Con Edison and solar energy company 174 Power Global said they will place one of the largest battery projects in New York State at an industrial location within sight of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

The New York Power Authority’s Poletti plant in Astoria, Queens, was shut down a decade ago. The 885 MW natural gas- and oil-fueled generating unit also was one of New York City’s largest single sources of pollution.

Now, in a site redevelopment, 174 Power Global will build and operate the East River Energy Storage System, a 100-MW/400 MWh battery energy storage system. Under a seven-year contract with Con Edison, the utility will bid power from the system into the state’s wholesale energy market. Con Edison will get the revenue from the sales during the contract term. At the end of the contract, 174 Power Global will dispatch power into the grid.

The utility said that the battery units that will be located at the East River Energy Storage System site in Astoria will produce no emissions.  Construction will start in late 2021 or early 2022 and the facility could enter service in late 2022.

“This project with 174 Power Global will help displace some fossil fuel-fired generation when the demand for power is highest,” Tim Cawley, Con Edison’s president said.

The East River Energy Storage System is intended to balance peak electricity demands and provide grid reliability by delivering reactive power, voltage support and frequency stability.

According to the New York Power Authority’s President and CEO Gil Quiniones, the adaptive reuse of its former power plant site for energy storage is “a first step” in using its assets as a catalyst and test bed for clean energy technologies. “Additional energy storage development, especially in long duration storage, is key for the continued growth of renewable energy.”

New York State has mandated 3,000 MW of storage by 2030. Under the bulk solicitation requirement, Con Edison must procure at least 300 MW. The utility already has a handful of battery projects in New York City, including a 2 MW battery system in Ozone Park, Queens, a 1 MW storage unit at a customer site on Staten Island and a 4.8 MW battery system in Brooklyn.

NREMC, a rural utility cooperative in Indiana, has just announced that it is deploying 108MWh of battery storage in a five-year project with energy storage technology and solutions provider FlexGen.

NREMC – Northeastern Rural Electric Membership Corporation – said that the full 108MWh of projects that it is partnering with FlexGen for will help reduce overall grid demand during peak times and lower consumers’ electricity rates while also providing backup power to some of its networks when weather or other events cause disruptions. The energy storage systems are projected to save consumers over US$35 million over 20 years, NREMC claimed.

NREMC is the third largest member-owned electric distribution cooperative in Indiana, serving more than 30,000 households and businesses. FlexGen will begin by working on two projects in the state’s Allen County and in Whitley County with a combined 14MW of output and 21.6MWh and 25.2MWh of capacity split across them, to be completed and commissioned by next summer.

FlexGen pointed out in a press release that each will be slightly larger than the state’s biggest battery project built to date, a 20MWh system commissioned by utility Indianapolis Power & Light in 2016. The new systems will be built on FlexGen’s operating software platform for energy management, Hybrid OS, which the company claimed will enable power to be exported to the grid seamlessly during peak demand periods or during weather-related disruptions. The batteries will charge from the grid when prices are lower, during off-peak times.

In a recent interview for our technical journal PV Tech Power, FlexGen’s chief operating officer Alan Grosse said that many people might be surprised to see that his company now considers Indiana to be one of the most important state-level markets in the US energy storage industry.

In a significant move to smooth permitting of energy storage systems in New York City, on December 15, 2020 the City Department of Buildings (“DOB”) established criteria for classifying stationary storage battery systems and fuel-cell power systems as “accessory uses” under the City’s Zoning Resolution, and outlined the filing procedures for such systems. This is an important step that provides developers with the concrete guidance they need to identify viable sites and streamline project permitting in the City, where, as we discussed in our May 6, 2020 Alert, Zoning Nuances for Energy Storage Development in New York City that Every Developer Should Know, the process for energy storage siting is unique, more challenging than in the rest of New York State, and has consistently stunted deployment progress.

Driven by New York State’s ambitious statewide energy storage goals of deploying 1,500 megawatts (MWs) by 2025 and 3,000 MWs by 2030, and the City’s own building decarbonization mandates, the City’s latest move addresses the specific barriers to permitting and siting of storage systems. For example, while there is no mention of energy storage in the New York City Zoning Resolution, the New York City Planning Commission has in the past confirmed that energy storage falls under Use Group 6 (Utility, Small). As such, energy storage projects were permitted in some Residential Districts (R1-R2 and R3-R10) by special permit and are permitted as-of-right within some Commercial (C1, C2, C4, C5, C6, and C8) and Manufacturing (M1, M2 and M3) Districts. Developers were therefore limited to sites within these districts unless they obtained a use variance from the Board of Standards and Appeals (i.e., an approval to use the land in a manner not permitted by the Zoning Resolution).

