Opening of the production line on 30 September, attended by Federal Ministers Chris Bowen and Ed Husic. Image: Gelion.

Zinc bromide battery startup Gelion has started up manufacturing operations in Australia which lean on many existing production techniques for lead-acid batteries.

Gelion has developed a battery technology which it says is distinct from zinc bromide flow batteries and could provide low-cost energy storage for applications requiring between 6 – 12 hours of discharge duration. Its batteries are made with abundant materials that can be recycled, the company claims.

The company hopes that by leveraging existing techniques and technologies from the lead-acid industry it can accelerate its ramp up of production, partnering with Battery Energy, a manufacturer of lead-acid and lithium batteries in New South Wales.

Gelion also claimed that its manufacturing lines could also provide opportunities for workers in other legacy energy and power sectors like fossil fuel power plants to re-skill, adapt and pivot into new careers.

The UK-Australian company is targeting industrial and off-grid market segments, although it also plans to scale up to provide bulk storage for wind or solar PV power plants. Gelion is a University of Sydney spin-off and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since late last year.

The new plant, in Fairfield, Western Sydney, has 2MWh of annual production capacity but the company aims to reach gigawatt-scale in future.

An official opening event was held on 30 September, attended by Australian Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen and Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic.

The Australian government has been keen to support domestic production and supply chain activities across various renewable energy storage technologies, including lithium-ion and vanadium flow batteries.

The new line has been built at Battery Energy’s lead-acid production plant in Fairfield and Gelion claimed that the line uses about 70% of existing lead-acid battery production processes, while the gel-based zinc bromide batteries fit into standard lead-acid battery racks.

The company’s initial batch of batteries made at the pre-commercial demonstration stage have performed well in customers tests, Gelion said.

In February, Energy-Storage.news reported that Gelion’s battery tech is among energy storage technologies being tried out by Spanish multinational infrastructure and renewable energy conglomerate at a solar PV plant site in Northern Spain.

Installation of the 25kW/100kWh system is set to begin in Q3 this year at Acciona’s Montes del Cierzo 1.2MW solar farm and Gelion’s battery, called Endure, could be added to Acciona’s supplier portfolio if the 6 – 12 month-long project proves successful.    

“We are delighted to be launching production of our breakthrough battery, proving it can be produced at scale with existing lead-acid battery manufacturing processes,” Gelion CEO Hannah McCaughey said.

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Energy-Storage.news proudly presents our webinar with CSA Group, looking at the impact of updates to UL 1973, a key standard for energy storage system (ESS) safety.

This critical standard for manufacturers has recently been updated to its 3rd edition. The scope of the standard encompasses cells, battery modules, battery packs/racks and battery management systems.

Understanding these updates is vital for manufacturers as they plan milestones and time-to-market for their products.

This session discussed:

Updates to the UL 1973 standard; considering key requirements that have been updated or modified, which energy storage manufacturers need to be aware of and understand.The various functional requirements in the standard covering safety critical controls.

Speakers in this webinar:

Scott Daniels, head of energy storage and power at CSA Group. Scott is an emerging technology and advanced energy resources professional with over 20 years of experience in the energy and clean technology sectors.

Michael Becker, technical specialist for energy storage at CSA Group. Michael is a compliance and technical expert in the field of energy storage and systems engineering and has participated in the standards development process for applicable energy storage standards such as UL 9540 and NFPA 855.

Our webinar includes short presentations from the speakers, followed by a Q&A discussion.

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You can also view the webinar on-demand. It’s free and all registrants receive the presenters’ slide deck. Register for access here.

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Origami Solar’s chairman, Eric Hafter (L), and Tyler Hudson (R), a product engineer

Origami Solar, developers of a patent-pending steel frame for solar modules that lowers cost, dramatically reduces carbon emissions, and improves performance and value, has taken the grand prize in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) American-Made Solar Prize competition. Origami Solar was one of two winners among 10 hardware finalists in the competition’s Go! Demo Day that took place at the RE+ event in Anaheim. Calif. last week.

The company was awarded a $500,000 cash prize and $75,000 support voucher to accelerate market adoption of their game-changing technology, bringing their total award throughout the American-Made Solar Prize competition to $650,000 in cash and $150,000 in support vouchers. The Solar Prize helps advance new innovations that will enable rapid deployment of solar energy and achieve the Biden-Harris administration’s decarbonization goals.

Origami Solar’s innovation allows solar module manufacturers to lower costs while protecting against supply chain disruptions and enable the energy transition by facilitating domestic ramp-up of module production. Origami Solar module frames have unique design capabilities enabled by precision roll forming of steel that delivers superior strength and performance equal to or better than traditional aluminum frames. The roll forming process is better suited to high-volume production and allows steel to be optimized in ways that bring features and functionality to the finished frame.

The use of steel also significantly reduces production-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to an independent report recently released by Boundless Impact Research and Analytics. Origami’s steel module frame is readily manufacturable and meets or exceeds all UL and IEC standards.

“We’re excited and grateful to be named a grand prize winner of this prestigious competition,” says Gregg Patterson, CEO of Origami Solar. “In this next chapter for the solar industry, energy independence is no longer optional; improved performance and domestically produced frames are essential. We believe that making solar energy greener is our moral obligation, and re-shoring the supply chain from China at lower costs is the culmination of that journey.”

