Lead-acid batteries are already a multi-billion-dollar industry and are widely-used in automotive and industrial applications. But for the power sector, they are a small player relative to lithium-ion batteries, which make up over 90% of the global grid battery storage market. One reason for their fast growth is cost — lithium-ion batteries have an estimated project cost of $469 per kWh, compared to $549 per kWh for lead-acid, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2019 Energy Storage Technology and Cost Characterization Report.

But at $260 per kWh, lead batteries themselves already have lower capital costs than lithium-ion, which is at $271 per kWh, the DOE report found. If further research can get lead batteries to hit the goal of an average of 5,000 cycles over their lives by 2022, then the technology could be able to reach the DOE’s target of operational costs of 3 cents per cycle per kWh, Raiford said, a milestone that no battery chemistry has consistently reached.

The requests for proposals from the consortium are aimed at finding advancements that will increase a lead battery’s service life by allowing it to charge and discharge more times throughout its lifespan without degrading its efficiency significantly. Some of the research topics the consortium is seeking work on include studies of the degradation of lead batteries when used for demand response and renewable energy arbitrage.

If the cost issue can be tackled, then other features of lead batteries may make them more appealing in some markets. The electrolyte used is water-based, so the batteries have very little risk of catching fire. “They can take a bullet and still operate safely,” Raiford said, which is why the military commonly uses lead batteries.

The safety feature could be a selling point in places like California and Germany where there is growing demand for residential battery storage systems, Raiford said.

Another advantage is that lead batteries are mostly lead, a common material, and thus do not run into the difficulties of obtaining lithium from China and elsewhere, that has concerned the battery storage industry. In addition, while China is a major producer of lithium-ion batteries, there is a $27 billion industry manufacturing lead batteries in the U.S., “while the footprint of lithium-ion is not even close to that,” according to Raiford.

Just over one in 10 US states now has a deployment target in place for energy storage, with Nevada now aiming for 1,000MW by 2030.

With Virginia now also teetering on the edge of adopting an ambitious target, US national Energy Storage Association (ESA) Kelly Speakes-Backman said Nevada, in becoming the sixth state to adopt a target, had “distinguished itself as an energy storage leader”.

A docket from the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUC) adopted as a permanent regulation the biennial targets, which begin as 100MW by the end of this year, increasing up to the 1GW figure in 10 years.

It has been adopted after lengthy deliberation over more than two years since the Investigation and Rulemaking Docket was first opened by the Commission in August 2017, including a study on the benefits of energy storage for Nevada by consultancy The Brattle Group and comments from numerous stakeholders from utility NV Energy to manufacturers and providers including Tesla.

Described as “goals and not mandates,” the adopted regulation nonetheless gives targets to electric utilities with gross annual operating revenue of US$250 million or more in the state and requires them to include energy storage in their integrated resource plans (IRPs).

IRPs are a cornerstone of the utility planning process and have been cited by analysts as a likely continuing driver of energy storage adoption in the US this year and in the future, including in this recent blog for Energy-Storage.news by Ricardo Rodriguez at Navigant Research.

The process and attainment of targets remain flexible, with the PUC given authority to “waive or defer compliance…under certain circumstances,” while the Commission can also modify targets.

“Together, Nevada, Massachusetts, California, New York, New Jersey and Oregon have laid out a cumulative target of at least 7,575 MW across the nation by 2030,” ESA CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman said.

“By setting a target of 1,000 MW by 2030 for Nevada, along with interim targets over the coming decade, Nevada officials are sending long-term signals for industry investment and a credible pathway for achievement. ESA applauds Nevada for its leadership and looks forward to supporting the efforts of officials and stakeholders to make the state’s electric system more resilient, efficient, sustainable and affordable”.

French energy firm Total has confirmed it will be developing France’s largest energy storage system, while UK-based redT energy has announced plans to merge with a US battery company to drive global demand for heavy-duty battery technology.

Total has announced the launch of an energy storage project in Mardyck, at the Flandres Center, in Dunkirk’s port district. The 25MW project will be the largest lithium-ion energy storage system installed in the country.

“This project is part of Total’s strategy to develop the stationary energy storage solutions that are critical to the expansion of renewable energy, which is intermittent by nature. It will contribute toward the goal of increasing the share of renewables in France’s energy mix, while helping to stabilize the domestic power grid,” Total’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said.

“Total’s involvement in the electricity segment continues to expand. With more than 40% of the storage capacities allocated, Total was the leading winner of the first call for tenders organised by RTE (France’s Electricity Transmission Network). This success was made possible thanks to the competencies of Total Flex, renewable energy aggregation expert, and Saft, the European leader in batteries for energy storage”.

The project will come online in late 2020 at a cost of around €15m and will comprise of 11 2.3 MWh containers designed at Saft’s production site in Bordeaux.

Total is aiming to decarbonise its electricity portfolio and has pledged to ensure that low-carbon technology accounts for 15 to 20% of its sales mix by 2040. Total’s current gross low-carbon power generation capacity is close to 7GW, of which more than 3GW from renewable energy sources.

