New Jersey proposes energy storage incentives to reach 2GW deployment target

The state of New Jersey has made slow progress in reaching its energy storage deployment targets. Image: Praneeth Thalla.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has proposed a number of policies to incentivise the deployment of standalone energy storage, to help hit a 2GW target.

The US state has statutory mandates for deployment, of 600MW by the end of 2021 and 2,000MW by 2030, though only 497MW has been deployed and 420MW of that is a pumped hydro facility (as fas as the Board is aware).

But, it said, energy storage investments that would save bill-payers money often do not get built because developers “…generally can only monetise a fraction of the benefits they produce”.

The Board is proposing to create separate energy storage programmes creating incentives for front-of-meter (FTM) and behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage projects connected to New Jersey’s electric distribution companies (EDC).

The incentives will only apply to projects going online after the programme is implemented. FTM and BTM are being grouped into two market segments; Grid Supply and Distributed/Customer Level, respectively.

At least 30% of the incentive will be in the form of a fixed annual incentive, paid in US$/kWh of energy storage capacity continent on up-time performance metrics, the Board said.

It will be established through a declining block structure to establish a market-based incentive while also providing the industry clear insights into the incentive value for energy storage resources. There will be different pricing structures for each market segment.

The remainder of the incentive programme will be a pay-for-performance mechanism.

For Grid Supply projects, payment will be based on the amount of carbon emissions abated through operation of the energy storage device. This will be calculated using the marginal carbon intensity of the wholesale electric grid (set by grid operator PJM) at the time the energy is discharged, minus the carbon intensity of the energy drawn during the charging interval.

In essence, this means the more renewable load shifting that the energy storage unit does, the more it will be paid. While energy storage units today do as much as 6GWh of load shifting a day in the California market as of February, little of this has been shifting renewables.

For the Distributed/Customer Sited segment, payment will be based on the successful injection of power into the distribution system when called upon by the EDC during certain performancehours. A portion of the Distributed storage incentive will also be reserved for projects located in or directly serving overburdened communities.

Eligibility for the incentive programmes will be technology-neutral and based only on meeting functionalrequirements in a cost-effective manner, the Board added.

The Board is also proposing that private investors be allowed to own and operate the energy storage devices, allowing them to stack revenues from multiple sources.

These would include the wholesale electricity market for Grid Supply projects and, for the Distributed segment, utilising energy storage to actively manage their energy usage to reduce electricity costs or to participate in a Distributed Energy Resource (DER) aggregation service.

The programme is designed to provide ratepayers in the state with a variety of benefits, the Board said. These include carbon savings, hosting capacity improvements and improving system resilience.

Read the whole Straw Proposal, contained in the ‘In the matter of the New Jersey Energy Storage Incentive Program’ notice here.

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Form Energy raises US$450 million for 100-hour iron-air ‘rust’ battery technology

Image: Form Energy.

Form Energy has raised US$450 million from investors including ArcellorMittal, bringing the multi-day battery startup’s total investment to date to US$800 million.

The tech company announced the successful Series E funding round yesterday, led by TPG Rise Climate, an impact investing platform for alternative asset manager TPG’s TPG Rise fund, which itself closed in April with US$7.3 billion to invest.

Form Energy is developing and commercialising a novel battery technology based on iron and air, with which it is targeting applications that require 100 hours of energy storage, possibly even more.

The basic principle behind it is the reversible oxidation aka rusting, of iron as the battery discharges, while applying electrical current to it as it charges converts the rust back to iron, emitting only oxygen.  

That means it could enable renewable energy to be a direct replacement for fossil fuels on the grid, helping energy suppliers ride out quiet periods of wind and solar PV generation, company CEO Mateo Jaramilo, a former executive at Tesla, told Energy-Storage.news in a 2021 interview.

The company’s first pilot project was announced in 2020, with Form set to supply a 1MW battery system with up to 150 hours duration to Great River Energy, a Minnesota utility aiming to radically lower its dependence on coal. Discussions were also said to be underway with Georgia Power for a potential pilot with the southern US utility a few months ago too.

At the recent RE+ 2022 clean energy industry event in Anaheim, California, Form Energy senior business development manager Molly Bales appeared in a panel discussion on long-duration energy storage and its role in the market.

While long duration is itself an loosely-defined term, with some definitions talking about systems with four-hour duration or longer, fellow panellists Kiran Kumarasamy of Fluence and Sara Kayal of Lightsource bp both said they felt the term applies to eight hours or longer.

