The country requires up to 903 GWh of energy storage to decarbonise its mobility and power sectors by 2030, and lithium-ion batteries will meet the majority of this demand, an independent study released on Tuesday by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) said.

“India needs investments worth up to Rs 33,750 crore (USD 4.5 billion*) to achieve the government PLI target of setting up 50 GWh of lithium-ion cell and battery manufacturing plants,” CEEW said in the study report.

CEEW, however, noted that at the time of writing the report, the conversion rate was taken as Rs 75 per US dollar.

The CEEW study ‘How can India indigenise lithium-ion battery manufacturing?’ calculates the material and financial requirements and offers a blueprint for the domestic strategy as India’s demand is expected to increase significantly.

Earlier this month, the government announced that 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves were found, for the first time in the country, in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and is one of the key components in electric vehicle batteries.

India’s electric vehicle market is expected to hit annual sales of 1-crore units by 2030, according to the Economic Survey 2022-23.

As per industry estimates, the total EV sales in India stood at 10-lakh units in 2022.

The analysis, as per CEEW, is based on the minimum manufacturing plant capacity (5GWh) allocated under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.

“For a green future, lithium will be as important as oil and gas are today. It’s in India’s strategic interest to secure not just the mineral, but also set up the required cell and battery manufacturing systems within the country,” said Rishabh Jain, Senior Programme Lead, CEEW.

It will reduce India’s imports in the long-run, and power its grid and EV transition, he said.

To scale up domestic lithium-ion manufacturing, India should step up R&D investments, focus on battery cell component manufacturing and reducing material costs, and support recycling to reduce the need for new materials, he said.

To fulfil the overall battery demand, India will need 969-1,452 kilotonnes of anode, cathode, and electrolyte material (the components for a battery) between 2022 and 2030. This requires the country to prioritise other energy storage technologies as well, according to the study report.

The CEEW study recommends focusing on the strategic sourcing of critical minerals and pushing for research, development and demonstration in all technologies to retain competitiveness.

At the same time, reducing the cost of manufacturing batteries by innovating and updating manufacturing processes, and making policy changes to lower the cost of cell components are important, it said.
Development and deployment of batteries will have far-reaching impacts on India’s energy transition journey. Currently, India is import-dependent but the government has already started mobilising resources to indigenise battery cell manufacturing, said Dhruv Warrior, Research Analyst.

“The focus on mineral processing and component manufacturing are, however, limited. The study estimates that the share of upstream component manufacturing and material processing can be as high as 61 per cent.

Going forward, India must develop its capabilities to build skills, technology know-how and infrastructure to indigenise this part of the value chain too,” said Warrior.

Source : pti

Announced today (29 July), the acquisition will see CEA benefit from Intertek’s global network and customer base, facilitating expansion opportunities into new geographies, the company said.

“As the solar energy market expands, the pace of decarbonisation intensifies and the regulatory environment becomes more complex, it is clear that demand for mission-critical, end-to-end Total Quality Assurance (TQA) solutions will continue to grow,” said Andre Lacroix, CEO at Intertek.

London-based Intertek said CEA – which has offices in both Colorado, US and Shanghai, China – had a strong track record of production monitoring, quality assurance, supply chain management, traceability services and technical support across the 65 countries in which it operates.

Indeed, at this year’s Intersolar event in Munich, CEA representatives told PV Tech Premium it was experiencing strong demand for its services given the increased need for supply chain transparency and developers’ own ESG commitments.

CEA’s senior director of technology and quality, George Touloupas, and its vice president of marketing and sales, Darryl Parker, discussed with this site how its traceability protocol works, its on-the-ground presence in China and the impact of the US anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case on demand for its services.

“With key operating locations in the US and China, its subject matter experts deliver worldwide services in support of solar project developers, engineering, procurement and construction companies (EPCs), financiers, power plant owners and independent power producers (IPPs),” said Intertek.

The company added the acquisition would “complement not only Intertek’s global network of industry experts, but also the company’s existing TQA services such as product testing and certification, in-field inspections, asset management and condition monitoring”.

“This dynamic combination will allow Intertek to further strengthen and expand support to solar energy stakeholders and help them mitigate risks across the PV and energy storage lifecycle,” Intertek said.

Source: pv-tech

ARLINGTON, Va. : Fluence Energy, Inc. (“Fluence”) (NASDAQ: FLNC), a leading global provider of energy storage products and services, and cloud-based software for renewables and storage, today announced that Fluence Nispera has expanded to provide real-time performance monitoring, AI-enabled performance analysis, and optimization of energy storage assets, and is currently operational on five energy storage assets totaling 267 MW / 948 MWh globally. The cloud-based asset performance management (APM) software is now available for energy storage and all categories of renewables including solar, wind, and hydro.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency, the global deployment of renewables is expected to grow by 2,400 GW between 2022 and 2027. The energy storage solutions needed to flexibly and reliably integrate renewable energy into the power system are also estimated to grow significantly: BloombergNEF estimates an increase of 387 GW / 1,143 GWh of energy storage capacity between 2022 and 2030. This accelerated growth of clean energy generation and storage brings an increasing need for digital solutions such as Nispera to allow asset owners to scale their portfolios without scaling their resources. Nispera gives storage and renewables asset owners visibility into what, where, when, and why performance issues and trends are occurring and helps prioritize action to resolve it.

“For years, Nispera has been the leading global APM solution for renewables. By expanding into energy storage, Nispera is now further driving the APM software industry forward by offering asset owners and operators with access to the most comprehensive set of assets for renewables and storage available. This includes wind, solar, hydro, and energy storage from any technology provider, anywhere in the world,” said Fluence Global Head of Digital Asset Management Gianmarco Pizza.

Nispera integrates asset performance and financial data with intelligent machine learning models and visualization tools to help renewable asset owners uncover hidden performance issues and boost energy production. Nispera’s advanced optimization functionalities allow users to prioritize the highest impact performance and O&M interventions. For example, a PV Digital Twin uses geographically accurate maps and animated videos to compare actual and AI-modeled producible energy and show the exact location of and reasons for component issues.

“From the start, Nispera was built by renewables’ asset managers who know the challenges facing owners and operators looking to scale their renewables portfolio. Now, Fluence’s deep expertise in energy storage operations has been built into Nispera’s storage asset management capabilities,” said Fluence SVP & Chief Digital Officer Krishna Vanka. “We’re thrilled to bring this cutting-edge monitoring and analysis software to our Fluence energy storage customers and to owners and operators of diverse portfolios of energy storage and renewables globally.”

Nispera’s functionality for energy storage helps storage asset owners identify, prioritize, and act on asset performance issues to reduce downtime and maximize revenue. Already operational on energy storage assets across the world, the software automates asset- and component-level analyses of real-time and historical production, time-based availability, state of charge, state of health, energy exchanged, and more. Asset owners can drill deeper into performance trends over time and across assets using a drag-and-drop analysis builder of more than 20 key energy storage asset performance variables. Instead of manual and computationally intensive analysis, users can easily and quickly compare, for example, average state of charge over a week across multiple storage assets and identify a priority asset for performance intervention.

Nispera is currently operational on more than 8.5 GW of renewable and energy storage assets across 28 markets. Fluence is a leader in Software-as-a-Service products for managing renewable energy and storage assets, with Fluence IQ, an advanced digital platform which includes both Nispera and Fluence Mosaic, intelligent bidding software for renewables and energy storage.

About Fluence

Fluence Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq: FLNC) is a global market leader in energy storage products and services, and cloud-based software for renewables and storage. With a presence in over 40 markets globally, Fluence provides an ecosystem of offerings to drive the clean energy transition, including modular, scalable energy storage products, comprehensive service offerings, and the Fluence IQ Platform, which delivers AI-enabled SaaS products for managing and optimizing renewables and storage from any provider. The Company is transforming the way we power our world by helping customers create more resilient and sustainable electric grids.

Source: fluenceenergy

Elisa’s unique DES system helps to solve the challenge that renewable energy sources present to electricity grids. Unlike fossil fuels they can be intermittent and unpredictable requiring a storage system to optimize their usage. Elisa has developed its unique DES solution, an AI/ML powered engine that allows it to transform its radio access networks into a distributed virtual power plant that optimises energy management through the efficient charging and discharging of storage batteries.

The solution enables the telecom network infrastructure to provide part of its flexible capacity from base station batteries to Transmission System Operators (TSO) for grid balancing purposes. This helps to facilitate the deployment of more renewable energy, and the transition to zero carbon, by taking wind energy when available and using it at times when the wind is not blowing.

Elisa has now been awarded a grant of EUR 3,9 million by Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment to supplement Elisa’s investment. This enables Elisa to target 150MWh storage capacity which makes it Europe’s largest distributed virtual power plant project. The capacity is among the largest European battery storage systems even when compared to centralised grid-scale battery installations. The funding is part of Finland’s Recovery and Resilience Plan directed for clean energy projects, pending approval of the European Commission.

“It is critical for society that we have an energy supply that is affordable, secure and sustainable, and the potential for distributed energy storage of telecom networks to contribute to this is huge,” said Jukka-Pekka Salmenkaita, Vice President of AI and Special Projects at Elisa.

“By building out storage capacity in our network and managing it in a smart way, Elisa has not only improved network resilience but also saved energy costs and contributed to the zero-carbon energy transition by facilitating storage from renewable sources. It’s good for the network, good for business and good for the planet.”

Tested in Elisa’s mobile network in Finland with proven operational, financial and environmental benefits

Elisa has already run successful trials of its unique solution across 200 base stations in its Finnish mobile network during 2022 and got the technical pre-qualification acceptance from Fingrid, Finland’s TSO for participation in the automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) electricity market. The trials proved that the solution can cut Elisa’s electricity costs, by buying and storing electricity when it is inexpensive, and also provide “electricity grid balancing services” to Fingrid by adjusting consumption towards grid corresponding to control signal sent by the TSO.