Invinity in-bound

In related news, UK-based redT energy, which has worked with the likes of Pivot Power on grid-connected battery hybrids in the UK, has announced its intention to merge with US-based Avalon Battery Corporation.

The merger, subject to shareholder approval, will lead to the creation of Invinity Energy Systems to scale the market for vanadium flow batteries. Vanadium flow batteries are a heavy-duty, stationary form of energy storage that is best used when coupled with industrial-scale solar generation projects. The market is expected to be worth £3.5bn by 2028, while the wider energy storage market is set to generate well over £55bn in new investment by that time.

In 2017, the World Bank estimated that energy storage technology would drive a 1,000% increase in material demand for cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel by 2050 under a 2°C climate scenario. Batteries for electric vehicles are currently driving significant demand for these minerals, but growth in large-scale energy storage technology will also play an important role in this equation.

Similarly, solar PV was estimated to drive a 300% increase in material demand for copper, nickel and zinc under that same 2°C climate scenario. Implementing truly sustainable solutions to meet our energy needs means considering human rights risks linked to mineral extraction to ensure that the energy transition is not only fast but also fair.

Human rights in the mineral supply chains of low-carbon technologies

In response to growing concerns over the impacts of the transition to a low-carbon economy, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) developed the Transition Minerals Tracker, an online platform that tracks the human rights policies and practice of companies extracting minerals key to this energy transition. The tracker currently holds data on the main companies producing copper, cobalt, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc – minerals that feature prominently in the supply chains of energy storage technologies and solar panels.

Analysis of allegations of human rights abuse we collected from 2010 to 2019 reveals that access to water, indigenous peoples’ rights, and labour rights are the most frequent human rights issues linked to these minerals. Allegations were recorded across all minerals, reflecting the fact that reducing or eliminating the need for one specific mineral in the supply chain – for example cobalt or lithium – will not result in a sustainable supply chain. Human rights risks must instead be assessed across all mineral supply chains and all regions. Companies at each link in the supply chain must have rigorous human rights due diligence mechanisms for addressing those risks in accordance with OECD Guidelines.

Impacts of lithium mining on indigenous rights

One rising area of concern is how lithium mining is affecting indigenous people in the Lithium Triangle, an area spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which currently holds over 60% of known global lithium reserves. This region also stands out because of its unique method of extracting lithium from salt-water brines – a technique that has not yet been fully studied for its potential environmental impacts.

Allegations collected by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reveal that access to water has become a critical issue for the mostly indigenous communities living near these lithium mines. Depleting water resources directly impacts traditional agriculture, threatening local livelihoods and ultimately the survival of indigenous groups in the region.

While we have avoided risking the spreading of false information or reacting too hastily too an ever-changing situation, here are some of the latest developments. This blog will be updated as and when new information or views arrive.

The cover image was taken at this year’s Smart Grid Expo in Tokyo, part of World Smart Energy Week and located alongside PV Expo, Battery Japan and other related events. As you can see, the event was hosted under strict WHO guidelines, meaning that face masks were compulsory while in the expo halls, and thermographic cameras checked each visitor as they entered the halls. Read my blog about the event on PV Tech.

You can still read our initial reaction piece from 24 February 2020: This was posted as it became clear the crisis unfolding in China would unquestionably have an impact on the rest of the world. My take was that even then it would likely become a global problem rapidly, requiring global cooperation and understanding. Analyst Dimitrios Pappas, analyst at new energy consultancy Delta-EE meanwhile pointed out that the US, the second biggest manufacturer of batteries after China, lags behind six-fold or more in capacity terms, meaning bottlenecks are likely to be acute through the year.

Solar Media Editor-in-Chief Liam Stoker and I discussed these and other impacts of the virus on the clean energy industry including solar on our podcast not long after that.

10-12 March 2020: The planned Energy Storage Europe event, a long-held fixture in the events calendar, hosted each year in Dusseldorf, did not take place. This site is a proud media partner to the event, which has been important not just from an industry point of view but has also hosted appearances from politicians at regional, national and European level. Here’s a couple of blogs from last year’s event, March 2019:

Big tech and new solutions at Energy Storage Europe 2019

Energy Storage Europe: Energy transition needs energy storage

Paul Verrill, director of energy data analysis & consultancy firm EnAppSys, explains how renewable energy generation, with the integration of smart grid technologies and efficiency energy storage systems, can create a sustainable power system for the future. This article first appeared in E-S.N’s ‘Storage & Smart Power’ section of Solar Media’s quarterly journal, PV Tech Power 22.

Electricity markets across Europe are seeing the growth of renewables within their mix, with levels of generation from renewables overtaking those from fossil fuels across Europe in 2019. Whilst the pace has slowed in recent years, each new year sees records being broken in respect of the proportion of electricity demand met by renewable energy.

Predominantly the growth of renewable generation is coming from increased levels of generation from wind farms – and historically from solar sources – although hydro remains the primary source of renewable generation in European markets.