Bales noted that while there will be a need for diverse storage technologies on the modern electricity grid, including shorter duration and diurnal (daily) storage playing roles to help balance the grid, Form Energy’s technology aims to answer a different value proposition around resiliency and reliability for utilities with a need for multi-day use cases.

Answering a question referencing the latest hurricane damage inflicted on Puerto Rico’s energy sector, Bales said that Form’s battery could also “be that asset that can either kind of sustain throughout the disaster, or eventually start back up the grid”.

According to Bales, Form Energy is seeing “serious interest” from utilities around the North American market that the company is focusing on.

“We are working closely with our utility partners to do capacity expansion planning models and things like that, to actually show the value [of multi-day storage], and we’re finding a compelling focus. I think that these opportunities are very real,” Bales said.

Bales noted that while two of the US’ leading energy storage markets, ERCOT in Texas and CAISO in California have very different dynamics today, both are going to need that diversity of energy storage technologies and durations. Broadly speaking, as renewable energy penetration increases on a grid, so does the need for storage and as those levels go up even higher, the need for more hours of storage does too.

A team from Form Energy recently contributed a Guest Blog for this site on how long-duration and multi-day energy storage could support California’s energy transition goals.

Form Energy factory announcement expected this year

Form’s Series E round was oversubscribed and follows a 2021 Series D round that raised US$240 million, US$40 million more than the company was aiming for. ArcellorMittal invested US$25 million into that Series D and followed up with a further US$17.5 million participation in the latest round.

ArcellorMittal and Form have signed a joint development agreement to see whether the metals company could supply direct reduced iron (DRI) for use in the batteries, which Molly Bales pointed out the tech company plans to build domestically in the US. Form has apparently narrowed site selection for its production lines down to three possible sites in the US from a longlist of 100 and is expected to make an announcement before the end of this year.

Other Series E investors include institutional investors GIC and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) which joined for the first time along with existing Form investors like Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Coatue, Temasek, Prelude Ventures and others.

“The development of reliable, long-duration energy storage technology is critical for the global transition to renewable energy. By introducing new storage solutions to the market, Form Energy can contribute to the energy transition process while also providing attractive risk-adjusted returns for the CPP Fund,” CPP Investments managing director and head of growth equity Leon Pedersen said.

“Form was founded with a unified mission to develop a multi-day energy storage battery that would unlock the power of extremely low-cost renewable energy to transform the electric grid. Over the last five years, through rigorous R&D and product engineering, our 100-hour iron-air battery product is ready to scale,” Form CEO Mateo Jaramillo said.

“The Series E funding will accelerate our ability to responsibly build a globally competitive US battery manufacturing supply chain and advance American innovation.”

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Foresight Group invests in 1.6GWh pumped hydro energy storage and wind project in Scotland

Cruachan Dam, Scotland, site of an existing 440MW pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) facility, one of only four in the UK. Image: Drax.

Asset manager Foresight Group has invested in a co-located 1.6GWh pumped hydro energy storage and wind project in Scotland.

The project, at the disused 1,547-acre Glenmuckloch opencast coal mine near Kirkconnel, will see the construction of a 210MW/1,600MWh capacity pumped hydro energy storage plant along with a 33.6MW wind farm.

The eight-hour system (7.62 to be exact) will utilise two 105MW reversible hydroturbines and help balance the UK grid as more renewable energy resources come online. The adjoining wind farm will comprise eight 4.2MW turbines and will be able to power the pumped hydro plant.

Foresight Group, which describes itself as a sustainability-led alternative assets and SME investment manager, has made the investment through its energy transition fund Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners.

The firm did not reveal the amount invested in the project, but Britain’s national broadcaster BBC reported in May last year that the project required £250 million (US$285 million) of investment to be completed. The project was approved by the Scottish government in 2016.

Foresight has not provided any information regarding the start of construction or when it expects the project to become operational. This could mean that it is not putting in the full amount required for the project’s completion, meaning it will presumably look to bring other partners on board to get the project off the ground.

Energy-Storage.news has asked Foresight for details regarding this and will update this article in due course.

The UK has only four energy storage sites operational today using the century-old technology, including Drax’s 440MW facility at Cruachan Dam, pictured, also in Scotland.

Another proposed project is the Coire Glas Pumped Hydro project, also in Scotland, whose proponents wrote an article for Energy-Storage.news a year ago about the potential of the technology to help the UK meet its net zero targets.