DES provides operational, financial and environmental benefits. For Elisa it improves network resilience by providing an expanded source of backup electricity when the primary source is disrupted. And by buying electricity from the grid when it is inexpensive, for discharge at more expensive peak hours, it reduces operating expenditure.

“Achieving a fully carbon neutral economy in Europe is a tremendous challenge. DES helps to facilitate the further deployment of intermittent renewable sources of energy, such as wind power. Exponential growth is expected in renewable deployment in the coming years, but the intermittent and unpredictable nature of the source requires intelligent storage and management solutions such as DES to support and maximise their impact. We believe that telecommunications industry can make a gigawatt hour-scale contribution with solutions like DES for accelerating the transition[1],” said Salmenkaita

About Elisa DES

The Distributed Energy Storage (DES) solution powered by AI/ML uses the flexibility of backup power batteries to control electricity supply in thousands of base stations in the radio access network throughout the day. The DES system optimises the timing of electricity purchases by scheduling charging and discharging periods for the batteries. Furthermore, part of this flexibility capacity is offered to the local electricity Transmission Service Operator (TSO) for grid balancing purposes. When balancing the grid, the TSO sends request of their needs every few seconds, and the DES system decides which of the thousands of base station power units should be adjusted in real time

Gore Street Energy is a London-based investment company focused on energy storage.

Gore Street will buy the 200 megawatt / 400 megawatt hour energy storage project from Avantus LLC.

The company said project acquisition costs are around $110 million. Following the transaction, the company’s cash position will be about £144 million.

This will be the company’s first investment in California, it noted, and will diversify its revenue streams and geographical exposure.

Gore Street said the project will be connected to CAISO, one of nine independent system operators in North America. It added that the CAISO grid provides electricity to 80% of California and a small part of Nevada.

The project has secured material land rights, planning consents and a grid connection scheduled for the second half of 2024. Commercial operations will begin shortly after.

Gore Street also noted that the project will be eligible to benefit from an investment tax credit for up to 30% of qualifying capital expenditure via the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in late 2022.

Following the acquisition, Gore Street’s portfolio will consist of 27 projects with a total capacity of 1,173 megawatts of operational and construction assets.

Chair Patrick Cox said: ‘With this acquisition, the company is now diversified across five high-growth grids, underpinning our push into international markets, where we continue to see attractive new investment opportunities in line with our target returns. We remain dedicated to performing competitively across the sector’s core metrics – cost per megawatt and revenue per megawatt / megawatt hour – as this ultimately drives returns for shareholders.’

Shares in Gore Street were down 0.8% to 106.36 pence each in London on Friday morning.

Source: ajbell

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) has agreed to acquire the 200MW Big Rock energy storage project in California from Avantus.

The construction-ready project has secured material land rights, planning consents and a grid connection scheduled for the second half of 2024.

Commercial operations will commence shortly thereafter as a battery supply contract for all cells for the two-hour duration site, and engineering procurement and integration contracts have been secured. Big Rock has the capacity to deliver 400MWh of electricity to the grid.

This acquisition will increase GSF’s portfolio to 27 projects totalling 1173.2MW of operational and construction assets across the UK, Ireland, Germany and the US.

The project will be connected to CAISO, one of nine independent system operators in North America.

Patrick Cox, Chair of the GSF Board, commented: “We are delighted to announce this landmark international acquisition for the company. This is our first acquisition in the Californian market and follows a successful entry into the energy storage markets of Texas and Germany in 2022.

“With this acquisition, the company is now diversified across five high-growth grids, underpinning our push into international markets, where we continue to see attractive new investment opportunities in line with our target returns.”

Source: renews

Storage will be essential

As sectors such as heat and transport move away from fossil fuels and towards electrification, there will be higher electricity demand peaks, while electricity generation will become even more variable as levels of wind and solar generation increase. Currently, on the windiest days, National Grid ESO is forced to cap the amount of power coming from intermittent sources, with the owners being paid to turn them off. In 2022, a year characterised by extraordinary rises in energy prices, the UK spent £215m on turning windfarms off, and then another £717m turning on gas power plants to replace the lost wind power on days when the wind was not blowing. The result was an extra 1.5 million tonnes of CO2.

One of the ways to deal with this surplus energy is to increase demand and either use or store it during times of peak renewables generation. This can be done by retrofitting or co-locating battery storage systems with renewables projects. Batteries can soak up cheap renewable energy when it’s abundant, and discharge it when congestion has eased.

Renewable energy company, Dulas, installed its first battery storage project over 25 years ago, and has been helping businesses to harness renewable energy ever since. Donald Speirs, Business Development Manager, commented:

“In some cases, there are tangible commercial benefits for business owners having battery storage on site. Energy storage can be used to lower consumption from the grid at peak times and the grid also financially rewards those who can reduce consumption and/or feed into the grid within a short space of time. Battery storage can help a business become more energy resilient and, if linked to generation on site, it helps the business to operate in a greener way. We have also seen that optimisation technologies and finance can now be combined so that owners start to benefit immediately from having storage on site, without having to take an immediate financial hit. With the pace of renewable energy generation continuing and the growth of other systems that put demand on the grid, such as EVs, we can only see the demand and value of energy storage systems increasing further.”

In addition to generation, owners of hybrid projects can facilitate energy shifting applications with variable capacity and consumption patterns, allowing developers to shift dispatch to times of higher prices. Energy technology company, GridBeyond, created the world’s first hybrid battery and demand network, and are a leading provider of demand side response services and battery optimisation technologies.

Chris Smith, Asset Development Director, explained: “A range of grid-balancing services provide opportunities to earn revenue by supplying stored energy to the ESO. There are also opportunities to trade energy from battery storage on the wholesale market to capitalise on fluctuating prices. But with multiple markets on which to trade, the landscape for battery storage is a complex arena. However, understanding how and where you can stack revenues and provide an automated response is the key to proving the business case and unlocking maximum revenue from battery assets. Trading is already a big part of the value stack and, for some projects, represents the majority of income generated. This means real-time and continual modelling, that takes into account variables including weather variability and overall demand uncertainty, is required to assess the most likely range of returns, allowing you to place your asset into the best available market.”

The energy storage sector is growing rapidly as the imperatives of net zero become clearer and investors are increasingly recognising that projects can be cost-effective and profitable. National Grid estimates that by 2050, we will have 35GW of battery storage across the whole of the UK (National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios) and RenewableUK reported last year that the battery storage pipeline had doubled in 12 months. The benefits of energy storage and flexible generation are well worth exploring.

Source: scottishbusinessnews

The Madero and Ignacio projects are interconnected battery storage facilities located on a single site with a combined operating capacity of 200 MW, and have been engineered with multiple hours of operational duration to provide critical grid resiliency to the growing communities of the Rio Grande Valley through participation and trading in the liquid energy market managed by ERCOT. The projects are scheduled to achieve full commercial operations later this year and at that time, collectively, the Madero/Ignacio site will be the largest fully-merchant battery energy storage project ever built worldwide, as measured by total deliverable energy.

Eolian’s CEO Aaron Zubaty commented, “the ERCOT electricity market has been in the news frequently during the past few years as sustained economic growth and aging generating fleets have strained the grid’s ability to meet demand during critical hours when thermal power plants require maintenance or when renewable energy production drops. This energy storage project is the largest of its kind in the world, represents hundreds of millions of dollars in direct investment by private investors, and solves the problem of meeting demand during hours of high uncertainty that require highly dynamic units that can turn on remotely and instantaneously to keep the lights on. The new face of grid resilience is fast and flexible energy storage to fill the gaps when other resources are too slow or too fragile to meet the challenge.”

Eolian, L.P. was advised by Norton Rose Fulbright LLP and Churchill Stateside Group, LLC was advised by Husch Blackwell LLP.

About Eolian, L.P.

Eolian, L.P. (“Eolian”) owns and operates a growing portfolio of energy storage projects and invests in the most experienced renewable energy development teams in the U.S. For nearly 20 years, Eolian’s founding management has worked together to build the assets at the core of the company, creating unique and proprietary structures that have directly funded the development of more than 21,000 MW of successfully operating energy storage, solar, and wind generating capacity across the country. Eolian is owned by its employees, and funds managed by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a global, independent infrastructure investor.

For several years, lithium-ion batteries have dominated the energy storage landscape for electric utilities, but one of the limitations of lithium-ion batteries is the limited amount of storage hours they can provide. And there have also been safety concerns raised about fires occurring at lithium-ion facilities.

There is a wide array of storage technologies that differentiate themselves from lithium ion by offering longer storage durations, which is becoming increasingly important as intermittent renewable energy sources continue to expand across the U.S. power grid.

“The value of long-duration energy storage, which helps address variability in renewable energy supply across days and seasons, is poised to grow significantly as power systems shift to larger shares of variable generation such as wind and solar,” a report posted on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory notes.

IRON FLOW BATTERIES

One of the companies making a splash in the iron flow battery space in recent months is ESS Inc. Two California public power utilities, SMUD and Burbank Water and Power, in 2022 announced agreements with ESS.

SMUD and ESS on Sept. 20, 2022 announced an agreement to provide up to 200 megawatts (MW)/2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of long duration energy storage that will be provided by ESS. The agreement calls for ESS to deliver a mix of its long-duration energy storage technology for integration with the SMUD electric grid beginning in 2023.

In November, ESS and Burbank Water and Power entered into an agreement for ESS to deliver BWP’s first utility-scale battery storage project. Under the agreement, a 75 kilowatt (kW)/500 kilowatt hour kWh ESS “Energy Warehouse” will be installed and connected to a 265 kW solar array on BWP’s EcoCampus.

The iron flow battery will support the increased use of renewable power and allow excess renewable energy to be stored and used as baseload energy for Burbank, improving the resilience and reliability of the grid.

IRON AIR AND COMPRESSED AIR BATTERIES

In late January, Form Energy announced that it had entered into definitive agreements with investor-owned Xcel Energy to deploy Form Energy’s iron-air battery systems at two of Xcel Energy’s retiring coal plant sites.

