If energy storage advocates have their way, storage will receive the same US tax benefits as does solar — an investment tax credit for new installations. Legislation to do just that was introduced in the House of Representatives late last week.

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., would create a separate energy storage infrastructure investment tax credit based on the existing tax credits for solar energy. He introduced a similar bill in the last session of Congress, as did the U.S. Senate. The senate is expected to follow suit again during this session of Congress, all to provide parity among 21st century clean energy technologies.

“We commend Congressman Doyle for his leadership in the introduction of today’s legislation, which if enacted, would immediately boost investment in the energy storage industry and create even more economic opportunity,” said Energy Storage Association Chief Executive Kelly Speakes-Backman, in a statement. “It is a simple and impactful clarification of the current investment tax credit that would ensure equitable access for standalone storage and send long-term investment signals to an industry that supports tens of thousands of jobs nationwide.”

What’s next for microgrid policy? Join thought leaders and change-makers from throughout the US on May 13 in San Diego for a special Microgrid 2019 workshop: Tariffs, tax incentives, RECs or something else? What’s the way forward for the microgrid industry?

The investment tax credit for solar energy allows developers to deduct 30 percent of the cost of installing such systems on both residential and commercial properties. The 30 percent comes right off their federal taxes. In 2020, however, that credit is reduced to 26 percent and in 2021, it is cut to 22 percent. It would be 10 percent beyond that point — unless Congress steps in and extends it.

The Australian and international energy sector will meet in Sydney from 13–14 June to discuss the latest in storage technologies and how they are enabling the transition to new energy systems and a more reliable grid.

Sydney’s International Convention Centre will be host to the 2019 Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition (AES 2019), the premier event for opportunities in energy storage.

This year’s theme, Energy Storage – The Great Enabler, will feature the biggest players in the industry exploring the latest in projects, technologies and processes for large-scale and commercial energy storage.

Thought-leaders and energy executives from around the world will showcase case studies and discuss topics including utility applications of energy storage technologies, the role of microgrids, grid-scale storage investment and current storage projects, as well as a look at where the sector is headed.

The combination of local and international perspectives will reveal similarities in storage challenges worldwide and inspire new approaches for grappling with Australia’s most pressing industry issues.

The event will also run a free-to-attend exhibition featuring cutting-edge technologies available on the market.

Early bird conference ticket registration is open until 12 April, providing significant savings for delegates.

The conference also provides many networking opportunities, including drinks and a dinner cruise, where attendees will get the chance to mingle with the experts and chat with industry peers in both formal and informal settings.

Meet the speakers

The first round of Australian and international expert speakers have been announced.

Robert G Morgan, CEO of Energy Storage at GE Power in the United States, brings a 30 year career in global energy markets to his keynote presentation, where he will address critical questions about corporate strategy and project development in the storage sector.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) 2019 Integrated Resource Plan included the potential for 3-8 GW of solar power through 2038. Some thought this number was a bit soft with the amount of flexible generation – specifically a number of large hydropower plants – the region has, and the amount of fossils still needing be shut within the utility region. The company did note that they’d have a new solar program in place by 2020.

On April 1, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for 200 MWac of renewable energy resources, with a strong interest in energy storage. The RFP requests respondents submit proposals with 12-, 15- and 20-year delivery periods. The deadline to submit questions is May 1, with proposals due by May 15 and selection of projects expected in October. The projects must be online by October 31, 2022.

The document notes the utility is interested in energy storage along with renewables, and works to create a financial structure that will support the projects. Noted in above image, the projects will receive a 2% escalator for all revenue. A standard dollar per megawatt-hour price will be offered for the electricity, while the energy storage will receive an additional dollar per kilowatt per month capacity payment, plus an operations and maintenance fee for the energy storage system. The pricing will include all energy, capacity, transmission, ancillary services, and environmental attributes from the plant.

The program seeks projects at least 2 MWac in capacity. In terms of sizing the energy storage, TVA requests:

Energy storage should be sized to provide sufficient storage capacity equal to the greatest amount of energy to be provided for a continuous four-hour discharge during a 4-hour period with 380 annual cycles

Amidst a flurry of energy and climate change legislation being introduced in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, this week saw lawmakers reintroduce a perennial attempt to add stand-alone energy storage to the list of technologies eligible for federal investment tax credits (ITC).

The Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act, introduced Thursday by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), is the latest update to a bill first introduced in 2016 by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM). Its goal, broadly speaking, is to extend to batteries and other electric storage systems the same 30-percent ITC offered to solar PV systems.

This year’s House version wouldgrant full ITC eligibility for investments in commercial, residential and utility-scale energy storage, with the same ramp-down now set for solar – 30 percent through 2019, 26 percent in 2020, and 22 percent in 2021.

For residential energy storage, the ITC for storage would be zeroed out after 2021. But it would remain at 10 percent permanently for commercial and utility-scale projects, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which supports the legislation.

Energy storage advocates have long been clamoring for their own federal tax credits, but have found little purchase in a politically fractured Congress. It’s unclear whether this year’s version will be taken up as part of a broader push for a Green New Deal and other climate and environmental legislation amongst House Democrats, or how those efforts will face in a Republican-controlled Senate.

Even so, wind and solar groups applauded the Doyle bill for reintroducing what they called an important expansion of federal tax policy support for clean energy. “It’s clear that combining clean, reliable solar energy with effective storage is the next frontier in securing a resilient and reliable electrical grid,” SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in a Thursday statement.

A South Australian company has unveiled the world’s first operational thermal energy device (TED). The TED creators report the battery can store renewable energy, has higher storage capacity than traditional batteries, and is completely recyclable.

The thermal battery has similar functionality to lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries; it can take any form of electrical input and create alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC).

Unlike existing batteries, it can charge and discharge at the same time, according to Serge Bondarenko, chief executive officer from CCT Energy Storage. And rather than storing an electrical charge, it converts the electrical input to heat.

“It’s a device that takes any form of electrical input on the front end and converts that to thermal energy,” he explains. “We use silicon as our phase-change material, melt it and store the heat from that.”

The thermal battery’s storage capability is 12 times greater than lead-acid batteries and has five to six times the capacity of lithium-ion. “So the storage capacity is significantly higher than what we see now with traditional battery storage devices in the market,” says Bondarenko.

Acknowledging that all technologies have their challenges, Bondarenko still believes they have a competitive advantage. Their thermal battery is considerably cheaper than lead-acid and lithium-ion.

Questions around who should own, operate and ultimately benefit from the deployment of energy storage systems could soon be resolved in the Philippines after the government Department of Energy (DoE) issued a set of draft guidelines.

In order to accommodate energy storage as an enabler for the modernisation of its electricity networks, the Philippines’ Department of Energy (DoE) has issued a circular, “Providing a framework for energy storage system [sic] in the electric power industry”, this week.

Issuing the draft on 1 April and now seeking public comments only until 5 April 2019, the department has nonetheless attempted to take on some of the biggest questions facing electricity system planners, operators, generators and service suppliers alike. The DOE has already held four events to address policy gaps in the document with stakeholders and further events featuring public consultations.

Internationally, the department said, energy storage systems are in use for a variety of applications relating to the transmission, distribution and generation of energy. Domestically however, various stakeholders have raised concerns that there is a “lack of governing policy framework for its regulation and operation”.

The department recognised specific problems in the Philippines including load dropping on the Visayas Grid due to the addition of variable renewable energy sources, highlighting that ESS could stabilise that network. It also acknowledged environmental concerns over ESS system deployment, noting that the “ESS proponent” is to take responsibility for proper disposal and recycling of facilities and components.

Who could own and operate ESS
The DOE is putting together a Smart Grid Roadmap in respect of modernising the national electric system. ESS will be one of the “key elements” of that:

“The DOE recognizes the applications and the benefits of ESS as an emerging technology in the improvement of the electric power system in accordance to the objective of ensuring the quality, reliability, security and affordability of the supply of electric power,” the circular reads.

In early 2017, SUSI Partners launched what it called the “world’s first dedicated energy storage infrastructure fund”, and by the end of May 2018 the group had raised €252 million ($283 million) from institutional investors in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. The fund seeks returns of 8-10% in 10 years when accounting for degradation, with a minimum project size of 10 MWh. Overall, 75% of the projects the fund acquires must come with long-term capacity agreements.

As the latest, the dedicated Energy Storage Fund has acquired a 50% stake in a portfolio of behind-the-meter battery storage systems from Macquarie’s Green Investment Group. The lithium-ion projects are located in the Western LA basin in California and have a total capacity of 63MW/340MWh across 90 projects. All projects are “substantially contracted for 10 years” and are spread across multiple high-load commercial and industrial host sites.