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Fluence building 250MW ‘Grid Booster’ battery storage system for German TSO TransnetBW

A rendering of the Grid Booster battery energy storage system. Image: Fluence / TransnetBW.

Global system integrator Fluence will deploy a 250MW ‘Grid Booster’ battery energy storage system for transmission system operator (TSO) TransnetBW, one of two such projects planned in Germany.

The NASDAQ-listed company will work with the TSO to deploy the energy storage system – called a Netzbooster in German – in the state of Badden-Wurttemberg, where TransnetBW operates the electricity grid. It is set to be completed in 2025 and will be a one-hour, i.e. 250MWh, system.

The Grid Booster will be built as a strategic network node along a transmission line and operated to inject or absorb power into the line in a way that mimics transmission flow lines. This will allow TransnetBW to forego installing extra transmission infrastructure lines, which would be more costly, have a larger footprint, and take longer to do.

It will allow the existing transmission infrastructure to be operated more efficiently by, for example, lowering the need for preventive redispatch measures and conventional network reinforcements and operating costs.

The initiative was first introduced three years ago, reported on at the time by Energy-Storage.news.

The idea has been considered in several countries across the world, sometimes called a ‘virtual transmission line’. Fluence is involved in initiatives in Australia and Lithuania we’ve previously reported on.

Storage-as-transmission asset to ease renewable energy bottlenecks

Germany’s need for it is fairly unique in that the vast majority of its new renewable energy in the form of wind is located in the north of the country while its economic activity is more concentrated in the south, where legacy power plants are being shut down.

The Grid Booster will ease the bottlenecks which stem from transporting that wind energy across the country, while also providing backup power to maintain grid stability.

“Realising the Netzbooster project marks a turning point to accelerate the buildout of energy storage at the transmission network level in Germany and across Europe,” said Paul McCusker, SVP & President EMEA at Fluence.

In a recent interview with Energy-Storage.news at RE+ in California, Kiran Kumaraswamy, Fluence’s VP of growth and head of commercial discussed said that regulatory considerations were the main limiting factor for using batteries as a transmission asset, which represent an “extraordinary value proposition”.

Fluence already has underway a similar energy storage-as-transmission asset project in Lithuania, delivering 200MW/200MWh of batteries across four systems for national transmission operator LitGrid.

Pointing towards today’s announcement, Kumaraswamy said that Germany’s projects were ‘just beginning to transact’ while the US would be helped by having regulations that clarify the use of energy storage for such ‘Grid Booster’ use cases.

The companies said the TransnetBW project is the largest in the world of its kind. It is also likely to be the largest battery storage project in Germany to be officially announced, and certainly the largest that has given a firm operational date.

The other Grid Booster project has been announced by another TSO, TenneT, which is planning two 100MW one-hour systems, also for completion in 2025. If all three went online today, they would increase the size of the German utility-scale energy storage market by around two-thirds.

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Australia’s CEFC lends AU$35.5 million towards cost of Neoen’s Capital Battery project

Neoen shared this image of the site under construction as it announced the project’s financial close. Image: Neoen via Twitter.

Australia’s national Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has invested to help a 100MW/200MWh battery storage project reach financial close.

CEFC has committed to lending AU$35.5 million (US$23.06 million) for France-headquartered clean energy developer and independent power producer (IPP) Neoen’s Capital Battery project, under construction in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

In the process, the council also found a co-lender, infrastructure fund manager Infradebt, which will match the CEFC investment. It’s the first time CEFC has made an arrangement of this type in a project financing.

It is however the third large-scale battery storage facility CEFC has helped fund. Both previous efforts were also for Neoen projects: Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia and the Victorian Big Battery, notable as being Australia’s first >100MW battery energy storage system (BESS) and the country’s current largest BESS respectively.

Neoen announced today that the Capital Battery has reached financial close, sharing a photo of the construction site on Twitter. As reported by Energy-Storage.news in December 2021, work began late last year as Neoen issued a Notice to Proceed to construction and technology partners Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction and Doosan GridTech.

The IPP won the project through a competitive solicitation held by the ACT government in 2020. The state government had been seeking a BESS of at least 50MW output as part of a Renewables Reverse Auction, the fifth tender of its type in the ACT.

The tender awarded projects at record-low average prices of AU$50 per MWh. Neoen’s win included a contract to supply 100MW of wind energy from its Goyder Renewables Zone project in South Australia, along with the BESS award.

Although the tender award had been for a BESS of 50MW, Neoen said last year that it had seen demand surge for battery storage and the services it can provide, leading it to double the facility’s planned size.