While this continues to hold true, the just-issued Bulletin provides developers certainty with respect to the requirements that stationary storage battery systems and stationary fuel-cell power systems must comply with to be deemed “accessory uses” within a principal zoning use group. Accessory stationary storage battery systems and stationary fuel-cell power systems may be permitted within a zoning lot as follows:

For anyone who has been paying attention to energy trends over the last year, it’s clear that energy storage is huge in the residential solar market. In fact, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie U.S. Energy Storage Monitor report, Q2 of 2020 saw residential battery installations grow 38% compared to Q1, indicating that installations have remained resilient in spite of the pandemic. Though, even as some homeowners put solar installation plans on hold during the COVID-19 crisis, the urgency of tax credits — which end next year — can’t be ignored.

But after energy storage becomes a mainstay of the solar industry, what’s next? While solar + storage is expected to continue to grow in popularity, the overall energy storage market is projected to reach $6.9 billion annually by 2025. The future is bright as we look to more opportunities to advance solar energy and increase homeowners’ control over their home energy systems.

Personalization

Residential energy storage is customizable to fit every home’s individual needs. But manufacturers differ in their approach to product solutions. Some manufacturers provide customers with a choice between AC- and DC-coupled batteries with a wide range of kilowatt-hour scaling options, whereas others provide a one-size-fits-all approach. After installation, most energy storage systems allow the homeowner to change basic system operation via a smartphone app. These settings typically include operating modes and percent dependence on battery reserve, which may be set to specific times to use the battery during the day, or setting the battery charge level to 100% in anticipation of a grid outage.

As batteries continue to gain popularity among homeowners, the next evolution in energy storage will be wider adoption of solutions that provide more insight into energy consumed by different devices throughout the home, and enable the homeowner to make better decisions in how and when they use energy. Leaders in the industry have the opportunity to bring homeowners “smart” solutions that learn their individual preferences for energy expenditures and automatically optimize the home’s usage via advanced algorithms.

New research from Cornwall Insight Australia (CIA) projects that Australia has approximately 7 GW of battery storage projects in the pipeline. Most of that 7 GW remains in the proposal phase, but CIA sees more than 900 MW of battery energy storage at a stage of commitment or progress that will see delivery by 2024. 

Australia is a hotbed for energy storage innovation and investment. And according to the Clean Energy Regulator’s (CER) latest modeling, rooftop solar capacity is rising at an exponential rate. CIA Principal Consultant Ben Cerini said that the projects highlight the strong pipeline of energy storage across the NEM.

“Despite the challenging economics and the continually developing value streams, which can be volatile,” he said. “But as we have seen, those that move quickly will be rewarded and be in the best possible position to take advantage of new revenue streams when (not if) they arrive.”

Of course, South Australia’s Tesla Big Battery, Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve, has been wildly successful for both the state and the French renewables giant. And Neoen has already completed a 50% expansion of the project. Its success has encouraged Neoen to propose more large-scale energy storage installations, including the massive Goyder South Project – 1,200 MW of wind, 600 MW of solar, and 900 MW of battery storage. 

The success of the Hornsdale Power Reserve has not been overlooked by other states. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government, for example, has promised 250 MW of batteries. Meanwhile, New South Wales and Victoria have expanded their rivalry to the energy storage zone. Both of Australia’s most populous states are pursuing multiple big battery projects, including the Wallgrove Grid Battery project in New South Wales, and Victoria’s 300 MW/450 MWh Victoria Big Battery, which will be constructed on the outskirts of Geelong. 

SUNLIGHT, the energy storage manufacturer and BMG Energy join forces to create a large-scale sales and service organization which will enable them to further expand in the Italian market and become a market leader. This will lead to newly formed joint entity that will be owned 78% by SUNLIGHT and 22% by BMG Energy.

This move is part of SUNLIGHT’s strategy to establish a strong presence in large markets. Especially on the Italian market SUNLIGHT is rapidly increasing its footprint with a total investment plan reaching 5M for the years 2018-2022.  The outlook for the next 5 years is to expand dramatically the revenues targeting a 9 figures range.

SUNLIGHT already has a significant presence in Italy through its assembly unit, SEBA (SUNLIGHT European Battery Assembly), established in 2018 in Verona.  The business model of SEBA was and remains to serve Western European Markets with complete batteries as well as OEMs in Europe.

We see Italy as a strategically significant market and value the long market experience of our partners” says Lampros Bisalas, CEO of Sunlight. “Our long and close cooperation has helped us form a unique partnership. We believe this move will increase our footprint in the region, help us enrich our product and services portfolio offering and meeting the needs of our customers in the Italian market”.

