team of engineers well-versed in residential backup power solutions. After 2 or 3 months, it became clear that they were working outside their core competency and the company instead pivoted towards the prospect of an acquisition. “The ability to get a really competent product to market…would have taken too long,” Russ said.

The early efforts quickly bore fruit as Generac honed its search, performed its due diligence, and decided to acquire the energy storage intelligence experts at Neurio, and just a few weeks later, the energy storage builders at Pika Energy. “We put the teams together,” Russ said. “They’re 3,100 miles apart. One’s in Vancouver, one is in Portland, Maine. We closed, put them in a room and I got out of the way because I’m from Iowa and just let the magic happen.”

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsGenerac Pivots From Generators Into Residential Energy Storage & Solar At #SPI2019

Microgrid’s Best And Brightest Offering Insights At PGI

on October 7, 2019

Connectedness. Community. Security.

From a human point of view, those are things most humans want. This is no different when it comes to our energy desires.

Microgrids are defined as a localized, interconnected group of electricity sources, whether linked to the greater grid or in separated mode. No man is an island, it’s been said, but some grids are.

Microgrids are all the rage in this era when consumers want to feel closer to renewable energy resources, or protected should a major storm come in and destroy much of the overlying energy infrastructure (hello, Sandy, Harvey, Irma, anyone?). Microgrids are a major development, with Navigant Research forecasting that this market could become a $31 billion industry by 2027.

And POWERGEN International is becoming the industry authority on microgrid content, with no less than 11 sessions offered when the conference comes to New Orleans from November 19-21. These microgrid events will be upstairs and downstairs in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, and also cover a worldwide array of islanded and non-islanded projects.

“With the growth in the availability of affordable renewable energy and other distributed energy resources, energy consumers are more empowered than ever to use microgrids to generate and manage their consumption through active involvement in the market,” Mark Feasel, one of Schneider Electric’s key microgrid experts, said a few years back.

POWERGEN International’s approximately 10 hours of microgrid content spread out over three days will cover those renewable and energy storage elements, but also how traditional on-site power gen-set fit into the mix. The scheduled speakers include experts from Jacobs Engineering, POWER Engineers, Bechtel, S&C Electric, Bloom Energy, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, MTU Onsite Energy, ABB, Eaton. Decentralized Energy Knowledge Hub sponsor American Fire Technologies and utilities such as Duke Energy and Commonwealth Edison, among others.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsMicrogrid’s Best And Brightest Offering Insights At PGI

GE to Supply Battery Energy Storage Systems in California

on October 4, 2019
TandD-World

GE Renewable Energy recently announced it is has been selected by Convergent Energy + Power for the supply of battery energy storage systems for three projects in California for a total capacity of 100 MWh. GE’s scope of work includes a long-term service agreement and augmentation guarantees.

With this project, GE will reach a total of 495 MWh in operations or construction in the battery energy storage space. It is GE’s largest energy storage project in the United States to date, showing the clear demand for energy storage solutions in the United States and around the world.

The energy storage systems support two primary goals. First, they provide targeted local capacity to enhance grid reliability during peak periods. Second, as fast-acting stabilization devices, the battery energy storage systems can charge and discharge rapidly to regulate frequency and contribute to grid stability, helping to balance and facilitate the ever-growing penetration of variable renewable energy. Assets such as these will assist with making California’s state targets of 33% renewable energy penetration by 2020 and 100% by 2050 a reality.

Frank Genova, COO and CFO of Convergent, said, “Convergent has a track-record of developing trailblazing energy storage assets that advance the energy storage sector; we’re proud to partner with GE to provide for local area reliability and support the growth of renewable energy in California.”

Prakash Chandra, renewable hybrids CEO, GE, said, “Energy Storage is going to be a major component in the energy transition to more renewable generation and our collaboration with Convergent in California is a stepping stone in demonstrating the industry’s commitment to deliver more reliable and dispatchable renewable energy.”

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsGE to Supply Battery Energy Storage Systems in California

As World Chases Rare Metal For Batteries, Iowa Looks To Sodium For Storage Solution

on October 4, 2019
energy-news-network

Iowa is betting on big batteries to help it unlock more wind energy potential as a lack of grid capacity begins to constrain development in parts of the state.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority for the past couple of years has been funding and encouraging research into various forms of battery storage. In July, it gave Steve Martin, a materials science and engineering professor at Iowa State University, a $480,000 grant to continue work aimed at making a battery based on solid sodium.

Should Martin succeed in devising a feasible way to store large amounts of power in a solid-state sodium battery, it could be “a game-changer,” said Brian Selinger, who directs the Economic Development Authority’s energy office. Sodium, one of the two ingredients in table salt, is the seventh most common mineral and would be easy and cheap to acquire compared to the relatively rare lithium used in most batteries.

