Walking around Energy Storage Europe this year, hoping that as a British citizen I won’t be needing a VISA to come back to Germany next year somehow, it was obvious that the show, like the market, has grown from a small handful of “strong believers” as one source put it, to a forward-looking show focused on a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.
“We’re not in the discovery phase anymore, we’re almost in a run-of-the-mill phase,” Olivier Chabilan, product marketing manager of Skeleton Technologies says.
“The technology is already well implemented with the main key players, but there’s still a lot of people turning up [at the trade show]”, Chabilan said.
We heard from German trade association BVES’ senior expert in communications and markets Valeska Gottke that there’s a growing recognition that the aims of the country’s Energiewende cannot be achieved without “better system integration of energy storage technologies”. And not only in Germany, but across Europe and the whole world, there’s a growing recognition that business-as-usual scenarios will require a holistic view of the entire energy system – from power to energy, from grid to off-grid and from transport to heat to electricity.
From lithium to ultracaps to hydrogen… and beyond
Energy storage is increasingly being seen as a key cornerstone and enabler of the transition to renewable energy worldwide. Yet for the most part, we have seen the advanced energy storage market dominated by lithium-ion batteries. Trade events such as Energy Storage Europe, which encompasses both downstream and upstream topics, gives providers of competing – or complimentary – technologies, a chance to enter the conversation.
Skeleton Technologies is a maker of ultracapacitors and ultracapacitor-based energy storage systems and solutions. Ultracaps cost more upfront but can deal with aggressive cycling while delivering intense bursts of power to the grid. Skeleton Tech’s systems have been deployed at a project on the Scottish Isle of Eigg, where ultracaps work alongside an existing flywheel system, improving the flywheel’s reactivity.
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