Many countries are retiring their traditional ‘flexible’ energy sources – such as coal-fired power stations, and introducing more and more ‘inflexible’ renewable sources, like wind and solar. Unlike traditional power stations, the output from wind and solar is intermittent and can change second by second. As a result, we need new ways to ensure that we maintain sufficient flexibility in the energy system to respond to changes in demand.

For the past 100 years or so, we have controlled generation to meet demand. Increasingly, we must control the demand to meet supply. This trend is opening up valuable opportunities for flexible energy assets such as storage. Energy storage is part of the solution to create new sources of flexibility in our energy systems, alongside efficient flexible generation and better control of demand assets. Grid operators are beginning to value energy flexibility and pay asset owners to provide flexibility through various market mechanisms such as the ancillary services market.

While energy storage is an important source of flexibility, emerging demands on electricity grids, such as electric vehicles and the electrification of domestic heating, means that we need to deploy storage intelligently to get the best out of it. There are several alternative energy storage technologies in varying states of maturity. Different storage technologies have different response times, durations and costs, which make them suited to different applications.

It’s also important to consider how new energy storage projects can be funded. In the UK, for example, storage no longer benefits from subsidies and long-term contracts with guaranteed revenue streams. This means that these projects can raise limited debt and require putting expensive equity at risk. However, energy storage offers a versatile technology that can tap into multiple value pools and be deployed in many markets including ancillary services and wholesale trading.

Deploying intelligent real-time technology to utilise different storage technologies in an optimal way is key to getting the best value from them; such technology can help investors better understand the risks and opportunities associated with new storage projects and generate optimum value for them.

Tesla’s “Gigafactory 2” in New York is undergoing something of an identity crisis as of late. It’s now mostly being used by Panasonic to make solar components, but soon, according to a Thursday report by Electrek, Tesla will give it new purpose as the home of Supercharger V3 electronics and energy storage (think Powerwall) production. Tesla is also using the facility to ramp up production on its long-awaited Solar Roof materials.

Why is that a big deal? Well, there has been a fair amount of interest in Tesla’s products that aren’t cars, but with the brand’s initial difficulties in getting the Model 3 car into volume production, those other products got pushed somewhat to the back burner. Now that production of cars has stabilized somewhat; it’s becoming possible for Tesla to use some of its cell production for these other, less demanding projects.

“In addition to scaling production of Solar Roof, Tesla is also diversifying its presence in Buffalo by manufacturing and assembling Supercharger and energy storage components at Gigafactory 2,” a Tesla representative told Roadshow. “We’re committed to investing in Buffalo and the State, and the new power electronic lines will deliver more high-tech jobs while supporting Tesla’s energy storage products and global Supercharging infrastructure.”

This second wind at the factory chould create jobs and economic growth in the Rust Belt city of Buffalo. According to the Buffalo News, Tesla is less than a year from a state-imposed deadline stating that it has to basically double the size of its workforce there or get slapped with a $41.2 million penalty. This comes from the wording of the agreement that allowed Tesla to use $750 million of taxpayer money to build the factory.

Samsung SDI has developed a new system that can store larger amounts of energy, the battery business arm of Samsung Group said Thursday.

The firm showcased the product, the E3, at the Electrical Energy Storage Europe 2019 exhibition in Munich, Germany. The three-day event, which runs through Friday, is Europe’s largest energy storage system exhibition, featuring more than 1,100 firms in the industry.

The E3 has 20 percent improved energy density storage compared to previous models, the firm said. As it can supply electric power whenever necessary it will be used in renewable energy systems.

The firm is targeting commercial markets in Europe as the E3 can be used to supplement uneven energy production of from solar and wind power, and store off-peak electricity for peak hours at commercial energy storage facilities.

Samsung SDI said it improved the energy density thanks to its new high energy density cell technology.

“Samsung SDI improved the E3’s energy density through use of new internal materials without changing the size of embedded battery cells. The design of the rack and module were also optimized to enhance energy density further while maintaining size,” the firm said.

The company plans to expand its market share in the growing energy storage system market with the E3.

“We are constantly upgrading our products based on technology,” said Kim Jeong-wook, executive vice president and head of the strategic marketing office of the firm “We will take the lead with improved energy storage systems.”

This year has already seen “significant acceleration” of activity in the global grid-connected energy storage market, with 4.3GW expected to be deployed this year, analysis firm IHS Markit has said.