The award was the largest of 10 energy grants issued this summer and the only one for work on storage technology. The authority sees great economic development potential in energy storage and has raised its profile in keeping with the recommendations of the 2016 Iowa Energy Plan.

Batteries today typically use liquid lithium or sulfuric acid to shuttle ions back and forth between the battery’s positive and negative poles. A few use a liquid form of sodium. Although lithium-ion is the prevalent technology in cell phones and electric vehicles, it has important limitations, according to Martin.

In its liquid form, lithium is volatile and vulnerable to exploding when heated. Also, it is a fairly expensive soft metal whose cost Martin predicts will “skyrocket” as the demand for battery storage escalates. That would make it a pricey technology to pair with the grid in general and wind energy in particular.

He and a few others around the world are working to solve technical issues so that sodium batteries can come to market and provide storage on a massive scale.

“This is a very large problem,” Martin said. “If you’re going to build gigawatts of batteries for storing wind energy, it takes tons and tons and tons of sodium.”

Work is underway to devise ways to stash large amounts of energy in vanadium redox flow batteries, molten salt, and compressed or liquid air, according to Jason Burwen, vice president for policy at the Energy Storage Association.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsAs World Chases Rare Metal For Batteries, Iowa Looks To Sodium For Storage Solution

Blackouts Are On The Rise. So Austin Is Making A ‘Microgrid’

on October 3, 2019
E and News

The Department of Energy and the nation’s utilities are exploring ways to make cities more resilient in the face of mounting and costly blackouts from severe storms and heat waves that are increasing with climate change.

They will use of a variety of relatively new features appearing in urban grids, including large storage batteries, a rising number of rooftop solar installations, and new computer-controlled programs and switches. They will also ask for help from homeowners.

Some utilities are already promoting devices such as two-way controls on air conditioners, thermostats and even electric water heaters to reduce consumer power demand on super-warm days.

The most ambitious effort would give control to a local utility to make a rapid grid reconfiguration at the onset of a blackout. It will attempt to collect and distribute enough renewable energy to support an “island,” or smaller area of the grid that can quickly repower hospitals, police and fire stations, and other emergency centers.

The stage for this experiment is called the Mueller neighborhood in the east-central part of Austin, Texas, a large modern housing development started in 1999 on the runways of what was the city’s former municipal airport. Mueller has many pieces of the puzzle that might be needed, including a proliferation of new homes with rooftop solar arrays and a recently installed large battery storage system that Austin’s municipal utility, Austin Energy, helped acquire with a federal grant.

Austin’s first goal was to use the neighborhood and the big battery to help expand its reliance on renewable energy to 65% by 2027. Austin Energy has already started using the battery, installed on the edge of the Mueller neighborhood, to collect enough solar power to help it meet increased electricity demand during spates of 100 degree days.

“We’re also using it to do energy arbitrage,” said Cameron Freberg, a strategist for the utility. The battery collects and delivers solar power for use during the day, when electricity rates are high. The system recharges at night with cheap wind power from the grid, so it’s ready for the next day’s struggle to keep up with air conditioning demands.

In June, DOE offered Austin Energy part of a $5 million grant for a more complex challenge. It is to create “flexible energy pathways” from the solar arrays on the homes in Mueller, so that they might be tapped for electricity during a blackout. To do that, the local utility is joining a larger team sharing the DOE grant to explore prompt ways to minimize a storm-caused blackout.

It’s called the Solar Critical Infrastructure Energization system, or SOLACE for short. It’s not aptly named, because it’s unlikely that there will be any immediate solace for those involved in the experiment.

The physics of storms and renewable electricity present a tough nut to crack. The electricity generated by solar arrays or stored in batteries is in the form of direct current, and the electricity used on the grid is alternating current. It is a mismatch that can normally be solved by a common device called an inverter on the solar array that translates DC into AC.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsBlackouts Are On The Rise. So Austin Is Making A ‘Microgrid’

Cellcube Energy Storage Systems Inc. Announces Proposed Transaction with Pedro Resources Ltd.

on October 3, 2019

TORONTO, Oct. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CellCube Energy Storage Systems Inc. (“CellCube”) (CSE:CUBE) (OTCQB CECBF) (Frankfurt 01X, WKN A2JMGP), and for and on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary Enerox GmbH (“Enerox”) and Pedro Resources Ltd. (PED-H.V) (“Pedro”)(collectively, CellCube and Pedro are referred to as the “Parties”), are pleased to announce that they have entered into a non-binding term sheet (the “Term Sheet”) pursuant to which, among other things, Pedro intends to purchase all of the assets of EnerCube Switchgear Systems Inc. (“EnerCube”) and PowerHaz Energy Mobile Solutions Inc. (“PowerHaz”), subsidiaries of CellCube (the “Proposed Transaction”).