Xcel Energy–Minnesota will deploy a 10 MW/1,000 MWh multi-day storage system at the Sherburne County Generating Station in Becker, Minnesota. Xcel Energy–Colorado will deploy a 10 MW/1,000 MWh multi-day storage system at the Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo, Colorado. Both projects are expected to come online as early as 2025 and are subject to regulatory approvals in their respective states.

In December, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced that Form Energy will partner with the state of West Virginia to build its first iron-air battery manufacturing facility on 55 acres of property in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, along the Ohio River.

Meanwhile, California community choice aggregator Central Coast Community Energy in January said that it signed a 25-year power purchase agreement for a compressed air energy storage project with Hydrostor.

The nearly $1 billion power purchase agreement calls for the delivery of 200 megawatts, 1,600-megawatt hours of energy storage to 3CE from Hydrostor’s planned Willow Rock Energy Storage Center that will use the company’s Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage technology. Hydrostor says the project, when completed, will abate up to 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Hydrodstor’s technology combines elements of a compressed air storage system with a pumped hydro system. The process stores energy as compressed air but captures and stores the heat of compression for future use. The compressed air is stored in a purpose-built underground cavern that uses a water reservoir to maintain constant pressure. The facility discharges energy by reversing the process, using the stored heat and pressure to power a conventional turbine generator. The system has no performance degradation over its 50-year plus expected lifetime, Hydrostor said.

Hydrostor said its technology offers the same services as a natural gas plant while having zero emissions because it uses surplus electricity as fuel. The company is targeting high value grid applications such as transmission deferral and fossil fuel generation replacement.

HYDROGEN

In early January, Energy Vault Holdings, Inc. and California investor-owned utility Pacific Gas and Electric announced the companies are partnering to deploy and operate a utility-scale battery plus green hydrogen long-duration energy storage system with a minimum of 293 megawatt-hours of dispatchable energy.

The system is designed to power downtown and the surrounding area of the City of Calistoga, Calif, for a minimum of 48 hours during planned outages and potential Public Safety Power Shutoffs, which is when the powerlines serving the surrounding area must be turned off for safety due to high wildfire risk.

PG&E submitted the project contract for review and approval to the California Public Utilities Commission on December 30, 2022, with a request for the issuance of a final resolution approving the project by May 15, 2023.

The energy storage system will be owned, operated and maintained by Energy Vault while providing dispatchable power under a long-term tolling agreement with PG&E.

The system’s capacity may be expanded to 700 MWh, which would allow it to operate for longer without refueling, enabling further flexibility for PG&E and the City of Calistoga.

Energy Vault’s system will replace the typical, mobile diesel generators used to energize PG&E’s Calistoga microgrid during broader grid outages.

Construction is anticipated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2023 with commercial operation expected by the end of second quarter of 2024.

Upon completion, this project is expected to be the first-of-its-kind and the largest utility-scale green hydrogen project in the United States.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power told Public Power Current that it recognizes the benefits of green hydrogen as a “power-to-gas” long-duration energy storage solution, through the use of electrolyzers, a system that uses electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called electrolysis.

LADWP was asked to provide additional details on where things currently stand in terms of LADWP’s possible pursuit of green hydrogen for storage.

As a purchaser of power produced by the Intermountain Power Project (IPP), LADWP is involved in installing two, 420 MW each, combined cycle generating units at IPP that will be capable of using hydrogen fuel (blended with natural gas) when placed in service in July 2025. The hydrogen will be produced using renewable energy and electrolyzers, and then stored in salt caverns for long-duration energy storage that can store and provide a seasonal supply of hydrogen, LADWP officials noted.

LADWP does not plan to be directly involved in the production of green hydrogen in the Los Angeles area at this time, but it will work with energy developers to implement green hydrogen projects to provide grid reliability and a zero carbon energy source.

LADWP officials said that its strategic long-term resource plan includes options for eventually purchasing green hydrogen from the market to spur development of green hydrogen capacity in the Los Angeles area.

The utility believes this technology is necessary to ensure the power system remains resilient during emergency events, such as an earthquake, wildfire, or other situations when clean dispatchable generation capacity may be necessary to maintain grid reliability and resiliency as it transitions to 100% clean energy.

LADWP officials said the utility is looking at a variety of energy storage technologies as well as green hydrogen as its transition to a 100% clean energy future.

The officials said the utility will need energy storage to mitigate the intermittent generation challenge posed by renewable resources (variable wind and solar) and to provide resources for periods of low renewable generation, high energy demand periods, and loss of generation and/or transmission lines to maintain grid reliability and resiliency.

LADWP officials point out that there are trade-offs with different technologies: Batteries are limited in their ability to store large quantities of energy economically and shift the energy beyond the daily or hourly timeframe. Pumped hydro is limited by location (it is challenging to find new sites for large hydroelectric plants) and is constrained by water availability, the officials noted.

Green hydrogen offers the potential for long-duration energy storage that uses excess renewables available in the spring when electricity demand is low to produce hydrogen for use in the summer when electricity demand is high — referred to as seasonal storage, they said. Another benefit is that, in some cases, the existing power generating units can be modified to use green hydrogen.

As the green hydrogen economy scales up, LADPW expects that it will become a viable, low-cost solution for seasonal energy storage that offers the flexibility to decarbonize the electric grid and other sectors of the economy.

Orlando Utilities Commission Explores Deployment of Long-Duration Energy Storage Facility

In early January, Florida public power utility Orlando Utilities Commission said it will explore deployment of a long-duration energy storage facility as a way in which to help achieve the utility’s net-zero carbon emission goals.

The facility will be provided by Malta Inc. Malta’s storage technology converts excess electricity into thermal energy that is stored in salt and coolant. When needed, the plant regenerates gigawatt hours of electricity for residential and commercial use.

The Malta facility would be situated at OUC’s Indian River Plant in Brevard County on Florida’s East Coast.

Malta’s more than 100-megawatt utility-scale system provides more hours of energy storage than lithium-ion batteries and could provide energy storage diversity for OUC. The increased duration facility has the potential to help OUC ensure grid reliability despite the variable nature of clean and renewable energy resources like solar.

NYPA Signs Agreement for Planned Deployment of Zinc-Air Storage System

Another public power utility pursuing long-duration energy storage technology is the New York Power Authority.

In April 2021, NYPA signed an agreement with Zinc8 Energy Solutions Inc. and the University at Buffalo for the planned deployment of Zinc8’s zinc-air energy storage system, marking a first demonstration of a long-duration use in New York State and a development that could support further integration of renewable power sources into the electric grid.

In January 2022, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that Zinc8 will relocate its $68 million manufacturing facility and U.S. headquarters to Kingston, N.Y.

Zinc8’s technology has been developed around the utilization of zinc as the anode fuel, which is expected to offer advantages over other metals due to its high energy density, abundant availability, low cost, and ease of storage and handling.

When the system is delivering power, the zinc particles are combined with oxygen drawn from the surrounding air. When the system is recharging, zinc particles are regenerated, and oxygen is returned to the surrounding air. The regenerative system does not require fuel replacement and offers scalable energy capacity through the simple introduction of additional fuel tanks.

Wisconsin Utility Pilot Project Tests New Form of Long-Duration Energy Storage

In early February, WEC Energy Group, a Wisconsin-based investor-owned utility, announced that the company will lead a pilot project at its Valley Power Plant in Milwaukee to test a new form of long-duration energy storage.

WEC Energy Group is collaborating with the Electric Power Research Institute and CMBlu Energy, the developer and manufacturer of the long-duration battery based in California and Germany.

This 1-to-2-megawatt-hour pilot project will be one of the first to test this type of energy storage system on the U.S. electric grid, WEC Energy Group said.

The CMBlu Organic SolidFlow energy storage system uses a proprietary flow battery technology with components from recyclable materials.

The project will test the performance of the battery system, including discharge durations of five to 10 hours — up to twice as long as the typical lithium-ion batteries in use today.

The pilot project is planned for testing in the fourth quarter of this year.

Findings will be shared with the utility industry. EPRI will share a complete analysis of the project in early 2024.

APPA Storage Tracker

The American Public Power Association’s Public Power Energy Tracker is a resource for association members that summarizes public power energy storage projects that are currently online.

APPA Energy Storage Working Group

APPA’s Energy Storage Working Group (ESWG) is part of a cooperative agreement between APPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management to lower barriers to integrating battery storage with the operation of fossil fuel generation assets.

In 2022, the ESWG developed a report on energy storage challenges, solutions, and opportunities for public power.

APPA is continuing to convene members to get feedback, advice, and other input on the energy storage challenges and opportunities for integrating energy storage. The next ESWG virtual meeting is scheduled for February 23, 2023, from 2 – 3:30 PM ET. The main goal for the meeting will be to discuss the baselines for an energy storage maturity model framework.

Source: publicpower

Minister Husic said domestic battery industries will be buoyed by Australian know-how and domestic access to minerals to help power the move to clean energy here and around the world.

“Our general approach should be one where if we mine it here, we should make it here. Large-scale uptake and manufacture of batteries will be vital transitioning to net zero. New battery capacity will help support grid-scale capacity, power our homes, and electrify our transport sector.”

“Australia has globally significant deposits of essential battery materials and strong local innovation and research capabilities. By drawing on these strengths, Australia can take its place in the profitable global battery supply chain,” Husic added.

Developing the Strategy will help Australia transition to a decarbonised economy, hit our ambitious emissions targets, foster Australian innovation and support Australian industry, according to Husic.

The announcement was made during Husic’s visit to Energy Renaissance, an Australian lithium-ion battery technology and manufacturing company at Tomago in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Globally, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that 387 gigawatts of new energy storage will be added by 2030, providing an excellent opportunity for Australian battery industries.

Bolstering Australia’s battery manufacturing capability presents an opportunity to integrate and diversify global battery supply chains. A joined-up national approach to battery technology will also work to support Australia’s National Electric Vehicle Strategy.