In a report released to its subscribers, IHS Markit also predicted that there could be 10.6GW of grid-connected energy storage deployments annually by 2025. Julian Jansen, research and analysis manager at IHS’ Energy Storage Intelligence division said that primary drivers for the strengthening of market outlook included demand from solar co-location, growth in the Chinese market and incentives given for residential installations in various global territories.

A report out a few weeks ago from another analysis firm, Wood Mackenzie said that China and the US are the world’s fastest-growing markets, expected to account for more than half of all installations worldwide by 2024. According to IHS Markit, the US has in 2019 been the world’s leading market, overtaking South Korea which saw huge growth during 2018.

The need to replace peaking capacity on the grid – traditionally provided by combined cycle gas turbines – and the growing sturdiness of the business case for solar-plus-storage have been the primary drivers of large procurements in the US, IHS found.

Front-of-meter and behind-the-meter deployments of energy storage will eventually begin to take an even split of the global market, but today, each segment is developing at different rates in each territory energy storage has taken hold. While the US sector was dominated by front-of-meter activity in 2018, Japan and Germany have seen more going on behind-the-meter in the residential space.

That growing case for solar-plus-storage mentioned as seen in the US will be observed in more parts of the world from now until 2025. Utility-scale, front-of-meter energy storage will, therefore, take more than a 50% share of annual additions in the next six years, Jansen and his team predicted.

SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NeoVolta Inc. has received approval from the California Energy Commission to connect its NV14 home energy storage system to California’s state regulated electricity grid. Approval immediately opens NeoVolta’s energy storage solutions to California’s existing 940,000 solar installations that generate nearly 17 percent of all of California’s electricity. By storing energy instead of sending it back to the grid, consumers can protect themselves against blackouts and avoid expensive nighttime ‘peak’ rates charged by the utility companies when solar isn’t producing.

California is the largest solar market in the US representing 47 percent of the over 2 million installations according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). The 2 million mark comes three years after installations hit 1 million, a figure it took the industry 40 years to reach. Wood Mackenzie forecasts that there will be 3 million installations in 2021 and 4 million in 2023, continuing the swift rise of solar.

“Considering the widespread growth of solar in California combined with increasing utility prices, we anticipate the demand for solar batteries to increase significantly throughout the market,” said Brent Willson, CEO of NeoVolta. “Until recently consumers have had few options for home energy storage and in many markets the waitlist for product installation is greater than 6 months due to lack of supply.”

Recently, on May 8, NeoVolta announced the closing a $3.5 million equity financing to ramp up production, expand distribution and grow market share.

Acquisitions in the energy storage sector have begun to heat up. In February, Shell purchased NeoVolta competitor Sonnen for an undisclosed sum after having led a $71 million financing in May 2018. Most recently on April 29, Generac purchased NeoVolta competitor Pika Energy for an undisclosed sum.

NeoVolta designs, develops, manufactures, sells and installs home energy storage systems and products. The company’s flagship product NV14 is a complete home energy management system, designed with a 14.4 kWh rechargeable Lithium Iron Phosphate battery, a 7,680 W inverter and a web-based energy management system with 24/7 monitoring. By storing energy instead of sending it back to the grid, consumers can protect themselves against blackouts, avoid expensive peak demand electricity rates charged by utility companies when solar panels aren’t producing, and get one step closer to grid independence.

The new Venture Capital (VC) firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) only invests in technologies they vet as both “scientifically feasible at scale” and with the potential to reduce “at least half a gigaton of greenhouse gases every year.”

Along with Alfa Laval and Concord New Energy Group, BEV has invested $26 million in early stage funding for Malta, a storage start-up incubated by X.-company (formerly Google X) to build a standalone thermal energy storage pilot.

Malta’s technology concept is simple. Thermal energy storage is charged with electricity from the grid the same way as any battery, stored cost-effectively in steel tanks and discharged as electricity back to the grid when needed later.

“We plan to build a pilot plant with 10MW power and at least 6 hours of storage duration, depending on customer specifications,” Malta engineer Sebastian Freund told SolarPACES this week. As the first step towards commercialization, Malta expects to be able to attract enough investors over the next three years to complete their 80MWh thermal energy storage pilot.

Standalone thermal energy storage
The technology is based on CSP’s long-proven low-cost thermal energy storage using molten salts. A mix of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate is heated by the sun in a CSP plant, raising the temperature from a warm liquid at 290C to a heat of 565C, with the heat driving a power block.(How CSP storage works)

Because of the low cost compared to battery storage, the idea of building standalone thermal storage is not new. The world’s largest steel producer, Arcelor Mittal has already begun to decarbonize steel making using thermal storage in slag and German research institute DLR has proposed siting thermal “batteries” of molten salt at decommissioned coal plants.