This rapid increase in demand was borne out in the company’s half-year 2022 financial results. Neoen reported €39.3 million revenues from energy storage activities, driven mainly by money earned from its Australia projects, an increase of nearly three times from €13.4 million in H1 2021.

Long-term revenues backed by AGL ‘virtual battery’ contract

The Capital Battery project is underpinned by a so-called ‘virtual battery’ contract Neoen signed with major power generator-retailer AGL. As reported by Energy-Storage.news in April, AGL will leverage a 70MW/140MWh portion of the BESS’ stored energy under a seven-year contract.

What makes it a ‘virtual’ deal is that AGL will use the system to participate in the National Electricity Market (NEM) through a grid connection in New South Wales, far away from where the BESS is being constructed in Canberra.

Neoen emphasised at the time that deal was announced that the system will be capable of providing network services as agreed with the ACT government in addition to being available for AGL to use.

The system is scheduled to go into operation in the first half of 2023.

“As Australia raises its ambitions to reach net zero emissions with new targets, we must heighten our focus on developing the enabling technologies that will be critical to our success. Battery storage is key to our ability to decarbonise the energy sector,” CEFC CEO Ian Learmouth said.

“These projects require substantial, tailored investment solutions, reflecting their high start-up capital costs and emerging and untested revenue models, alongside the ongoing development of the market for the risk mitigation services that batteries can provide.”

Learmouth said the CEFC’s lending for Neoen’s three projects helped demonstrate the “economic and grid stability case for large-scale batteries”.

Neoen currently has a total 576MW of battery storage in operation or construction in Australia and plans to build more, including a recently proposed 1GW/4GWh project in a Western Australia community with close historical and present day links to the coal industry.

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State PSC Approves Entergy Arkansas, Lightsource 250 MW Solar Plant

Laura Landreaux

The Arkansas Public Service Commission has approved the Entergy Arkansas Driver Solar Project, a new 250 MW AC (or 312 MW DC) renewable energy plant developed by Lightsource bp, which will be located on approximately 2,100 acres near Osceola in Mississippi County. Driver Solar will be the utility’s largest solar facility, capable of generating enough energy to power more than 40,000 homes.

“Driver Solar adds highly economic, renewable generation to our portfolio, further diversifying our energy mix in a way that meets our customers’ evolving expectations,” says Laura Landreaux, president and CEO of Entergy Arkansas. “It is a key contribution toward business expansion in northeast Arkansas, and we are excited to be a part of it.”

“We are listening to our customers as we develop and execute our generation strategy for the future,” Landreaux adds. “We are privileged to be able to work closely with U. S. Steel Corporation to develop sustainable solutions to help them meet their objective of producing steel using renewable electricity while simultaneously lowering rates over the long term for all 728,000-plus Entergy Arkansas customers.”

The Driver Solar site is located along Arkansas Highway 61 near Carson Lake Road and Arkansas Highway 198, just south of Osceola, and will be situated adjacent to both the U.S. Steel’s Big River Steel facility and the recently announced $3 billion expansion. Lightsource bp has completed development and permitting of the solar field and will build the facility under a build-transfer agreement with Entergy Arkansas. Driver Solar has an expected completion date in late 2024.

“This project with Entergy Arkansas and Lightsource bp illustrates the importance of partnerships,” comments Richard Fruehauf, U.S. Steel’s senior vice president and chief strategy and sustainability officer. “Driver Solar not only helps us meet our robust sustainability goals, but it will also help us deliver sustainable steel solutions for our customers. The renewable energy generated will power the production of verdeX, our advanced sustainable steel product, which is composed of up to 90 percent recycled steel content, as well as other products produced at our Big River Works facility.”

“The Driver Solar project is another demonstration of how solar can power our country’s industry with cost-competitive, clean, dependable electricity,” mentions Kevin Smith, Lightsource bp’s CEO of the Americas. “Arkansas’ largest solar project will help build American-made sustainable steel, as well as create hundreds of U.S. jobs for construction and across the supply chain.”

“With their solar industry leadership and commitment to supporting domestic manufacturing, we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to work with Lightsource bp,” Landreaux concludes.

“Driver Solar enables U. S. Steel to grow its business in Arkansas, meet their sustainability goals, and further demonstrates how the State of Arkansas and Entergy Arkansas support companies that provide high-paying jobs grow in the state,” comments Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston.