Details of the Proposed Transaction

Pursuant to the Term Sheet, Pedro has agreed to purchase, through a subsidiary, the assets (the “Assets”) of EnerCube and PowerHaz which are comprised of intellectual property, patents, trademarks, equipment and commercialization rights used in connection with the production of large and small vanadium redox flow batteries. This is an Arm’s Length Transaction. Consideration for the Assets consists of payment of $1,750,000.00 of cash and securities yet to be determined to acquire the Assets (the “Purchase Price).

The completion of the Proposed Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including all necessary corporate and regulatory approval, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange (the “CSE”) and the TSXV.

About CellCube Energy Storage Systems Inc.

CellCube is a Canadian public company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (symbol CUBE), the OTCBB (symbol CECBF), and the Frankfurt Exchange (Symbol 01X, WKN A2JMGP) focused on the fast-growing energy storage industry which is driven by the large increase in demand for renewable energy.

CellCube supplies vertically integrated energy storage systems to the power industry under the subsidiary company, Enerox GmbH, the developer and manufacturer of CellCube energy storage systems. CellCube’s other related subsidiary is EnerCube Switchgear Systems Inc., which designs, manufactures, assembles, and tests and complete range of dependable power control systems. The Company has also invested in an online renewable energy financing platform, Braggawatt Energy Inc.

CellCube develops, manufactures, and markets energy storage systems on the basis of vanadium redox flow technology and has over 136 project installations and a 10 year operational track record. Its highly integrated energy storage System solutions features 99% residual energy capacity after 11,000 cycles (cycling daily for 28 years) and larger scale containerized modules. Basic building blocks consist of a CellCube unit family with 4, 6 and 8 hours variation in energy capacity.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsCellcube Energy Storage Systems Inc. Announces Proposed Transaction with Pedro Resources Ltd.

Grid-Planning Needs To Incorporate, Not Accommodate, Distributed Energy Resources

on October 3, 2019
Energy-Storage-News

While in the past, the use of DER solutions such as energy storage and demand response have been thought of in terms of how they defer the use of traditional items in the grid developer’s toolkit, better consideration is forming around the “upfront role” DER can play, a US-based analyst has said.

Energy-Storage.news spoke with Samir Succar, a director and DER analyst at consultancy group ICF, shortly after he spoke on a panel at Solar Power International / Energy Storage International with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) analyst Kristen Ardani and Interstate Renewable Energy Council (irec) VP of regulatory affairs Sara Baldwin in Salt Lake City, Utah last week.

The panel, ‘Distribution system planning data for project development’, looked closely at the ways and means different stakeholders in the electricity system have for assessing their requirements and planning according.

We briefly reported last week that Irec’s Sara Baldwin had said the deployment of DER needs to scale with the demand for the services they provide, without becoming a neat technology without a niche, as can often happen.

ICF’s Samir Succar highlighted some of the challenges that exist in terms of gathering and using data, especially as more and more DERs are aggregated on the grid. The system, he said, is becoming “more complex, more dynamic, both in the way you operate the system and also in terms of how you then plan and build the system as well.”

“That has implications for DER developers that are looking to not only interconnect on the system but maybe get access to value streams, distribution services, participate in wholesale markets and build that into how they think about their project and their project fundamentals,” Succar said.

Curtailment risk and the need for transparency
Managing constraints on the distribution system and figuring out how to “proactively build the system” to enable DERs to participate more broadly across different services and applications, mean that the top-down planning process becomes vitally important in “both understanding and building those capabilities that then enable functionality and additional revenue opportunities for DER,” the analyst said.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsGrid-Planning Needs To Incorporate, Not Accommodate, Distributed Energy Resources

Smart Meters Make a Comeback, While Energy Storage and Microgrids Surge

on October 2, 2019
TandD-World

According to the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, within the electricity delivery and management segment of advanced energy, it is noteworthy that advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) had two big revenue years in the United States recently, jumping 65% in 2017, to US$1.4 billion, and holding roughly steady in 2018. Smart meters and related infrastructure are foundational for much innovation in the electric power sector, including reforms like time-of-use rates. But revenue from deployments of this equipment had tapered off from the 2011 to 2012 level of nearly US$1.7 billion a year, when utility investments were driven by the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Spending on AMI reached a low of US$860 million in 2016, but in the past two years, AMI deployment has had a bit of a revival.

Even more noteworthy is the fastest growth in this segment — which totaled US$135 billion worldwide and US$21.3 billion in the United States in 2018 — over the past five years has been in energy storage. This market started at a low base, but revenue has multiplied eight-fold over the seven-year period, recording double-digit gains in 2017 and 2018 in both U.S. and world markets.

Worldwide revenue for energy storage has grown from US$462 million in 2014 to US$2.4 billion in 2018. In the United States, energy storage revenue has climbed from US$58 million to US$701 million over the past five years.

