(Washington, D.C. – May 5, 2020) EDF joins allies supporting the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today for virtual oral argument in a case that will have a vital impact on America’s clean energy future.

This morning a three judge D.C. Circuit panel will hear argument by teleconference about FERC’s Order 841 – an order that permits energy storage to compete fairly in wholesale power markets. EDF is supporting the order.

“FERC’s order 841 creates an even playing field for energy storage to compete with traditional fossil fuel generators, which is an essential step to realizing cleaner, healthier air and a clean energy future for America,” said EDF attorney Michael Panfil. “Order 841 removes market barriers for energy storage and unlocks its enormous public health, environmental and cost-saving potential.”

FERC’s Order 841 “remove[s] barriers to the participation of electric storage resources” in wholesale power markets. The order could catalyze energy storage deployment by up to 50 gigawatts, according to expert analysis. The order unlocks critical benefits from such deployment while carefully respecting longstanding state authority to craft climate, clean air and clean energy policy.

Opponents, including an association of traditional utility companies and NARUC, have sued to block the rule. They will argue against it today, opposite attorneys for FERC.

EDF is intervening in the case in support of FERC’s order, along with NRDC and VoteSolar, both represented by EarthJustice.

A coalition of clean energy trade associations including the Energy Storage Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the Advanced Energy Economy, also intervened in the case in support of FERC Order 841. A coalition of state Attorneys General and a coalition of innovative tech companies including Sunrun, Tesla, Vivint Solar Developer, and ENGIE Storage Services have filed amicus briefs in support of the order.

South Australia’s principal electricity Transmission Network Service Provider (TNSP), ElectraNet, recently won Energy Networks Australia’s 2019 Industry Innovation Award for its Dalrymple Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). The remarkable project is now in full commercial operation and is the first BESS in the National Electricity Market (NEM) to provide both regulated network reliability and security services alongside competitive market services.

As one of the most extensive regional transmission systems in Australia, ElectraNet’s network extends across some 200,000 square kilometres.

The transmission network has more than 90 substation sites and 5,500 circuit kilometres of transmission lines operating at 275,000 and 132,000 volts.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Integrated System Plan (ISP), published in July 2018, highlighted that energy storage has a significant role to play in the future energy system with the continued growth of intermittent renewable energy sources.

The Dalrymple BESS showcases the widest range of services provided by a grid-connected BESS in the NEM, covering both energy and system security services.

ElectraNet designed, built and owns the Dalrymple BESS and leases commercial operation to AGL. The project received part-funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Objectives and rationale

The objectives of the project were to demonstrate that utility-scale battery storage can effectively:

• Provide network reliability and security services alongside competitive market services in a network with a high penetration of renewable non- synchronous generation
• Provide “seamless” islanded operation with 100 per cent renewable generation following transmission outages
• Demonstrate a commercial model for the provision of regulated services and competitive energy market services, and build delivery capability for such assets
• The Dalrymple 30MW, 8MWh BESS is the first transmission grid-connected battery in the NEM providing both regulated and competitive market services.

US-based utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has signed seven contracts for 770MW of battery-based energy storage capacity to strengthen California’s electric system reliability.

SCE has signed agreements Southern Power, NextEra Energy Resources, TerraGen Power and LS Power to procure the capacity.

The company has signed three 15-year contracts with NextEra Energy Resources for a total capacity of 460MW. It has signed two 20-year contracts with Southern Power for a total capacity of 160MW.

The other contracts include a ten-year contract with TerraGen Power for 50MW capacity and a 15-year contract term with LS Power for 100MW.

A majority of the energy storage projects will be located adjacent to the solar power plant to charge the battery over the term of the contract.

SCE has signed contracts with Southern Power for its Garland and Tranquillity projects that have a capacity of 88MW and 72MW respectively.

NextEra Energy has been contracted for the Blythe 2, Blythe 3 and McCoy projects with a capacity of 115MW, 115MW and 230MW respectively.

On the other hand, TerraGen Power has signed a contract with SCE for its Sanborn project for a capacity of 50MW while LS Power secured contracts for its Gateway 1-2 project.

SCE Energy procurement and management vice-president William Walsh said: “These new emissions-free projects will help us ensure the reliability of the grid for our customers and integrate an ever-increasing amount of clean renewable energy over the next decade.

The U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA) unveiled its 2020-2021 executive committee officers last week, along with a newcomer to its board, Jeff Bishop, co-founder and CEO of Key Capture Energy.

For the trade association, elections are a yearly measure, resulting in a changing board of directors that selected new officers. In this case, the chosen officers include Board Chair John Hewa of Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, Immediate Past Chair Troy Miller of GE Renewable Energy, Vice Chair Kiran Kumaraswamy of Fluence, Treasurer Dr. Peter Muhoro of National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation, with Jacqueline DeRosa of Ameresco rounding out the appointments as secretary.

Bishop, however, is the newest face to the board, appointed by Hewa to fill a vacancy that had opened.

“We extend our thanks and gratitude to our board officers as they continue in their role of guiding and supporting the organization during this pivotal time,” ESA CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman said. “We are equally excited to welcome our newly elected board member, Jeff Bishop. While we face challenges across our communities, our organization can proudly say that we have the best minds collaborating on determining the most viable solutions to ensure a more resilient, efficient, sustainable, and affordable grid.”

Bishop was the founder of Key Capture back in 2016. The company has since expanded in the market of building large-scale energy storage projects and taken a place among ESA’s Leadership Circle.

In their roles, Bishop, along with his fellow board members and officers, will work to accelerate the use of energy storage systems throughout the United States.

The levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) that can be achieved today for battery energy storage means that “batteries are not going to need subsidies to be competitive for short to mid-term balancing” applications, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF).

Our sister site PV Tech reported yesterday that according to analysis BloombergNEF’s newly-published LCOE reports, solar’s levelised cost of electricity has fallen below US$30/MWh with the PV industry expected to break the US$20/MWh average in a decade.

New-build utility-scale solar and onshore wind are the cheapest options in much of the world, putting existing coal and gas power plants at risk, with BloombergNEF assessing 25 different technologies and 7,000 projects in 47 countries.

The LCOE of battery storage systems meanwhile has halved in just two years, to a benchmark of US$150 per MWh for four-hour duration projects. In an interview, BloombergNEF analyst Tiffen Brandily, the report’s lead author, told Energy-Storage.news that below two-hours duration, batteries are already cheaper for peak shaving than combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT), traditionally the go-to technology for that purpose.

“If you need to shave a peak in the load, it’s going to cost less to install a battery than CCGT or gas reciprocating power plants, peaking plants,” Brandily said.

‘Tremendous’ reductions driven by both upstream and downstream market dynamics
BloombergNEF has only been tracking the battery storage space for the past couple of years as the market went from being “relatively limited,” the analyst said, but “since then we’re really seeing a trend now – the LCOE has come down quite tremendously, actually faster than PV or wind”.

While the report said that manufacturing scale and standardisation, as well as technology improvements on the upstream side have contributed to this rapid decline in costs, the other big piece of the puzzle is on the downstream end – battery projects are getting bigger and bigger, both in megawatt (MW) and in megawatt-hour (MWh) metrics.

While there is an increased focus on local content across several South African industries, government could do more in terms of incentivising local manufacturing, says energy solutions company i-G3n co-founder and director Sydney Phakathi.

“The mere fact that there is not enough local production of energy storage systems indicates that there is a gap. We do see, however, quite a large number of importers coming into the country. In a job-scarce economy, you would think that a key driver would be incentivising local production because it would also create jobs,” he adds.

The company manufactures solar-powered battery technologies that are suitable for use in household and any utility- scale energy production process.

“South Africa has the capability to not only adopt renewables on a larger scale but also manufacture the components required for it. Policy must encourage just that to propel economic growth in the country,” i-G3n co-founder and director Tumi Mphahlele tells Engineering News.

While there should still be a coal component in the energy mix, it should not be the main focus going forward, says i-G3n co-founder and director Jacques Buys.

“We should rather have an assortment of renewable-energy sources – preferably solar and wind – at the forefront and coal as the buffer to assist during peak hours. However, energy storage also plays a part in those peak hours, as you can choose when to replenish that stored energy,” he asserts.

Further, the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 (IRP 2019) has called for a fair energy mix leading towards the just transition, which could result in renewables playing an increased role.

“We strive to be the catalyst for enabling more households and businesses across Africa to harness the power of sustainable and renewable-energy products at competitive prices,” the company says.

This is pivotal, as it not only addresses the current need for supply in South Africa but also positions i-G3n to respond to the current “energy crisis” on the continent, which could have long-standing negative impacts on the way of life and the standard of living for its populations.

Although tightening emissions globally require the industry to move progressively towards renewables, Mphahlele underscores that it is mainly being driven locally owing to inadequate supply.

Maintaining grid reliability and stability is increasingly challenging as renewable energy resources are added to the power mix. Combining battery storage systems with gas turbine units can improve overall plant performance and ensure black-start capability is available, when needed.

Keeping the lights on has been the mantra from governments and utilities, particularly after several high-profile power cuts in the last decade. There has been much spoken about the reliability of the electrical network and concerns raised by the diminishing input from fossil-powered generation. This concern was raised again last year when a large-scale power outage struck South America.

In June 2019, a large-scale blackout affected Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, leaving an estimated total of 48 million people without electrical supply. According to local supply company Edesur, problems with several 500-kV transmission lines disrupted the flow of electricity from two dams to Argentina’s power grid. It took more than 24 hours for electricity to start flowing again, highlighting the challenges of restarting a power grid in such a situation. Preventing these outages is one thing, but ensuring that power is restored as quickly as possible is equally important.

Black-Start Challenges

The procedure that network operators adopt to restore power in the event of a total or partial shutdown of the electricity transmission system is called black start. Most nations have a requirement that this black-start capability is built into the power grid, with certain generating facilities having specific black-start capabilities. Traditionally, power plants use small diesel generators to start turbines or to provide power references, such as voltage and frequency, to allow renewable power generators to reconnect. Another option is to use battery storage, such as forms part of Siemens’ Siestart system (Figure 1).

1. Adding a lithium-ion battery energy storage system to a combined cycle gas turbine power plant offers several benefits, including black-start functionality. Courtesy: Siemens

Grid stability and reliability have always been top priorities for network operators, and will continue to be, but with the growth of renewable energy solutions on the grid, the challenges of maintaining that stability and reliability are growing. There is no denying that the growth of renewable energy is positive news for the worldwide fight against climate change; however, there are some other consequences of this growth that operators need to consider. When grid stability is considered, it must be recognized that both wind power and solar photovoltaics are highly dependent on the weather, which can lead to some variation, which needs to be balanced and compensated. It is a quite simple correlation—the higher the share of renewable energy sources, the harder it is to ensure stability.

However, as mentioned previously, grid stability needs support, otherwise there can be serious consequences, even in highly developed countries where significant blackouts have also occurred, such as in South Australia in 2016 or Argentina in mid-2019. It can and does happen, and it is really not an easy exercise to restart grids, once they are black.