All grid operators know their job is a balancing act, a case of managing supply and demand as efficiently as possible.
But grid operators also know the current trends in global energy generation – rising levels of renewables on the grid, rapidly falling rates of conventional power plant construction – pose a significant challenge to the grid equilibrium they work so diligently to maintain.
Operators are under pressure – particularly those managing ageing grids in America, Canada and the UK – to find a cost-effective way to handle the growing intermittency and volatility of a renewables-reliant grid, and are in turn latching on to utility scale energy storage as the answer.
The sector is forecast to enjoy stellar growth over the next four years, with Navigant Research predicting a compound annual growth rate of 48 per cent between 2016 and 2020.
Leclanché is one of the companies getting a slice of the action. At the beginning of this year the Swiss energy storage firm announced it would supply one of the largest grid ancillary services projects in North America – a 13MW, 53MWh system for Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator.
And yesterday it announced its second North American venture – a 20MW/ 10MWh grid-scale storage project in the US region overseen by PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission operator covering states from Michigan to North Carolina, which is in charge of delivering electricity to a population the size of Germany.
The Marengo Energy Storage Plant, Leclanché’s first US project, will provide real-time frequency regulation services to PJM in the Chicago area, helping to stabilise the grid as it handles the electricity load from conventional power stations and intermittent renewable sources.
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