Over the past year, renewables-plus-storage projects were largely the driving force behind new announcements. One of the more interesting projects announced in 2018 was a lithium ion (Li-ion) battery being developed at India’s first-ever wind and solar hybrid project. Hero Future Energies, the owner/operator of the project, stated that the hybrid plant has seen extremely good wind production and consequently must curtail solar because of capacity constraints on the local grid. The Li-ion battery will help mitigate the need for curtailment. If all goes as planned on this pilot project, then the company will retrofit older renewable projects as well as include a storage component in all new projects.

Traditional generation replacement is also a key driver for utility-scale storage. One of the most notable tenders last year was Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) solicitation for energy storage to replace three power plants in its service territory. The gas-fired plants it is replacing had operated as reliability-must-run resources. Deploying strategically located energy storage will help lower operating costs and address congestion issues in the region.

Distributed energy storage systems continue to grow slowly throughout global markets, accounting for 23% of new capacity announced in 2018 (excluding pumped hydro). These systems are frequently paired with other generating assets (renewable or otherwise) and are chiefly used for applications like demand charge management, peak shifting, and resilience/backup power.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsSmart Meters Make a Comeback, While Energy Storage and Microgrids Surge

US Energy Storage R&D Legislation Receives Approval in ‘Another Milestone’

on October 2, 2019
Energy-Storage-News

A legislative package for energy storage research and development (R&D) has been welcomed by the US Energy Storage Association, after receiving approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

An amended version of the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act was last week approved by the committee after having been introduced in May alongside the Promoting Grid Storage Act of 2019 .

The BEST Act now forms a package of energy storage bills, including language from the Promoting Grid Storage Act of 2019, the Expanding Access to Sustainable Energy Act of 2019, the Reducing the Cost of Energy Storage Act of 2019 and the Joint Long-Term Storage Act of 2019.

Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the US Energy Storage Association, lauded the approval as “another milestone on the path to a better and brighter energy future”.

“Legislation approved today by the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee will for the first time elevate energy storage to one of the top priorities of US technology research, development, and demonstration.”

The BEST Act is set to amend the United States Energy Storage Competitiveness Act of 2007 to establish a research, development, and demonstration programme for grid-scale energy storage systems, and for other purposes.

The programme would have an aim of reducing the cost and extending the duration of energy storage systems.

Specifically, research would focus on highly flexible power systems with a minimum of six-hour storage durations, long duration storage systems with 10 to 100 hours of storage durations, seasonal energy storage that could reach durations of weeks or months and the integration of vehicle batteries with the grid, as well as other innovations.

The Department of Energy (DOE) would also be required to carry out up to five grid-scale energy storage demonstration projects by the end of fiscal year 2023, as well as to develop a ten-year strategic plan for energy storage RD&D.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsUS Energy Storage R&D Legislation Receives Approval in ‘Another Milestone’

How Retailers Can Increase Electric Reliability

on October 2, 2019

With threats to electric reliability increasing, it is easy to understand why power outages worry retailers. So what are the solutions?

The most obvious is a backup generator. While this may seem like an expedient solution, procuring backup generators is costly and complex. Their purchase requires sizing analysis, engineering, building permits, construction, and routine maintenance that includes inspection, loaded testing, and fuel conditioning if they use diesel.

Failure to adequately maintain backup generators will create operational problems that a retailer may not discover until it is too late. Backup generators sit idle for most of the year, only running during emergency operations. Because of this infrequent operation, maintenance is sometimes skipped, making backup generators less likely to work when needed and far less reliable than a microgrid. In contrast, microgrids frequently interact with the grid, so they undergo constant testing and conditioning, increasing the likelihood they will work during an emergency.

The heart of a microgrid
It is important to understand what a microgrid is and how it functions, and how is can contribute to electrical reliability. As the name suggests, a microgrid is a smaller version of the electric power grid installed on-site at the user’s facility.

A microgrid can serve a single building, a business campus, a college campus, a military base or even a community. A microgrid’s defining characteristic is its ability to operate in isolation from the surrounding grid.

When designed for resiliency, a microgrid’s defining characteristic—what makes a microgrid a microgrid—is its ability to operate in isolation from the surrounding grid. A grid-connected microgrid ‘islands’ from the central grid when it senses a disruption, such as a power outage. The microgrid then activates its system to supplant the lost grid electricity.

Islanding occurs via a microgrid controller, the technology at the heart of the microgrid, which allows the microgrid to interact with the central grid. When it senses a problem on the grid, the controller sets up the activities to ensure power flows to its host from the on-site system. Retailers are able to maintain continuous operations, despite severe weather or other grid threats.

A microgrid also can provide advantages to a retailer by interacting with the grid during non-emergencies. For example, the microgrid may sell services to the grid or leverage changes in pricing, which can produce a revenue stream or offset microgrid costs.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsHow Retailers Can Increase Electric Reliability