DLR’s proposed thermal storage would generate and receive and deliver power back to the grid by utilizing the former coal plants existing infrastructure: its steam cycle and transmission in and out. But when thermal storage is converted to electricity, the steam cycle in coal plants has efficiency limits in the 40% range. So Malta goes one step beyond the DLR concept of repurposing decommissioned coal plants.

Researchers have built a more efficient, more reliable potassium-oxygen battery, a step toward a potential solution for energy storage on the nation’s power grid and longer-lasting batteries in cell phones and laptops.

In a study published Friday in the journal Batteries and Supercaps, researchers from The Ohio State University detailed their findings centering around the construction of the battery’s cathode, which stores the energy produced by a chemical reaction in a metal-oxygen or metal-air battery. The finding, the researchers say, could make renewable energy sources like solar and wind more viable options for the power grid through cheaper, more efficient energy storage.

“If you want to go to an all-renewable option for the power grid, you need economical energy storage devices that can store excess power and give that power back out when you don’t have the source ready or working,” said Vishnu-Baba Sundaresan, co-author of the study and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State. “Technology like this is key, because it is cheap, it doesn’t use any exotic materials, and it can be made anywhere and promote the local economy.”

Renewable energy sources don’t emit carbon dioxide, so they don’t contribute to global warming — but they provide energy only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. In order for them to be reliable sources of power for a region’s energy grid, there needs to be a way to store excess energy gathered from sunshine and wind.

Companies, scientists and governments around the world are working on storage solutions, ranging from lithium-ion batteries — bigger versions of those in many electric vehicles — to giant batteries the size of a big-box store made using the metal vanadium.

Potassium-oxygen batteries have been a potential alternative for energy storage since they were invented in 2013. A team of researchers from Ohio State, led by chemistry professor Yiying Wu, showed that the batteries could be more efficient than lithium-oxygen batteries while simultaneously storing about twice the energy as existing lithium-ion batteries. But potassium-oxygen batteries have not been widely used for energy storage because, so far, they haven’t been able to recharge enough times to be cost-effective.

As teams tried to create a potassium-oxygen battery that could be a viable storage solution, they kept running into a roadblock: The battery degraded with each charge, never lasting longer than five or 10 charging cycles — far from enough to make the battery a cost-effective solution for storing power. That degradation happened because oxygen crept into the battery’s anode — the place that allows electrons to charge a device, be it a cell phone or a power grid. The oxygen caused the anode to break down, making it so the battery itself could no longer supply a charge.

An annual highlight of the already-packed renewable energy industry calendar, Intersolar Europe brings tens of thousands of people to Munich each year to do business in the glorious Bavarian sunshine. Yet even there the sun occasionally fails to do its own business, which is a vaguely humorous way of saying that, by logical extension, the ees Europe show, representing the electrical energy storage industries, has become a bigger and bigger companion piece to the “main” event in Germany.

Of course, there will be plenty of battery and energy storage that doesn’t necessarily sit directly alongside solar, including batteries for frequency response and various e-mobility and electric vehicle and fleet solutions. Nonetheless, here are some of the products and companies we can look forward to seeing showcased this week at ees Europe. Note that this is just a small sample of what we can expect to see. It may perhaps seem a little biased towards the ‘solar’ end of the equation, but in reality, we think the overall keyword here will be ‘smart’.

Residential & Small Commercial Scale
While in economic terms it’s still considered a challenge in many parts of the world, Germany’s home energy storage market continues to deploy thousands of units each month, driven forward by falling feed-in tariffs and falling system prices. Many of the market participants in Germany will be looking now to not only consolidate their position and increase the value of their offerings in that market, they’ll also be seeking to do it internationally as well.

Hanwha Q CELLS integrates Eguana battery ahead of ‘smart supply’ launch

PV module manufacturer Hanwha Q CELLS has partnered with Canada’s Eguana Technologies, which makes its own AC-coupled home energy storage unit, Enduro. The system will be made available through the sales networks of Hanwha Q CELLS, mainly focused on the rooftop solar market.

The two have entered an exclusive agreement for Hanwha Q CELLS to market, sell and distribute Enduro into the European Union countries, Switzerland and in Norway under the Q CELLS brand. Hanwha claims it sold more than 15,000 residential units in Europe in 2018. The company has teased that it will be launching an integrated energy supply solution at Intersolar this week, so we will be watching closely.

VARTA concentrates on smart homes

There’s a focus on smart home connectivity in the launch for the second generation of VARTA’s Pulse home storage unit, Pulse neo.