This growth can lead to problems in security of supply, but the most significant are maintaining stable operation of power grids that were designed for large centralised
thermal power stations. This also means ensuring that there is enough generation to meet demand in periods when output from renewables is low.

In most countries in Europe, the solution to date has been to introduce reserve and/or availability payments via capacity payment mechanisms to supplement the income of existing power stations and incentivise the build of new power stations that are able to meet demand in periods when renewable output is low. These mechanisms in the main provide support to thermal power stations and enable the management of the energy transition but slow down the closure of carbon-emitting assets.

Drivers created by these mechanisms (which are often closed to high-polluting stations) and the European carbon market are increasing the switch from coal to gas but do not yet drive transition to a ‘net zero’ world.

Imagine an electric grid that keeps your lights on while the rest of the island’s grid is dark during a natural disaster or outage.
That’s the promise at Kahauiki Village, a community for formerly homeless families near Sand Island. The village has its own independent power grid, or microgrid, that’s powered by solar panels, a battery and a backup generator. The village only draws power from the utility when there’s not enough sunlight and battery charge to meet its energy needs, so its microgrid operates off the islandwide grid 98% of the time, says Paul Orem, CEO of PhotonWorks Engineering, which delivered the village’s electrical infrastructure. The backup generator is used as a last resort, when the utility grid is down.

Microgrids can take a variety of forms but are not a new concept. Ted Borer, a board member of the Microgrid Resources Coalition and energy plant director at Princeton University, says microgrids existed in the U.S. in the late 1800s when there were no interconnecting electric utilities. Newer technology has refined them with better materials, digital controls and the ability to run faster, he says, and people use them today for their potential to provide added reliability, independence, cost savings and resiliency.

The state Public Utilities Commission, Hawaiian Electric Cos., Microgrid Resources Coalition, Distributed Energy Resources Council of Hawaii, Ulupono Initiative and three others are working to create a microgrid services tariff to encourage microgrid development in the Islands. The Public Utilities Commission proceeding was opened in response to a 2018 state law and will address several issues, including the rules for microgrids to interconnect with the Hawaiian Electric grids and the value of microgrid benefits and services.

Marc Asano, director of transmission and distribution and interconnection planning at Hawaiian Electric Co., says the utility’s goal is to create a tariff that encourages a more resilient grid.

“We want to encourage development of resources that can power the grid during grid outages or if some natural disaster were to hit and our infrastructure would not be able to withstand that, that we can still deliver a level of service especially to critical loads on the island,” he says. Critical loads include hospitals, police stations, military bases and other facilities that must always be powered. “But how we get there is part of what’s getting discussed in the docket.”

Over the past decade, prices for solar panels and wind farms have reached all-time lows. As the saying goes though, the wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining.

The question of how to “firm” renewables — that is, ensuring there’s always enough saved energy no matter the time of day or weather — is one of the biggest challenges in the industry. We need a good way to store energy for later. The go-to option right now is lithium ion batteries.

But, though lithium ion is dropping in price, experts say it will remain too expensive for most grid-scale applications. Right now, lithium ion batteries just can’t store more than four hours worth of energy at a price point that would make sense. Plus, they pose a fire risk and their ability to hold a charge fades over time.

Companies are experimenting with a variety of different solutions, including flow batteries, thermal batteries, and gravity-based systems. If any of these player can crack the code to long-duration energy storage, renewables like wind and solar will finally be able to compete with fossil fuels.

The colourfully-named GIGA Rhino, a 12MW battery energy storage project in the Netherlands, has successfully met a €3.6 million (US$4.03 million) crowdfunding raise target, promising around 5% interest to investors, who chipped in a minimum of €500 each.

Claimed to be the “most powerful energy storage project in the Netherlands,” by GIGA Storage, the locally-headquartered company behind the project, ENGIE was already announced as the chosen installer and NEC Energy Solutions the system supplier, back in October 2019.

Then in January, GIGA Storage put the project up on DuurzaamInvesteren (‘Sustainable investing’), a crowdfunding platform for sustainable energy projects in the European country, allowing people to invest from as little as €150. Having successfully raised the intended target, NEC ES announced via press release today that it has been confirmed to supply the GIGA Rhino system.

GIGA Storage’s special purpose vehicle (SPV) GIGA Rhino BV, will issue a bond loan covered by the income from the sale electricity to the grid’s balancing market, as well as capacity and joining the grid operator, TenneT’s reserve market, as well as providing energy storage services to aid local renewable energy integration.

The system will be hosted at The Test Centre for Renewable Resources at Wageningen University & Research Institute, Lelystad, a university well-known for its life sciences and agricultural research departments in the central Netherlands food-growing regions.

“Due to the increase in sustainable renewable energy on the grid, there is an increasing need for energy storage. Storage and control of electricity is crucial for a reliable and affordable energy system. The GIGA Rhino energy storage system is the first step in making it possible to close down coal-fired power stations,” GIGA Storage CEO Ruud Nijs, said.