The portfolio includes what is described as the world’s largest virtual power plant (VPP) using battery storage to control and reduce peak demand at large commercial and industrial customer facilities. The 11 MW / 60 MWh VPP became operational in 2018, and delivered more than 2 GWh of capacity services, saving more than $1 million for the customers. No pricing on the investment was given.

At the time of the fund hitting €252 million in May 2018, SUSI noted it had already completed two investments, allocating approximately €90 million (US$101 million) of the fund. One of these was for lithium-ion systems, the other flywheels, and both projects had long-term visible cash flows.

Preceding this, in November 2017 SUSI signed a $120 million ($90 million) facility with NRStor C&I to develop a 300 MW portfolio of behind the meter energy storage projects.

And in January of this year, the energy storage fund signed a €100 million ($112 million) deal with ABB for development and execution of small-scale microgrid and power grid connected energy storage projects through qualified engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partners.

Macquarie has been very busy in recent weeks, having received financing to build 97 MWh of the portfolio last week from a consortium of banks. As well, they bought a portfolio of 6 GW of solar + storage projects from Enel.

HB 650, which passed the state Senate in a 47-0 vote on Thursday after passing the state House, requires the PSC to set up a pilot program in order for Maryland’s four investor-owned utilities to start developing energy storage projects under specific commercial and regulatory models.

The pilot program is the “outgrowth of years of work by many people on energy storage in Maryland,” Montgomery County Del. Marc Korman, who sponsored the measure, told Utility Dive.

“There are a lot of different things that the regulators, utilities and the other stakeholders need to figure out, and we want to make sure they’re doing that and moving the ball forward,” Korman said. “These pilots create a structure for them to do that.”

Following the passage of the bill, the PSC has two months to establish the program’s framework, which is set kick off on June 1. The utilities are then required to solicit two energy storage projects and apply for PSC approval. The approved projects are set to become operational by Feb. 28, 2022.

The utility companies must solicit offers in at least two of four utility ownership models laid out in the bill. Those ownership models include a utility-only model; utility and third-party model; a third-party ownership model; and a virtual power plant model.

Data will play an integral role in the pilot. Starting on July 1, 2023 the electric utility companies must submit the first of three annual rounds of technical and financial information to the corresponding state agencies.

On the main questions that the pilot is expected to address is whether utilities in Maryland, which has a deregulated electricity market, can own energy storage if it has any of the applications of generation, Korman said.

The pilot program, if not extended, will terminate on Dec. 31, 2026. Over the course of the program, PSC will be required to submit two reports to the state General Assembly: an interim report, due on July 1, 2024, and a full report at the end of the pilot.

While other states have a more accelerated approach to developing strategies surrounding the use energy storage, Maryland does not want to rush the incorporation of storage technologies, according to a 2018 report by Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Power Plant Research Program.

File this one under K for Karma. US coal power plants have spent the past few decades messing with the nation’s water resources, and now water is turning around and messing with coal. The Energy Department is pushing ahead with plans for new hydropower and pumped hydro initiatives that will provide more energy storage and knock coal out of the baseload power generation picture.

Ouch!

Pumped Hydro Energy Storage In The USA
Let’s focus on pumped hydro first, because that’s where the DOE is looking to upend conventional wisdom.

Pumped hydro is an old technology but it still plays an outsized role in energy storage globally and here in the US. The basic idea is to store energy in the form of water held in an uphill reservoir, and leverage gravity to send it downhill to a generating station.

These giant “water batteries” still account for more than 95% of energy storage capacity in the US, so there’s that.

According to the conventional wisdom, the problem is that suitable sites for new pumped hydro energy storage facilities are limited. Cost is another inhibiting factor, as is the long timeline for project development.

New Concepts In Pumped Hydro Energy Storage
The conventional wisdom seems to be fading out. Researchers in Australia just published a new study indicating that the global potential for water batteries is far greater than previously though. The new Energy Department funding also looks to expand the universe of pumped hydro locations.

Part of the funds go to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Researchers there will focus on existing water storage tanks, of which there are many dotting the US landscape. The idea would be to construct additional tanks at higher elevations.

The Houston-based company Quidnet Energy Inc. will focus on injecting water under pressure into rock structures. The Energy Department is especially excited about this option.