“The National Battery Strategy will complement the development of Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy to articulate a clear pathway for integrated, end-to-end onshore battery minerals supply chains,” Husic said.

“Together, these will provide a clear plan to ensure Australia maximises its economic potential in these fast growing and lucrative markets. The consultations around the Strategy are designed to find ways to get our country manufacturing Aussie batteries.”

“A coherent, national approach to the development and uptake of emerging technologies won’t just deliver economic growth and jobs, but also help safeguard our national wellbeing,” Husic concluded.

The Federal Government will work closely with states and territories, and consult widely with industry, community and experts to shape the strategy and help grow globally competitive domestic battery industries.

Engagement on the Strategy will help inform other elements under the Australian Made Battery Plan including creating a Battery Manufacturing Precinct, in partnership with the Queensland Government; establishing a Powering Australia Industry Growth Centre to support industry translation of research into local jobs and investment; and supporting 10,000 New Energy Apprenticeships.

Source: Bloomberg 

Sembcorp Industries (Sembcorp) and the Energy Market Authority (EMA) today officially opened the Sembcorp Energy Storage System (ESS). The Sembcorp ESS is Southeast Asia’s largest ESS and spans across two hectares of land in the Banyan and Sakra region on Jurong Island. Commissioned in six months1, the facility started operations in December 2022 and is the fastest in the world of its size to be deployed2.

The event was officiated by Guest of Honour, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry Dr Tan See Leng; together with Chief Executive of EMA, Mr Ngiam Shih Chun, and CEO, Singapore & Southeast Asia of Sembcorp Industries, Mr Koh Chiap Khiong.

The utility-scale ESS has a maximum storage capacity of 285 megawatt hour (MWh), and can meet the electricity needs of around 24,000 four-room HDB households3 for one day, in a single discharge. Its rapid response time to store and supply power in milliseconds is essential in mitigating solar intermittency caused by changing weather conditions in Singapore’s tropical climate. It can also provide reserves to the power grid, which frees up power generation plants to generate more electricity to meet demand, when needed.

Mr Ngiam Shih Chun, Chief Executive of the Energy Market Authority, said: “Energy Storage Systems (ESS) such as the Sembcorp ESS will play a significant part in supporting Singapore’s transition towards cleaner energy sources. This large-scale ESS marks the achievement of Singapore’s 200MWh energy storage target ahead of time. It will complement our efforts to maximise solar adoption by storing and delivering energy given the intermittent nature of solar power. The ESS will also enhance our power grid stability and resilience by managing mismatches between electricity demand and supply.”

Mr Wong Kim Yin, Group President & CEO of Sembcorp Industries, said: “ESS is rapidly growing in demand, to support power system reliability, especially for the integration of intermittent renewable energy. Sembcorp already operates one of the largest fleets of ESS in the UK. This 285MWh ESS is the largest in Southeast Asia. At 709MWh, Sembcorp is now one of Asia’s largest and fastest-growing ESS operators with strong technical capabilities.”

Fast response batteries to maintain grid reliability

The Sembcorp ESS is an integrated system comprising more than 800 large-scale battery units. It uses lithium iron phosphate batteries with high energy density, fast response time and high round-trip efficiency to maximise energy storage, making them suitable for maintaining grid stability. A central control system manages the batteries’ charge and discharge cycles according to the grid’s supply and demand. The integrated system also includes the liquid cooling systems or built-in air conditioning systems to maintain optimal operating temperatures. Live monitoring through extensive use of intelligent sensors, security cameras and dashboards tracks the key performance indicators to ensure safe, reliable and optimal performance. Please refer to Annex A for details on technological features built into the ESS and Annex B for photos of the Sembcorp ESS.

EMA’s Accelerating Energy Storage for Singapore (ACCESS) programme facilitates ESS adoption in Singapore by promoting use cases and business models with industry partners and other government agencies.

About the Energy Market Authority

The Energy Market Authority (EMA) is a statutory board under the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry. Through our work, we seek to forge a progressive energy landscape for sustained growth. We aim to ensure a reliable and secure energy supply, promote effective competition in the energy market and develop a dynamic energy sector in Singapore.

Source: sembcorp

The future is renewable, but all that power needs to be contained

A “metal sock” in the ground stuffed full of hydrogen. Vats of scorching sand. Huge weights moving very, very slowly up and down old mineshafts. Is this the future of energy?

This menagerie of strange machines and heat-retaining vessels is poised to emerge across Europe as the continent seeks ways of storing the surplus energy produced by renewables. The UK, for example, wasted half a billion pounds’ worth of wind energy in 2021 because it had nowhere to store it. Without such storage, electricity must be used at the very moment it is generated.

As wind energy continues to go to waste across Europe, the EU is spending record sums – billions of euros – on gas imports as it slashes its reliance on fossil fuels from Russia.

“We’re at an inflexion point,” says Dominic Walters, chief corporate affairs officer at Highview Power, a UK-based firm that is working on a means of storing energy as liquid air. “There is a need to accelerate everything everywhere,” he adds, referring to the colourful array of energy storage projects currently at early stages of development in Europe.

Proponents of alternative energy storage technologies argue that lithium-ion batteries will only get us so far. Their production relies on mining, they don’t have very long lifespans, and are arguably not ideal for storing energy longer than several hours.

“If we don’t work out how to stabilise Europe’s electricity grids soon, we’ll come to regret it,” says Jacopo Tosoni, head of policy at the European Association for Storage and Energy (EASE): “You generally have a risk of blackouts in 2030.”

A scramble is now on to put the necessary storage media in place so that energy can be kept ready and waiting until those moments when it is required.

The heat is on

In an industrial corner of Kankaanpää, Finland, a town home to around 12,000 people, there is a seven metre-tall, dark grey silo full of sand. Sand that can store energy in the form of heat.

“Our year-round efficiency is about 90% for the system, so 10% losses, which is obviously quite good,” says Tommi Eronen, chief executive and co-founder of Polar Night Energy, an eight-people-strong startup that’s raised €1.25 million to date. Eronen described how the sand, heated to 600˚C using surplus electricity, will stay hot for months on end thanks to insulation lining the walls of the steel container. Pipes filled with hot air run through the sand in order to transfer heat in or out.

This sand battery is connected to a heat exchanger, says Eronen, so that operators can transfer thermal energy to district heating systems or, in possible future versions of the technology, turbines for electricity generation.

Eronen explains that early versions of the firm’s sand battery are relatively small in scale. The Kankaanpää unit offers 100kW of heating power, or a capacity of 8MWh, but Polar Night Energy is planning 100MW units and above, which could one day yield several GWh of juice. Such units would be around eight metres tall and 44 metres in diameter, a spokesman for Polar Night Energy says.

Expect news regarding the delivery of a 2MW version as early as this spring, adds Eronen.

In the Netherlands, GroeneWarmte is working on a different kind of thermal energy store called Ecovat, which uses water heated to temperatures up to 95˚C instead of the much hotter sand chosen by Polar Night Energy. “It basically just stores water in a big underground tank,” says project engineer Marijn van den Heuvel. “It’s a very large thermos.”

There’s a bit more construction required in setting this system up, though. The concrete “thermos” must be carefully installed in a huge, cylindrical hole in the ground. But after that, it can be covered over and the storage works in a similar way to Polar Night Energy’s design. The warmth the vessel cradles, for several months if necessary, would be transferred via heat exchangers to district heating systems. Van den Heuvel says GroeneWarmte with its team of eight people is engaging with a Danish company on a possible first deployment of this technology.

These approaches are fairly new, but Highview Power is already building a 50MW facility in Carrington, England, where energy is to be stored in the form of liquid air. The site will form a mind-boggling array of silos, pipework and platforms bunched together. It will comprise thermal and cold storage units and containers for the liquid air itself.

“We filter it so effectively it is clean air, that air is liquefied, and then we cryogenically freeze it,” explains Walters, referring to the process in which air is chilled to nearly -200˚C. By heating this very cold, liquid air later, it turns back into a gas and expands, and can be used to power a turbine, throwing electricity back to the grid. The system achieves an efficiency of 55-65%, which Highview says is comparable to other storage technologies. One of the benefits of this approach is that the technology should have a multi-decadal lifespan, much longer than lithium ion batteries, so governments might be able to plan around such infrastructure more easily.

Walters says the Carrington site should go live by the end of 2024. At the moment, the 55-people company is raising a £400-million funding round, and is planning a further 19 installations around the UK. It ultimately aims to supply 4GW, or 20%, of the UK’s expected energy storage needs by 2035.

Another storage method drops

Perhaps the simplest concept of all currently vying for its place in the energy storage landscape of the future is the gravity battery. Most of us learned about “potential energy” at school. Arguably, there is no better illustration of that than a big weight, held aloft, just itching to give in to gravity and fall to the floor. By attaching cables to such a weight – literally harnessing it – it is possible to slow its descent right down to about one metre per second and use the pulling force it exerts to generate electricity via a turbine.

Gravitricity’s approach in this vein, to begin with at least, is to lower its weights hundreds of metres down disused mine shafts with the help of a guiding mechanism. The company, which employs 17 people, has so far raised £7.5 million to make its vision a reality.

“If it were swinging around the place, very soon you’d get the shaft caving in on itself, which is obviously not what we’d want,” explains commercial director Robin Lane. A single weight might provide 4-8MW of power, he estimates, and could be calibrated to provide energy for a particular time period, say 15 minutes or an hour. Imagine a system where multiple weights are ready to descend, one after the other, in a carefully synchronised sequence so that electricity can be generated at a steady rate. Early commercial systems will use a combination of large weights totalling 1,000 tonnes.

Lane admits that this approach can’t yet compete with lithium ion batteries on a cost per MW basis but he argues gravity batteries will be commercially competitive eventually. Plus, it ought to be possible to hoist and lower weights again and again for many years with little impact on the integrity of the system. Lithium ion batteries, on the other hand, have stricter limitations in terms of cycling.

