While 2020 has obviously been challenging on many fronts, one of the surprising upsides we have seen in the power industry is that the vision of a very high renewable energy penetration grid is not only technically feasible, but it might arrive faster than anyone anticipated. I wrote in Utility Dive this past August, detailing the experience of electricity markets in Europe during the pandemic, which was characterized by large shares of renewable energy on the grid and the shutdown of much of the continent’s baseload generation capacity.

A key component of this transition is the deployment of flexible generation – primarily grid-scale batteries – that allow for the optimization of these renewable resources. At Wärtsilä, our focus has been not only the deployment of these flexible storage assets but most importantly their optimization through asset-level and portfolio control.

This strategy has led to many interesting conversations with our customers, allowing us to collaboratively find new ways to increase the value of energy storage assets. One of the most exciting, and the key to the growth of energy storage as a market category, is the ability to leverage artificial intelligence for automated bidding of stored renewable power into competitive electricity markets.

This has the potential to be a game-changer for energy storage, mitigating the risk from merchant revenue streams atop the already clear benefits provided by grid-scale batteries.

The market is taking notice. In my conversations with IPPs, I am increasingly hearing that operators are rethinking their trading strategies to incorporate storage and take advantage of these potentially lucrative arbitrage opportunities. These customers typically fall into two categories.

RheEnergise is one of only a select handful of businesses to have been awarded grants under both the Sustainable Innovation Fund & the Small Business Research Initiative.

RheEnergise is bringing innovation to pumped energy storage and developing a technology that solves the many disadvantages of other competing energy storage and grid flexibility solutions. The awarded grants are supporting a feasibility study into a £1.6m demonstration project with full system functionality specifically designed for use with the RheEnergise high-technology fluid taking the extensive theoretical and practical learning to the next level. For further information see the IDTechEx report on Potential Stationary Energy Storage Technologies to Monitor.

The UK’s Climate Change Committee states that energy storage is the key enabler necessary to achieve a net-zero carbon energy system however there is nowhere near enough energy storage for a zero-carbon energy system that includes transport, power and heat. Unlike traditional pumped hydro energy storage, RheEnergise’s HD Hydro operates on small hills rather than mountains meaning there are infinitely more sites available for projects.

The Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “The UK’s response to coronavirus has demonstrated the very best of British ingenuity, and it is this resourcefulness that will help us navigate our way through this pandemic. Today’s investment will ensure that our innovators and risk-takers can continue to scale up their ideas, helping the UK to build back better and ensure we meet our clear commitments on tackling climate change.”

Innovate UK Executive Chair Dr Ian Campbell said: “In these difficult times we have seen the best of British business innovation. The pandemic is not just a health emergency but one that impacts society and the economy. RheEnergise’s energy storage innovations, along with every initiative Innovate UK has supported through this fund, is an important step forward in driving sustainable economic development.”

Stephen Crosher, RheEnergise’s CEO said: ‘Society needs energy storage to match the intermittent supply of renewables with the variable demand by consumers. These awards by Innovate UK will make a significant difference to RheEnergise, to accelerate the time it takes to bring our High-Density Hydro innovations to market and our goal of developing the lowest cost energy storage solution available.’

What does it take to successfully create a multi-gigawatt battery storage factory?

The European Union has invested billions into creating a manufacturing supply chain for the energy storage market, seeing the multi-country initiative focus on key parts of the supply chain. Europe wants to make its own mark on the lithium-ion battery revolution, in both the electric vehicle (EV) and battery energy storage system (BESS) sectors.

Energy-Storage.news’ editor Andy Colthorpe moderates a discussion with some key players in that European push. We hear what sort of financing and business strategies have been required to support Northvolt, a startup with an ambition to serve 25% of total demand across the continent from 150GWh of battery and system gigafactories. See the video below. 

Joining Andy in the virtual conference room are:

• Joakim Palmgren – Project Finance North, Central and South East Europe at the European Investment Bank
• Bo Normark – Industrial Strategy Executive at EIT InnoEnergy Steven Cespedes -Director, Project Finance at BNP Paribas
• Edward Reed – Director of Advisory Services at WSP
• Tim van Pelt – Director, Renewables and Power, Energy Sector at ING Bank
• Marco Schweer – Director, Sector Lead – Renewable Energy at SMBC

This discussion took place at Solar Media’s Energy Storage Virtual Summit, hosted in late September 2020.

With thanks to conference producer Lucy Jacobson-Durham and the rest of the team at Solar Media’s Solar Events. 

The United Kingdom, which has recently set a record for wind power meeting its demand, issued a security of supply alert earlier this week as wind power output was low due to calm weather. This event highlights the need of increased energy storage capacity able to balance power to the grid at times of strained supply, energy historian and expert Ellen R. Wald wrote in Forbes.

On Tuesday, National Grid ESO issued an electricity margin notice (EMN) for the evening on Wednesday. “This is a routine signal that we send to the market to indicate that we’d like a larger cushion of spare capacity,” National Grid said. The grid operator was expecting tight margins on the UK electricity system because of low renewable output and the availability of generators over periods of the day with higher demand.

“The tight margins on the electricity system are the result of a number of factors including the weather, demand for electricity and the availability of generators,” National Grid said on Wednesday.

The UK alert about tight margins of spare supply poses again the question of how grids will accommodate growing shares of wind and solar power generation while ensuring there will be no blackouts.

The UK wants to significantly boost its wind power generation, which already holds a high share in the power mix, to the point of powering every home with wind by 2030.

The UK will aim to become a global leader in offshore wind energy, powering every home in the country with wind by 2030, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in early October.

Currently, offshore wind meets 10 percent of the UK electricity demand. 

Last year, the UK became the first major economy in the world to enshrine into law its target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Germany’s draft renewable energy laws, which the government is seeking to introduce next year, have been heavily criticised by energy storage systems association BVES.

A critical piece of the country’s energy transition (Energiewende) legislature, which originally aims to bring about an economically feasible low carbon society, the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (‘Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz’ – EEG) first introduced a feed-in tariff for renewable energy in the year 2000.

With the 20-year remuneration period for those feed-in tariffs set to expire, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy introduced a new EEG in mid-September. The new laws should also enable Germany to comply with European Union policies such as the EU Clean Energy Package as well as the country’s obligations under the Paris Agreement on climate protection.

Valeska Gottke, head of communications and markets for the energy storage systems association BVES, told Energy-Storage.news in an interview that the draft law as it stands, is “bad news for the successful continuation of the Energiewende as it does not bring renewable ‘power to the people'”.

“In their analyses of the Market Design Directive and the Renewable Energy Directive II, our BVES legal experts came to the conclusion that the current draft of the EEG does not implement EU law and, if the current draft of the EEG remains unchanged, Germany can be accused of violating EU treaties,” Gottke said.

“The EU Clean Energy Package emphasises strengthening the role in the electricity system of the prosumer – citizens or businesses that generate and consume their own onsite renewable energy, to which battery storage is considered key.”

Yet the new draft law does not even mention the EU Market Design Directive around protecting or supporting prosumers. The home energy storage market, which has been booming in Germany in the past couple of years “has already shown how essential it is for the goals of the Energiewende and may now be forced to fall short of its potential,” Gottke said.