Sunlight Group will appoint Mr Davide Pesce of its Italian operations and Sunlight Italy will focus in the local Italian sales and service expansion in both lead and lithium technologies across all industries. Mr Pesce has a wealth of experience in the storage energy market with a proven track record in international competitors such as Enersys and Exide. He holds a bachelor’s degree on Physics from Università degli Studi di Bari.

“Joining forces with SUNLIGHT will only provide a unique leverage to us and our customers. The innovative product portfolio along with SUNLIGHT’s mission to become a technology agnostic company, provide confidence to our leadership team that this can only be a fruitful partnership.” said Mr. Wilhelm Menghin & Mr. Flavio Scaramuzza, BMG Energy CEOs.

This strategic move contributes to the company’s staggering upward trajectory which has seen capacity increase by 25% (2020), enter the US market, and expand its R&D division for lithium technologies.

California is set to host one of the world’s largest standalone renewable hybrid projects. Slated to come online in the fourth quarter of 2022, the Edwards & Sanborn project in Kern County will feature 1,118 MW of solar and 2,165 MWh of energy storage. 

Renewable developer Terra-Gen on Dec. 10 announced an agreement with engineering firm Mortenson to proceed on the project, anticipating site construction will begin in the first quarter of 2021. 

Mortenson, the full engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor on both the solar and energy storage scopes, said solar production on the site will utilize more than 2.5 million modules, while the and energy storage component will utilize more than 110,000 lithium-ion battery modules. At peak construction, more than 700 people will be employed on-site at the project, it said.

The project is Mortenson’s 78th solar project and 11th energy storage project, it said. However, Trent Mostaert, Mortenson’s vice president and general manager of Solar, said the project is “industry-changing and during this challenging 2020 will redefine the impact these systems will have on our clean energy future.” 

Terra-Gen, a subsidiary of private equity firm ECP, is a renewable energy developer that operates about 1.3 GW of wind, solar, and geothermal facilities. “Selecting the right partner to execute a project of this scale coupled with cutting edge battery experience was paramount for Terra-Gen, and Mortenson was a natural fit,” said Brian Gorda, Terra-Gen’s vice president of Engineering. “Terra-Gen is excited to push the industry to new heights and build a plant that provides energy for all hours of demand.”

Kern County, once known as California’s “oil capitol” owing to a thriving oil industry in Bakersfield, has quickly grown into a key renewable energy hub. According to the Kern County administrative office, more than 5,000 wind turbines have been installed in the Tehachapi-Mojave wind corridor. “Wind energy is set to expand with the completion of the Wind Hub Substation and 500 KV transmission line that is being constructed by Southern California Edison,” it said. Solar investment is also on the rise with more than 19 commercial projects (of 20 MW of less) in the permitting process and two utility-scale solar projects (200 MW or more) in the approval pipeline.

The award of contracts to battery storage developers in a recent auction by Italy’s transmission system operator proves the technology’s competitiveness in providing grid services once again, an analyst has said.

Terna, which manages the Italian electricity grid, awarded just under 250MW of contracts to provide the Fast Reserve service to the grid a few days ago. It assigned three tranches of contracts, in the Central and Northern regions, in the Centre-South and on the island of Sardinia. The systems are expected to be online by 2023, having won five-year contracts to the end of 2027.

A range of stakeholders won out, led by utilities ENGIE and Enel’s innovation and new technologies arm Enel X, which got 70MW and 65MW of the contracts respectively. Other winners included EPC company METKA EGN, solar company Trina Solar and Italian oil and gas company Eni. Contracts were awarded at an average weighted price of €29,500 (US$35,870) / MW / year.

Corentin Baschet, head of analysis at energy storage consultancy Clean Horizon told Energy-Storage.news that most market regulators in Europe are “in the process of opening their different ancillary services to batteries: this auction proves again that batteries are very competitive to provide a fast symmetric frequency regulation service”.

“Frequency regulation services are the easiest starting point to deploy batteries in a given country,” Baschet said.

“I don’t know of many countries in which batteries would not be cheaper to provide these services than conventional power plants which are missing out on wholesale revenues while reserving capacity for the frequency response products.”

Fast Reserve is a bi-directional ancillary service that helps to maintain the operating frequency of the grid within boundaries that prevent it from experiencing failures through the imbalance of supply and demand of electricity. As the name implies, assets participating in this service have to do so quickly, within 1 second of receiving a signal from the grid that an error needs correcting.