Another firm, Energy Vault, which employs 150 people, is also pursuing gravity battery technology. It has raised approximately $410m in funding to date.

Gravitricity is also exploring completely different ways of secreting energy in old mine shafts, such as lining them with metal and turning them into hydrogen storage units.

“It’s a metal sock, which you would lower into the shaft, and then you would entomb that metal sock with a mixture of ballast, concrete and steel,” says Lane. It potentially makes it easier and cheaper to store hydrogen at high pressures than above ground, since the container can rely on the existing geology of the shaft for structural support. The hydrogen could come from electrolysers linked to wind farms and use surplus energy to produce the gas from water.

For Tosoni, the diversity of the storage projects emerging in Europe is heartening, given the expected energy requirements that countries will face in the coming years. But less important than choosing one technology over another is the financing and political strategies needed to scale any of them up.

“The big issue is funding,” he says, noting the wariness of some investors. Governments could help, he suggests, by setting more ambitious targets for the establishment of energy storage facilities.

Eronen, in general, is optimistic about the future and notes that Polar Night Energy is embarking on a new 5-10m euro funding round. But it remains frustrating to witness the present energy crisis in Europe today, knowing that, even with the best will in the world, these systems aren’t quite ready for primetime just yet.

“It feels so bad,” he says. “We see the crisis now and there’s like no way that we can help.”

According to EASE, the current rate of storage added every year in Europe, 1GW, must boom to 14GW per year if the continent is to reach the 200GW total grid-scale storage capacity it’s expected to require by 2030. So the push is certainly on.

Source: thenextweb

Smart energy infrastructure group, SMS plc, has begun operating two new grid scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) that add a combined 90 MW of storage capacity to the UK’s electricity transmission network.

A 50 MW project located at Brook Farm, near Ipswich, and a 40 MW site in Stairfoot, Barnsley, UK, are now fully operational, delivering essential grid balancing and flexibility services at a time of year when the power network has come under increased strain due to cold weather, gas shortages, and heightened winter demand. The large lithium-ion batteries installed across both sites hold enough capacity to store electricity for approximately 40 000 UK homes.

Thanks to the ability to store renewable power such as wind and solar when electricity demand is low and release it to the network when demand is high, battery technology plays a central role in Britain’s decarbonisation and future energy security. According to National Grid, the UK will require approximately 20 GW of battery storage by 2030 and approximately 35 GW by 2050 if we are to fully realise the benefits of a net zero energy system. The country’s current battery storage capacity stands at 2.1 GW.

The latest battery projects to be connected to the grid in Suffolk and South Yorkshire are the second and third sites that SMS has developed following the completion of its inaugural 50 MW BESS in Cambridgeshire last year. Whilst these newly commissioned sites take SMS’ total operational capacity to 140 MW across three live projects, the company has also announced fully secured consent for an additional 200 MW of projects in England. This takes the group’s total BESS pipeline to 760 MW, including 150 MW that are already under construction and expected to be completed in 2023.

John Flaherty, Managing Director of grid scale energy storage at SMS, said: “Alongside decarbonisation, energy security is one of the key challenges facing the UK’s transition to a net zero economy, and battery storage is a linchpin technology on both of these critical fronts. Storing energy so it can be used later to meet demand, when and where it is most needed, is not just essential for increasing domestic generation of cheaper renewable energy, but also for enhancing the reliability and resilience of our grid as we move to a low-carbon system.

“By investing in and developing grid scale storage capacity, as SMS is doing, Britain can finally wean itself off fossil fuel imports and achieve true energy independence. Through our 760 MW pipeline of energy storage projects, to be delivered over the next five years, we are proud to be helping make energy in the UK more sustainable, secure, and affordable today, and for generations to come.”

Source: energyglobal

As the push to decarbonize buildings gains momentum, the simple concept of using ice to reduce AC use is becoming more appealing.

You don’t need a battery to store energy. A class of technologies known as thermal storage can do the job too, and it even has some potential advantages over lithium-ion batteries.

The long-overlooked thermal-storage category could play a critical role in easing the strain on the grid brought on when too many people use their air conditioning or heaters at the same time — an occurrence that is becoming frighteningly common in the face of increasingly extreme weather.

A number of thermal-storage companies already tackle that challenge by tapping cheap midday solar power to freeze blocks of ice and then using those blocks to cool buildings later in the day, when solar power stops producing, thereby reducing carbon emissions and making the grid more efficient at the same time.

• Calmac (now part of HVAC giant Trane) has been commercially active for decades freezing tanks of liquid to help cool large commercial buildings.
• Thule Energy Storage has some 1,500 ​“Ice Bear” units freezing ice to cool down houses and small businesses. (It picked up the IP from startup Ice Energy, which went bankrupt in 2020.)
• Viking Cold Solutions does the same for cold-storage warehouses, making them more energy efficient while improving the quality of frozen foods.
• Five-year-old startup Nostromo Energy has operated its IceBrick product for commercial buildings in Israel for more than two years; now it’s in the running for a $189 million loan guarantee
• from the U.S. Department of Energy to install it at 120 buildings in Southern California and beyond.

Other thermal-storage products store heat in insulated containers, offsetting the need for electric heating that exacerbates peak winter power demand in cold places. (A different up-and-coming cohort aims to use thermal storage for long-duration grid storage, as Canary Media has reported.)

Thermal storage can also be far more cost-effective than relatively expensive lithium-ion batteries that store electrons to run heating and cooling processes (while losing some of that power in the process, since batteries aren’t perfectly efficient). And while fire risks make it hard to install lithium-ion batteries inside densely packed buildings, blocks of ice don’t catch fire.

Nevertheless, as lithium-ion batteries go mainstream, thermal storage has struggled to take off. Building owners just haven’t felt compelled to shift their heating and cooling loads, even if they theoretically could save some money on their energy bills. Analyses of the thermal-storage industry from a few years ago concluded it was a good idea in search of a receptive audience.

That search may be over, thanks to significant federal policy changes, technological advancements and a growing urgency to decarbonize the building sector. As 2023 gets rolling, here are five reasons why thermal storage might finally be about to take off.

1. Thermal storage now has a dedicated tax credit

Few statements make a customer’s eyes light up like ​“It’s now 40 percent off!” Thermal-storage companies can proffer this enticement thanks to their first-ever federal investment tax credit.

Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act created a new federal tax credit for stand-alone storage. The mature battery-storage market will benefit from this, but thermal-storage advocates worked with legislators to make sure the law specified that thermal-storage systems qualify, too.

The baseline tax credit is now 30 percent for projects that meet labor standards recently defined by the IRS. The credit jumps to 40 percent for projects that use domestic content (though the rules for that one are still being written).

Thermal storage is a strong contender to make use of the domestic-content bonus. Lithium-ion manufacturing remains largely clustered in East Asia; it takes huge capital investment and workforce development to spin up a high-grade lithium-battery plant out of nowhere. But the assembly process for thermal storage is not as complicated and costs less to set up.

For example, Nostromo’s ​“IceBrick,” a modular block that freezes ice to help commercial air-conditioning systems, is already being assembled in Anaheim, California. Factoring in the new tax credits, Nostromo advertises a five-year payback for building owners who buy the system.

2. Thermal-storage products are getting smaller and easier to install

A key challenge for any marketable storage product is how to deliver benefits without taking up too much space, because space comes at a premium in commercial real estate. Large tanks of water are great at storing thermal energy, but they take up valuable square footage and are quite heavy, limiting where they can sit in a building.

Today there are a small but growing array of compact thermal-storage options that fit more flexibly into unused space. By spreading out the liquid among a bunch of small containers, startups have engineered a version of thermal storage with fewer limitations on where it can go.

Companies like Nostromo and Viking Cold Solutions can slip thermal batteries into nooks and crannies that are otherwise unused. Thule designed its Ice Bear product to fit in smaller commercial spaces and offers a residential product that connects with home-cooling systems. And Calmac, an early mover in large commercial thermal storage, has updated its ice tanks to take up less space and be more flexible to install.

3. The need to cut peak power usage is growing more urgent

As time goes on, more programs are springing up to reward people for shifting their electricity consumption out of peak hours as a way to relieve stress on the grid.

Thule has installed 1,500 thermal-storage units in part by partnering with several different utilities on demand management. Many of those are located in California, where air-conditioning needs during heat waves have nearly broken the grid many times over in recent years. But extreme weather is hitting all across the U.S., and each near miss drives home the imperative to reduce peak load.

A huge reason why building owners haven’t bothered with thermal storage is that they don’t see enough of a financial incentive to shift when they use energy to times that are easier on the grid. But more utilities are adopting time-based rates that send stronger price signals.

The new electric rates in Hawaii, for instance, charge customers three times more for electricity during peak hours than during the sunny hours when solar power floods the grid. As more jurisdictions adopt such ​“smart” rates, building owners will see a clearer financial payoff for thermal storage.

4. Building owners are feeling pressure to cut their carbon emissions

These days, incremental energy-bill savings may not even be the main draw for thermal storage. Instead, building owners are demonstrating unprecedented interest in measurably reducing their carbon emissions — both for their own sake and to help their customers deliver on climate commitments.

Let’s say a large business has publicly committed to a net-zero goal, including reductions in Scope 3 emissions, which come from the supply chain that supports the company’s operations. Now this company needs to ask its vendors questions about their carbon emissions. Hotels where employees stay, event venues that companies book, office buildings that companies occupy — all of those are under new pressure to show they won’t hurt a customer’s progress toward fulfilling their carbon-reduction pledges.

In fact, many building owners now describe carbon reductions as their primary motivation for exploring thermal storage, said Nostromo CEO Yoram Ashery.

“The payback financially makes sense, but they see a strategic benefit, not just cost reduction,” he explained.