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TC Energy Invests $146 Million to Build Saddlebrook Solar Project

Future rendering of TC Energy solar farm at Saddlebrook, near Aldersyde, Alberta in Canada

TC Energy Corp. is beginning pre-construction activities for the Saddlebrook Solar Project located near Aldersyde, Alberta. TC Energy is investing $146 million to build its first Canadian solar power project. It has the capacity to generate 81 MW. The initial construction includes installing solar panels on TC Energy property in the local industrial park.

“This is the first utility-scale solar project to be fully developed and delivered by TC Energy in our history,” says Corey Hessen, TC Energy’s executive vice president and president of Power & Energy Solutions. “This investment bolsters our ability to deliver low-carbon solutions for our customers and underscores our commitment to add renewable energy to the local electricity grid.”

The project is partially supported by $10 million from Emissions Reduction Alberta. This funding supports developing this hybrid solar generation facility, which when combined with a flow battery energy storage system, will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta.

TC Energy has obtained all regulatory approvals and permits. Construction is expected to be completed in 2023.

“The High River Chamber is excited to see the introduction of diversified energy solutions to our area and the potential for stronger business relationships, contract opportunities and employment possibilities,” states Lisa Szabon-Smith, executive director of High River & District Chamber of Commerce. “To see the Saddlebrook area become the home of such a project is exciting for our community.”

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Barriers to gigafactory projects in LATAM remain as CATL announces plans for first in region

The Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia. Image: Leonardo Rossatti.

Latin America (LATAM) has no lithium-ion battery gigafactories despite huge lithium-ion reserves, but CATL’s Mexico announcement could be the first of many, if economic and business drivers fall into place.

There are several reasons why the region has lagged behind other continents, Fitch associate analyst Phoebe O’Hara, who specialises in EV supply chains, told Energy-Storage.news. But various trends mean the firm expects LATAM to grow its battery manufacturing over the long term, although O’Hara said this will probably be limited to Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

One big barrier is that, while the continent has a substantial portion of today’s mining activities and the largest reserves in the world, its lithium refining capacity is much weaker, with the vast majority of this done in China.

The fact that having lithium alone is far from enough to foster a domestic battery manufacturing industry was pointed out by one of the proponents of a project in Chile, which has the world’s largest reserves by some distance, which never got off the ground.

That would have been the continent’s first, a title which looks set to be taken by the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL which recently announced plans to build a facility in Mexico and is currently assessing locations.

It should be stated that there are several facilities producing lithium-ion batteries that are operational today or set to go online later this year, in Bolivia (Quantum Batteries), Argentina (UniLib) and Brazil (BYD) for example. But all are small-scale or attached to an existing niche EV production plant like trucks or buses and not serving the general market.

The lack of a substantial domestic passenger EV market in LATAM is itself another major barrier to the development of lithium-ion gigafactory projects in the region, O’Hara said. EV sales drive the EV production market because it makes sense to sell locally.

“We’re expecting sales of only 60,000 EVs in LATAM this year compared to 7 million in Asia, 1.4 million in North America and 2.7 million in Europe. We are seeing a growth in EV production but not to the extent in the other continents,” O’Hara said.

Adding: “There are also substantial gaps in regulatory frameworks and government support needed for these sorts of projects, and a really high operational risk in general across the continent when you consider the size of the investment needed, generally in the billions of US dollars.”

Argentina does have plans to substantially expand its lithium refining capabilities – with Fitch expecting it to double its share of the global lithium refining market by 2027 – and a battery manufacturing plant launching later this year may be a sign of things to come.

Sometimes referred to as UniLib, the plant in Buenos Aires has space for an eventual annual production capacity of 13GWh and is a collaboration between a host of state-owned companies and organisations including the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MINCyT). It will initially serve the needs of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Production of the Province of Buenos Aires.

And while the presence of lithium reserves in LATAM has not been enough to onshore downstream parts of the lithium-ion battery supply chain, the skyrocketing price of the metal has led some companies reliant on to make direct investments into the region to have more control over the crucial material. Their presence in the market could be arguably make them more likely to consider local battery production sites too in the long-run, assuming the other economic and business factors fall into place.

“In the last year alone we’ve seen eight investments into lithium mining in LATAM directly by automakers or battery manufacturers to ensure their supply in the region,” O’Hara said.

“The need for lithium is making it really important to have a foothold in the region and I think as EV demand picks up, which we expect to happen over the 2020s, there will be a lot more EV production sites and a lot more gigafactories that will be needed to supply those factories.”