5. The broader building-decarbonization movement creates new demand for thermal storage

Thermal storage stands to gain from the newfound momentum on decarbonizing the building sector, which is being driven both by corporate climate promises and by increasingly assertive building policies in places such as California, New York and Washington state.

The movement to ​“electrify everything” focuses on the switch from fossil-fueled heating to high-efficiency electric heat pumps. Air conditioning doesn’t get as much attention, because it already runs on electricity. But playing out this scenario, if the building sector en masse switches from fossil-fueled heating to electric heating, it will put a huge new strain on the grid during moments of peak heating demand.

Indeed, as buildings in some places push toward being 100 percent carbon-free, they may find this goal practically impossible without help from thermal storage.

“Thermal storage is a must-have to decarbonize buildings and the grid,” Ashery said.

As larger buildings electrify, they could use thermal storage to reduce the size and cost of the heat pumps they need to install for space and water heating, said Brett Bridgeland, principal in the Carbon-Free Buildings program at climate think tank RMI. (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)

Shifting heat-pump use to warmer daytime hours allows the heat pumps to work more efficiently, so buildings could store heat while the sun is shining for use in the cold night, Bridgeland pointed out. In aggregate, using thermal storage to reduce peak electricity demand lowers the grid investment needed to meet the power needs of electrified city buildings; that could lower the societal cost of decarbonizing the building sector.

Building decarbonization is still in its early stages. But as more buildings have to eliminate carbon emissions — New York state calls for its buildings to be carbon-neutral by 2050, for instance — thermal storage could emerge as a crucial enabling technology.

Source: canarymedia

AUSTIN, TX : Aypa Power (“Aypa”), a Blackstone portfolio company that develops, owns, and operates utility-scale energy storage and hybrid renewable energy projects, has closed $320 million of letter of credit and revolving credit facilities led by Banco Santander, Investec, and Nomura as Coordinating Lead Arrangers and Joint Bookrunners. The facility will support the development and commercialization of Aypa’s 15+ GW project pipeline across North America.

The facilities are comprised of a $250 million letter of credit facility and a $70 million revolving credit facility, providing Aypa with development capital and credit support to secure obligations principally relating to power purchase agreements and other revenue contracts, as well as interconnection agreements.

“We greatly appreciate the institutional support of our lead lenders who worked in partnership with Aypa,” said Marc Atlas, Chief Financial Officer of Aypa Power. “This facility positions our platform to continue our market leading deployment of battery storage and hybrid systems, while providing the lenders with significant cash flow and asset coverage.”

“This facility accelerates Aypa’s growth and the advancement of our pipeline, which aligns well with the company’s goal of delivering over 1,500 megawatts of battery storage and hybrid projects to notice-to-proceed in the next 24 months,” said Aypa Power CEO, Moe Hajabed. “We are thrilled to partner with such esteemed financial institutions as we continue to execute on our mission.”

Vinod Mukani, Global Head of Nomura’s Infrastructure and Power Business (“IPB”) commented, “We are pleased to leverage our global expertise to provide a bespoke financing solution to support Aypa’s development. Providing superior execution in growing sectors – like the energy transition sectors – remain core to Nomura, and supporting strong sponsors like Aypa with this financing fits seamlessly within these strategic initiatives.”

“Nomura is happy to support and provide liquidity to Aypa as it continues to develop its large pipeline of storage and solar projects in the US,” said Alain Halimi, Executive Director of Nomura’s IPB. “Nomura is always pleased to develop financing solutions for clients, like Aypa, who is a transformative player in the energy transition currently taking place in the US and globally.”

“We are very proud to have supported Aypa in this pivotal moment of its corporate development and capital raising process,” said Nuno Andrade, Managing Director and Head of Structured Finance US at Santander’s Corporate & Investment Banking. “Aypa has positioned itself as an innovative technology and project developer that will deliver clean energy and jobs across the United States with its utility scale battery storage and hybrid renewable energy projects, which are critical for the economy and the energy transition.”

“We have seen a lot of activity in this space and are glad to partner with the outstanding teams at Aypa and Blackstone on this landmark financing,” said Fred Petit, Co-Head of Investec’s North American Power & Infrastructure group. “Investec continues to be a leader in the structuring of innovative transactions in the North American energy space and this financing aligns perfectly with the bank’s strategy around ESG”.

About Aypa Power

Aypa Power is a Blackstone portfolio company that develops, owns, and operates utility-scale energy storage and hybrid renewable energy projects. As an independent power producer, Aypa was founded with the purpose of reducing reliance on fossil fuels and making a positive impact in the fight against climate change, while improving grid reliability and resiliency. Aypa has been at the forefront of energy storage development since their first energy storage project came online in 2018. The company currently has more than 15GW in development across North America.

About Nomura

Nomura is a global financial services group with an integrated network spanning over 30 countries and regions. By connecting markets East & West, Nomura services the needs of individuals, institutions, corporates and governments through its three business divisions: Retail, Investment Management, and Wholesale (Global Markets and Investment Banking). Founded in 1925, the firm is built on a tradition of disciplined entrepreneurship, serving clients with creative solutions and considered thought leadership.

About Santander

Santander’s Corporate & Investment Banking division supports Corporate, FiG (financial institutions group), Financial Sponsors and Institutional customers, offering tailored services and value-added wholesale products, suited to their complexity and sophistication. With over 5,800 professionals in 18 countries located around the globe, the Santander CIB business and the Global Debt Financing team supports its Clients’ renewable energy financing needs through an experienced, knowledgeable and integrated product team that provide our Clients with access to a full range of debt sources and capital structures.

About Investec

Investec Power and Infrastructure Finance is part of a strong global franchise, with teams across the US, UK, Europe, South Africa and India. Investec partners with private, institutional, and corporate clients, offering international banking, investments, and wealth management services in two principal markets, South Africa, and the UK, as well as certain other countries. The Group was established in 1974 and currently has 8,300+ employees. Investec has a dual listed company structure with primary listings on the London and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges.

We are working to have a capacity of 1,000-2,000 MW of hydroelectric power in various states in due course.

In an interaction with Moneycontrol, JSW Energy’s CEO and joint managing director Prashant Jain spoke of the company’s earnings for the December quarter, apart from throwing some light on the company’s plans to scale up its renewable energy capacity, including battery storage systems and hydroelectric power projects. He also explained the delay behind completing the acquisition of Mytrah Energy.

JSW Energy on Friday reported a 45 percent decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 180 crore for the December 2022 quarter. What are the reasons for such contraction?

Look, 83 percent of our power is sold in long-term contracts. Now, in long-term contracts, all our fuel prices are passed through, and you know that coal prices hit the roof throughout the year. During the third quarter also, it was higher 37 percent year-on-year. So when you look at a contract where fuel price goes up substantially as compared to fixed costs, you will be seeing why the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margin is contracting. However, the company’s absolute EBITDA is perfectly fine, although the EBITDA during the quarter went down by 18 percent. Primarily, the reason was low merchant volumes. In October, power demand was negative or almost flat compared to the previous year when demand was robust. At that point of time, power prices were ruling close to Rs 20 per unit. And this year, the power prices in the December quarter were on an average Rs 4.35-4.55 kind of a range, compared to a 37 percent increase in coal prices. Because of this, there was lower merchant volume.

But if you look at the year as a whole, for the last nine months, our merchant volumes are up by 65 percent compared to last year and our EBITDA is up 5 percent. In April-May alone, we sold more than 500 million units of power.

Going forward, what is happening in the current quarter (January-March) is that power demand for the first 22 days is up by 15 percent. Power prices have gone up from Rs 4.50 to Rs 6.50-7 per unit. Coal prices have come down from $240 to about $160. So now the situation will get better and merchant volumes will again go up.

What I am trying to explain is that we have to consider the seasonality factor and see the results in totality. Also, we should never look at the EBITDA margin in our (power) business.

Maybe not in October, but power demand was fairly high in November and December…

But you know, even then the power prices were not high. During Q3, power prices were Rs 4.55 on an average, whereas the cost of imported coal was $245, which ideally should translate to an average of Rs 6.50. So, if your coal is at that high a price, you will not be able to sell it in the merchant volume.

Could you give us an overview about the company’s debt situation?

Right now our total gross debt is approximately Rs 9,800 crore and it’s going to go up because out of this Rs 9,800 crore, around Rs 3,000 crore is for capital work-in-progress and rest Rs 6,800 crore is on the operating assets. We have close to 2,300 MW worth capacities under construction, which will get commissioned in the next 12 to 15 months’ time frame. So that’s what is going on.

Is the company looking at investors, ESG funds?

So, for 10 GW of operating capacity, we are fully capitalized. We don’t need any kind of capital. However, we continue to look at various growth opportunities. And as and when any opportunity arises, we want to raise further capital. We are fully equipped to do that at that point of time. So, we are not averse. But that raise will be only for further capacity enhancement.

The merchant power market cap at Rs 12 per unit continues and prices have been hitting the upper circuit. Given that coal prices remain high, how are companies like JSW looking at the short-term market?

It’s not in our hands, which is why we want to contract mostly the long-term agreements. Our portfolio is 83 percent in the long-term market. The short-term market is beyond anybody’s control, because we have no control over coal prices.

But will it be profitable to sell at Rs 12 per unit?

Absolutely, but if it is throughout the day. If it is only for two hours, then it’s not.

You received letters of award (LoA) for a total of 500MW/1,000MWh battery energy storage systems (BESS) from Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) earlier this month. What is the order pipeline looking like and what is your target for FY23 and FY24?

This is the world’s largest tender for 1,000MWh for which we have already got the LoA. From the LoA, the project needs to be completed within 21 months. So we will be completing this project by October 2025. This project will be set up in Rajasthan and it will be the first of its kind in the country.

Along with this, we are also working on hydro pumped storage projects, which is also going to be the future. We are building multiple verticals—generation, storage and then the electron to molecule business. The energy storage business vertical is going to be a very phenomenal vertical and we are very excited about it.

Talking about targets, apart from this battery storage project, we are working on multiple other opportunities. We will be starting our first pumped hydro storage project during the current calendar year. This will be for our steel plant where we are building our own micro grid for solar farm, wind farm. This will give us round-the-clock renewable energy and, thus, will help in decarbonising our plants.

What are your expectations from the upcoming budget? Anything in the pumped hydro sector that you are hoping for?

The government is really mindful that when we are building such a large capacity for generation by renewable resources, storage solutions become very important for the stabilisation of the grid. For this, the government is working on both sides, hydro pump storage and lithium-ion battery storage projects.

As and when these policies are announced, we will be working on that because we have already identified and got allocated up to 50KWh of hydro pumped storage projects in various states, where we have already started works in terms of seeking various regulatory approvals, land acquisition and preparation of the feasibility studies. As and when the government comes out with a policy and tenders for pumped hydro projects, we shall also participate.

As an industry stakeholder, for both pumped hydro storage projects and green hydrogen, I would request the government to look into policy framework and long-term offtake agreements.

JSW Energy has not made any clear announcements about its plan in the green hydrogen segment. Please give us some details.

Yes. These projects are at the conceptualisation stage at this point of time. We are waiting for the policy framework from the government.

We are already in touch with various leading companies that have done a lot of research and built large capacities of electrolysers. We are working with them and as and when there is a policy framework in place, we will be in a position to get those contracts signed and then build those kind of capacities.

Do you think the land subsidence incident in Joshimath will affect the future of hydroelectric projects in the country?

Hydroelectric projects are a part of the development needs of the country. They need to be built with a lot of safety and precautions for which India is well equipped. India has so many large hydro projects that are operating for several decades.

JSW Energy has been operating its hydroelectric plant for close to two decades and there has been no problem. I can say that hydroelectric projects are good for the country, good for mankind as well as nature, if executed well.

So, does JSW Energy plan to expand its hydropower portfolio?

Oh yes. Right now, our one project in Himachal Pradesh is under construction which will be commissioned in the next 12-15 months. Next, there are a couple of more projects we are working on. We are very optimistic about the future of the hydroelectric projects and we feel that this is a very good space to be in.

We are working to have a capacity of 1,000-2,000 MW of hydroelectric power in various states in due course. But they take a lot of time to develop. Each project takes five to six years to be built.

Are there any plans to get into the offshore wind business?

Offshore wind gives power at Rs 6-8 per unit, not less than that. And I don’t think India wants to buy power at Rs 8 at this point of time.

The last time we spoke, you said the acquisition of Mytrah would happen at the end of the third quarter. But that has not happened. What are the reasons for the delay?

There are 17 lenders we need to take approvals from. Each lender has to go to its board which sometimes takes time. Now it’s a matter of days, not even weeks. I’m expecting that maybe within this month or early next month, we should see that happening.

Source: PTI

JSW Energy on Thursday said that its arm JSW Renew Energy Five has bagged two battery energy storage system projects totalling 500 MW/ 1,000 MW from Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).

The company will be entitled to receive a fixed capacity charge of Rs 10.8 lakh per MW per month for twelve years, a company statement said.

Energy storage system of 500 MW/1,000 MW means 500 MW of battery energy can provide power backup for two hours, giving total output of 1,000 MW, the company explained.

SECI’s obligation shall be limited to 60 per cent of the project capacity/energy and the remaining 40 per cent is to be managed by the company, JSW Energy stated.

JSW Renew Energy Five Ltd, a 100 per cent step-down subsidiary of JSW Energy, has received the Letter of Awards (LoA) for total 500 MW/1,000 MW standalone battery energy storage systems (two projects each of 250 MW/500 MW) from SECI, it stated.

Prashant Jain, Joint Managing Director and CEO of JSW Energy, said in the statement, “We are excited to receive the LoA for battery energy storage system which marks our foray into energy storage solutions. This is in line with the company’s long-term strategy to transition towards an energy products and solutions company.” The company has set a target to reach 20 GW capacity by 2030 and near-term target of 10 GW by 2025.

Around 1.7 GW of renewable energy projects are currently operational, under-construction/in-pipeline is 2.63 GW, and with the acquisition of Mytrah Energy’s 1.75 GW renewable energy assets the total renewable locked-in capacity of the company stands at 6.0 GW.

Source: PTI

Not only has the power ministry been pushing for the proposed green corridor between Ladakh and Haryana to be included in the upcoming Budget, it has also proposed a provision for viability gap funding (VGF) for battery energy storage systems (BESS).

If the focus of the Union Budget last year vis-à-vis the power sector was mostly on Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes to boost solar manufacturing, this year, i.e., Budget 2023, will in all likelihood stress on clean energy storage and transmission.

Power Secretary Alok Kumar has told : “As part of the Budget proposals sent by the power ministry to the finance ministry, we have requested for VGF for battery storage systems to be announced. Next, we have also requested for a budgetary allocation for the Pang-Kaithal green energy transmission line to be set up.”

The green energy transmission corridor is being planned between Pang in Ladakh and Kaithal in Haryana and is likely to span 900 kilometres. The corridor is being planned specifically to evacuate at least 13 gigawatts (GW) of power from the 10 GW renewable energy (RE) park being planned in Leh and another 4 GW through wind energy systems to be built in the union territory.

The RE park in Ladakh is a marquee project; it was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018-19. Officials involved in the project said the transmission line will also have a 12 GWh battery energy storage component and will cost Rs 22,000-25,000 crore.

To boost battery energy storage system (BESS), the power ministry has asked for a budgetary allocation of Rs 3,500 crore to offer VGF for BESS of a total capacity of 4,000 MWh, Kumar said.

Battery storage, or battery energy storage systems (BESS), are devices that enable energy from renewables, like solar and wind, to be stored and then released when power demand peaks.

As India scales up its renewable energy capacity, battery storage systems are gaining importance as a solution to reduce the intermittency of renewable energy projects to provide continuous power. In July 2022, India added an Energy Storage Obligation to its existing Renewable Purchase Obligation policy for the first time.

In Budget 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that the government will launch sovereign green bonds and increase the funding under the production-linked investment (PLI) scheme for domestic solar cells and module manufacturing to Rs 24,000 crore from Rs 4,500 crore.

Ahead of Budget 2023, the Reserve Bank of India on January 6, announced that it will, for the first time, issue Sovereign Green Bonds (SgrBs) worth Rs 16,000 crore, in two tranches of Rs 8,000 crore each in the current financial year.

“For facilitating domestic manufacturing for the ambitious goal of 280 GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore for PLI scheme for manufacturing of high-efficiency (solar) modules with priority of fully integrate manufacturing units for polysilicon to solar PV modules will be made,” Sitharaman said.

On September 21, 2022, the Union Cabinet cleared the additional PLI of Rs 19,500 crore for manufacturing high-efficiency solar modules.

Source: PTI

Oakland : Intersect Power, LLC, (“Intersect Power” or “Intersect”), announced the commercial operation of its Athos III solar project located in Riverside County, California, on December 22, 2022. The Athos III solar project was built by union labor, with American-made solar panels, batteries, and steel piles, meaning it is expected to meet the domestic content and prevailing wage requirements in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The Athos III solar project (also known as Blythe Mesa Solar II) generates 224 MWac/310 MWp of reliable solar energy, enough to power approximately 94,000 homes, and features 448 MWh of co-located storage.

“Today marks a major milestone for the Intersect Power team and our impact as a clean energy developer, owner and operator,” said Intersect Power CEO Sheldon Kimber. “Athos III demonstrates that Intersect continues to pioneer procurement standards for our industry that live up to the vision of the IRA. This project is much more than a significant new source of clean energy for California’s energy system; it’s also a case study in how the clean energy industry can maximize our impact by prioritizing domestic supply chains and union labor to ensure the benefits of the clean energy transition are felt by all Americans.”

The Athos III solar project is part of Intersect Power’s near-term portfolio totaling 2.2 GW of solar PV and 1.4 GWh of co-located storage. The remainder of the portfolio will be operational in 2023. Construction of the Athos III solar project created 500 peak union jobs.

Funding for the project’s construction and operations was secured as part of the broader portfolio financing announced last November, when Intersect Power closed on portfolio level term debt, tax equity, and construction financing commitments from leading financial institutions and investors. The portfolio term debt was provided by HPS Investment Partners. The Tax Equity was provided by Morgan Stanley Renewables Inc. Construction debt was provided by Coordinating Lead Arrangers MUFG and Santander Corporate & Investment Banking, along with Cobank, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Helaba, and Nord LB as Joint Lead Arrangers.

About Intersect Power

Intersect Power is a clean energy company bringing innovative and scalable low-carbon solutions to its customers in retail and wholesale energy markets. The company develops some of the world’s largest clean energy resources providing low-carbon electricity, fuels, and related products to customers across North America. Intersect Power has a base portfolio of 2.2 GW of solar PV and 1.4 GWh of co-located storage that is under construction or in operation. The company’s business plan includes growth in grid-tied renewables, as well as large-scale clean energy assets including green hydrogen.

Source: intersectpower

ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited (OTPC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) in Guwahati on 11 January 2023. The MoU has been inked to develop the Battery Energy Storage System Project of capacity up to 250 MW / 500 MWh in a phased manner in Assam by incorporating a Joint Venture Company. An investment of Rs 2,000 crores will be made in the state for developing the project. During the construction and operation stages of the project, significant direct and indirect employment opportunities will also be generated.

Speaking on the occasion, the Hon’ble Minister of Power, Cooperation, Mines & Minerals, Indigenous & Tribal Faith and Cultural Department, Government of Assam Nandita Gorlosa said that the project will be an important milestone in fulfilling the vision of Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam of making the State a leader in green energy transition.