More gigafactories producing lithium-ion battery cells, even if primarily for EVs, will help ease up bottlenecks in supply. Energy-Storage.news has heard from multiple sources that most battery cell manufacturers are sold out for the next two years.

And the continent’s close access to lithium and – in the long-run – more refining capabilities should mean it does not face the same sorts of shortages that some analysts have said mean some of Europe’s gigafactories will need to change their planned battery chemistry.

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25MW BESS in Germany using second use battery cells completed by JT Energy Systems

A render of the battery energy storage system. Image: JT Energy Systems.

A 25W battery energy storage facility in Germany with used battery cells from EVs including forklifts has been completed by developer JT Energy Systems.

The company, a joint venture between battery manufacturer Triathlon and logistics firm Jungheinrich AG, opened the completed facility last week (30 September), claiming it is the largest battery system in Saxony and the most “powerful of its kind”. The start of construction was announced in January 2022.

The companies said the battery will mainly provide load shifting, storing energy during periods of oversupply to later feed back into the grid when it’s needed.

“Especially in view of the current energy shortage, we need efficient ways to store regenerative energy. Our mega-battery is the ideal solution for this. The storage system helps stabilise energy prices and make a success of the energy turnaround,” said Reinhild Kühne, managing director of JT Energy Systems.

A ‘large part’ of the 10,000 battery modules constituting the 25MW system come from used lithium-ion batteries, mainly from electric forklifts from Jungheinrich but also the passenger EV sector.

“Lithium-ion batteries can generally be used for longer than the electric vehicles in which they are installed. Stationary energy storage systems like the one we have in Freiberg are the logical consequence in order to continue to use the batteries sensibly for a long time to come,” Kühne added.

The battery storage facility was planned and built by partner company TRICERA energy, which Energy-Storage.news recently interviewed, amongst others, for a special report on the German utility-scale energy storage market. TRICERA specialises in building systems using EV batteries, which COO Lars Fallant said is possible thanks to the large existing automotive sector in Germany.

Kühne said: “Due to the rapidly increasing share of electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries over the past few years, JT Energy Systems anticipates a growing number of battery capacities in the future that will be used for a second life in stationary storage.”

Whilst the residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors have remained strong, the utility-scale market in Germany has been slow in recent years with just 32MW installed in 2021 according to one study.

But 2022 is certain to eclipse that figure substantially. Projects reported on by Energy-Storage.news that have already come online (including JT’s), or are expected to imminently, total around 180MW. That is close to the record 200MW deployed in 2018 according to research firm Delta-EE, which expects it to be beaten this year.

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FRV and Tyler Hill Partners to develop 1GW of energy storage in UK

Tesla Megapack battery storage units at the completed Contego project, a collaboration between Harmony Energy and FRV. Image: Harmony Energy.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) and Tyler Hill Partners have created a platform to develop, build and operate up to 1GW/2GWh of battery energy storage system projects in the UK.

The platform, RV TH Powertek Limited, is expected to invest up to £1 billion (US$1.14 billion) in the projects over the next five years. The portfolio will total 1GW of power and 2GWh of energy capacity, indicating that most of the systems will have a duration of two hours.

Battery storage developers in the UK are increasingly moving to two hours as projects increasingly derive revenues from wholesale energy trading rather than solely grid ancillary services, a trend Energy-Storage.news has previously reported on. FRV is a case in point, recently starting construction work on a 99MW/198MWh project in Essex, southeast England.

Madrid-based FRV is a renewable energy development arm of Abdul Latif Jameel Energy, part of the family-owned conglomerate founded in Saudi Arabia in 1945 by the late Sheikh Abdul Latif Jameel, while Tyler Hill is a UK-based renewable energy developer.

Tyler Hill is run by Preeti Yardi, Ravinder Shan & Ravishankar Tumuluri who will also manage the new platform. A press release said the trio have extensive experience across the value chain in development, financing, construction and operations of renewable energy projects.

Felipe Hernandez, general manager of engineering at FRV said: “At Abdul Latif Energy we are committed to establishing collaborations with best-in-class partners where opportunities could arise to support our efforts towards mitigating the impacts of climate change.”

“The introduction of FRV TH Powertek Limited reflects our commitment to developing new green technologies that contribute to achieving the UK’s ambitions to become a ‘net zero’ emitter and power its green industrial revolution.”

The UK energy storage market has one of the fastest-growing pipelines of projects anywhere in the world, now totalling around 40GW, with National Grid ESO recently saying that ‘at least’ 50GW is needed by 2050.

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