Highlighting the benefits of the project, Managing Director of OTPC Sanil C. Namboodiripad said that the project will help the state in improving power availability during peak load hours, improving the integration of renewable energy generation with the electricity grid and enhancing grid reliability. “OTPC, a reliable energy supplier for Assam since 2014, is keen to be the partner of Assam in its transition towards decarbonized energy mix. The energy storage project will bring in multiple avenues of employment, boost local businesses, improve utilization of green energy, carbon emission reduction and overall socio-economic development in Assam,”

Managing Director of APDCL Rakesh Kumar (IAS) said that they are implementing significant solar energy capacity and battery energy storage project is key for successful integration of upcoming solar power projects. He added that with this project, Assam will be pioneer in implementing of energy storage system.

Source: ongcindia

• Pumped hydro energy storage is a controversial issue, with its supporters believing it can help decarbonize the global economy and its detractors claiming dams destroy the environment.

• In order to reach a net-zero energy future, a whopping 6TWh of energy storage will be required and pumped hydro energy storage is likely to be a central part of that storage.

• The fact that batteries are made from non-renewable rare earth elements, many of which have been monopolized by China, means that other types of energy storage need to be developed.

Depending on who you ask, pumped hydro energy storage is either the future of the clean energy industry and the key to decarbonizing the global economy, or it’s an ecological disaster that needs to be stopped. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between – but friends and enemies of pumped hydro tend to espouse either one narrative or the other with inadequate attention to the nuanced trade-offs and potential synergies that pumped hydro storage presents to the renewable energy industry.

The issue is this: building dams is good for clean energy storage, which is good for the environment; but on the other hand, the dams themselves tend to be extremely bad for the environment and the surrounding communities. We’re talking about massive dams that flood whole valleys, irreversibly changing the ecological balance of the area and often displacing humans as well as animals. These dams can seriously harm or eradicate crucial habitats for birds, fish, and plants.

On the other hand, supporters will say the risk posed by climate change is much bigger than the risk of damaging local ecosystems. These supporters argue that if global greenhouse gas emissions are left unchecked, a flooded river valley here and there will be a molehill next to the mountain of disastrous ecological impacts created by warming temperatures, rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, and increased intensity and incidence of extreme weather events, among other results of warming past 1.5º.

In an effort to curb global emissions in time to avoid these devastating results, any and every kind of clean energy innovation should be considered and tested. And one of the most promising such innovations, river valleys be damned, is pumped hydro. It’s an elegant and relatively simple solution to a complex problem inherent to renewable resources including solar and wind. Wind and solar are variable, which means that their productivity depends on factors outside of human control – the weather and the time of day or year. This creates an issue for the grid, as demand for energy tends to peak when supply is lowest – we all turn our lights on when the sun goes down on our houses as well as on the community’s nearest solar farm.

This dynamic means that energy storage is an essential part of the renewable energy sector. In fact, a net-zero energy future will require a whopping 6TWh of energy storage. It is needed to capture excess energy captured when production is high and then release that stored energy back to the grid when demand outweighs production. This could mean that energy is stored for a few hours – but it could also mean that energy is stored for whole seasons. This rules out lithium-ion batteries, which currently dominate the energy storage sector but which can only hold energy short-term. What’s more, the production of lithium-ion batteries requires finite, non-renewable rare Earth elements which are going to become increasingly scarce in the future. China has a chokehold on many rare Earth element supply chains, including lithium, presenting a major geopolitical minefield if the industry doesn’t pivot to alternative and long-term storage options.

This is where pumped hydro comes in. It’s a long-term energy storage solution in which water is pumped uphill using excess energy at peak production times and then released downhill to spin turbines to create electricity when energy is needed. While some projects are building massive new dams for the purpose of energy storage alone, others are hoping to incorporate storage into existing hydropower dams, recycling some of the water lost in the hydropower process to use for pumped storage. “We will change them into something better suited for the future,” Ivar Arne Borset, a senior vice president at Norwegian hydro leader Statkraft, was quoted by the New York Times.

Recycling water will become an increasingly important component of energy storage as prolonged droughts and lowering water levels fueled by climate change pose a serious and intensifying threat to the hydropower sector as a whole.

Source: oilprice

One of the US Department of Commerce’s (Commerce) signature contributions to Power Africa has been the Understanding handbook series developed by its Office of the General Counsel’s Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP). This open-source and plain-language knowledge library now includes six handbooks explaining a range of essential topics in power project contracts, financing and procurement.

In recent years, the Understanding series has expanded to focus on unique challenges in Africa’s energy market, such as the complex nature of private participation in transmission projects. With 65,000 copies in print and tens of thousands more copies downloaded online, the Understanding series has become a trusted resource in Africa’s power project community.

The most recent addition to the Understanding series, Understanding Energy Storage, comes at a critical time in both the development of the continent and the effort to combat climate change globally. The hope is that this handbook will contribute to Power Africa’s efforts to catalyze new energy storage investment as a core component of overall market development. This handbook supports the Commerce’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee’s recommendations on (1) Clean Tech Export Competitiveness Strategy, (2) Energy Equity and (3) Technology Risk Mitigation and Financing; and advances the US International Climate Finance Strategy.

Source: mondaq

Technology startup Matter Energy on Friday said it has entered into a strategic partnership with Luminous Power Technologies in the field of home inverters and stationary applications

The partners will work in the areas of low-voltage stationary energy storage solutions and develop a dual-purpose smart home dock inverter with IoT capabilities, Matter Energy said in a statement.

The dock can be used for both mobility and domestic energy storage applications. This lithium-ion battery solution is built on the principles of battery swapping technology to power a two-wheeler and home inverter interchangeably, it added.

“With Luminous’ extensive presence and distribution network not only in India but also in South-East Asia and South Africa, we are optimistic that our collaboration will enable us to provide dependable and eco-friendly solutions to millions of Indian households,” Matter Group Founder and CEO Mohal Lalbhai said.

Luminous Power Technologies CEO Preeti Bajaj said Matters’ expertise in Lithium-ion battery technology will benefit us, allowing it to provide advanced solutions to customers in Indian and international geographies.

“…this strategic collaboration aligns with Luminous’ goal to deliver a diverse variety of innovative solutions in the power backup for residential markets,” she added.

The power inverter market in India is estimated to grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 14.6 per cent by 2027, and by joining forces, both companies will further accelerate the market catering to the growing demand for power inverters in the domestic and stationary sectors,” Bajaj said.

Source: PTI

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new framework for New York State to achieve 6 GW of energy storage by 2030, which represents at least 20% of the peak electricity load of the state, was submitted by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) to the Public Service Commission for consideration.

It proposes a comprehensive set of recommendations to expand New York’s energy storage programs to cost-effectively unlock the rapid growth of renewable energy across the state and bolster grid reliability and customer resilience.

If approved, the roadmap will support a buildout of storage deployments estimated to reduce projected future statewide electric system costs by nearly $2 billion, in addition to further benefits in the form of improved public health because of reduced exposure to harmful fossil fuel pollutants. This announcement supports the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals to generate 70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040.

“Storing clean, renewable energy and delivering it where and when it is needed is one of the most critical challenges we must overcome to reduce statewide emissions, especially from traditional fossil fuel peaker plants,” Gov. Hochul says. “This roadmap will serve as a model for other states to follow by maximizing the use of renewable energy while enabling a reliable and resilient transformation of the power grid.”

NYSERDA and DPS carefully assessed potential market reforms and cost-effective procurement mechanisms to achieve 6 GW, and identified research and development needs to accelerate technology innovation, particularly for long-duration storage. The agencies also considered approaches to energy storage development in a way that advances the elimination of the state’s most polluting fossil fuel power plants, as proposed by Gov. Hochul in her 2022 State of the State address.

This roadmap proposes the implementation of NYSERDA-led programs towards procuring an additional 4.7 GW of new storage projects across the bulk (large-scale), retail (community, commercial and industrial), and residential energy storage sectors in New York State. These future procurements, combined with the 1.3 GW of existing energy storage already under contract with the state and moving towards commercial operation, will allow the state to achieve 6 GW goal by 2030.

“Accelerating the adoption of energy storage across the state will allow more wind and solar energy to be integrated into our electric grid, while improving air quality for many communities historically impacted by fossil fuel-generated pollution,” states Doreen M. Harris, president and CEO of NYSERDA. “Building on New York’s progress under Governor Hochul’s leadership, this roadmap will provide a pathway for the industry to partner with us to bring forward the next wave of projects that will help New Yorkers realize the benefits of this important technology.”

“Governor Hochul is a key supporter of energy storage development in New York State,” comments Department of Public Service CEO Rory M. Christian. “The framework that is being proposed provides New York with the resources it needs to speed our transition to a clean-energy economy and meet our critically important climate goals.”

The roadmap proposes 3,000 MW of new bulk storage, enough to power approximately one million homes for up to four hours, to be procured through a new competitive Index Storage Credit mechanism, which is anticipated to provide long-term certainty to projects while maximizing savings for consumers. It is looking for 1,500 MW of new retail storage, enough to power approximately 500,000 homes for up to four hours, and 200 MW of new residential storage, enough to power 120,000 homes for up to two hours, to be supported through an expansion of NYSERDA’s existing region-specific block incentive programs.

In addition, the proposal includes utilization of at least 35% of program funding to support projects that deliver benefits to Disadvantaged Communities (DACs) and that target fossil fuel peaker plant emissions reductions, with program carve-outs for projects sited in the downstate region, given its high concentration of DACs and peaker plants.

It will require electric utilities to study the potential of high-value energy storage projects towards providing cost-effective transmission and distribution services not currently available through existing markets. There will be a continued prioritization by existing programs on investing in research and development related to reliable long-duration energy storage technologies. Payment of prevailing wage will be a programmatic requirement for energy storage projects with a capacity of 1 MW and above, demonstrating the state’s continued commitment to driving family-sustaining jobs in clean energy.

The proposal expands the state’s energy storage goal is expected to have an average electricity bill impact for New York customers of less than half a percent, or approximately $0.46 per month. The roadmap is available for public comment on the Department of Public Service’s website, with a subsequent decision-making expected in 2023.

Source: nawindpower