“Our steel frame designs and worldwide group of steel suppliers are uniquely able to deliver and scale this transformational solution now,” adds Patterson. “We started this mission almost three years ago aiming to bring significant and positive change to our industry and benefit the planet. We now have demonstrated our ability to deliver on this vision and have lined up the strategic partners to make it happen.”

The American-Made Solar Prize is a multi-million-dollar prize competition designed to energize U.S. solar innovation through a series of contests and the development of a diverse and powerful support network that leverages national laboratories, energy incubators, and other resources across the country. The American-Made Solar Prize is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office and directed and administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

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“Increasingly, our customers are looking for cleaner options for their temporary power needs,” Sunbelt Rentals CEO Brendan Horgan said on why his company has invested in and become a customer of Moxion. Image: Businesswire.

Moxion, a US company making mobile battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions, has closed a Series B round with investors including funds held by Amazon and Microsoft.

The company said this week that it has secured US$100 million from the funding round and at the same time announced a multi-year customer deal with equipment and tools rental group Sunbelt Rentals. Sunbelt will buy Moxion systems up to 2025.

It signifies a significant scale-up from Moxion’s 2021 Series A round which raised US$10 million from investors including noted sustainable infrastructure investor Energy Impact Partners, which participated in latest round too.

Moxion is one of a growing number of companies packaging up and integrating BESS on wheels, units that can be taken to construction sites or other facilities that require a temporary power solution.

That could also mean film location sets, utility maintenance and network upgrade sites, electric vehicle (EV) fleet management and other applications. For example, one Series B investor is the venture capital (VC) arm of car rental group Enterprise Holdings.

“Our operations require access to safe and sufficient power while minimising business disruption. Mobile charging and battery storage offers the flexible solution we’ll need, and we are excited to be a part of the next leg in Moxion’s journey,” Enterprise Holdings VP of strategy development Chris Haffenraffer said.

Haffenraffer added that with Enterprise growing its fleet of EVs, Enterprise Venture Holdings’ investment in Moxion “supports key infrastructure that needs to be in place”.

The rented mobile units can replace the legacy role of fossil fuel generators, reducing air and noise pollution as well as reducing emissions and the reliance on liquid fuel supply.  

Moxion calls its business model “power-as-a-service”. Its website offers the barest of details on its products and their configurations at present, but the company is constructing its first manufacturing facility, in Richmond, California.

Planning to construct and open a second factory in 2024, Moxion is targeting 7GWh of annual production capacity.

Other companies with mobile BESS solutions include Greener Power Solutions from the Netherlands which raised €45 million (US$44.29 million) this year from asset manager DIF Capital Partners. Back in 2019 Greener Power Solutions co-founder Dieter Castelein wrote a technical paper for our quarterly journal PV Tech Power on a case study of using mobile BESS to support grid maintenance.

Another interesting project the company did was with a Dutch wind farm operator, where BESS units were charged at wind power plant sites and then transported to sites where the power was needed.

Greener is an integrator and to date has used mobile BESS manufactured by another Dutch company, Alfen, but this year said it is trying out solutions made by Northvolt, the Swedish startup building battery and energy storage system gigafactories in Europe.    

A few weeks ago, US-headquartered battery and BESS manufacturer KORE Power unveiled the first product range for its mobile BESS subsidiary, Nomad Transportable Power Systems, offering three units ranging from 660kWh up to 2MWh capacity.

Moxion’s Series B was led by VC firm Tamarack Global. As well as Energy Impact Partners, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Enterprise, Marubeni Ventures, Sunbelt Rentals and two other investors took part.

“Moxion’s technology fills an important need in our power management solutions lineup, whether augmenting or replacing fossil-fuel-powered generators. Increasingly, our customers are looking for cleaner options for their temporary power needs,” Sunbelt Rentals CEO Brendan Horgan said.

“We look forward to working with the team as they continue to build domestic manufacturing operations, create jobs, and unlock and decarbonise new market verticals,” Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund director Brandon Middaugh said.

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GMP was the first US utility to offer Tesla Powerwalls (pictured) to customers in 2015. Image: Green Mountain Power.

A planned increase in battery storage investments has been announced by Green Mountain Power, the Vermont utility which was first in the US to deploy Tesla Powerwalls in a virtual power plant (VPP).

Green Mountain Power said this week that it will up its deployment of grid-connected battery storage from an existing 30MW, comprising residential and large-scale systems, to 55MW.

The utility plans to install the additional 25MW in six communities in its service area within the next two years.

Its customers have already benefited from the existing storage plants’ ability to manage Green Mountain Power’s peak demand requirements, lowering network and energy costs as well as reducing carbon emissions for its customer base of just over a quarter of a million.

Green Mountain Power was in fact the first utility in the US to sell the first generation Tesla residential battery storage system when it was launched in 2015 before rolling out a VPP programme in 2017 to aggregate Powerwalls and leveraging the stored energy as capacity and playing it into wholesale markets.

It then went a step further in 2021 by putting the VPP to perform grid-balancing frequency regulation ancillary services. The programmes were expanded to include battery storage equipment from other providers like Enphase into its ‘bring your own device’ (‘BYOD’) programme.

The utility said that its fleet of batteries saves customers about US$3 million overall each year at the current level of deployment.

In late July, following heatwaves in the eastern US, GMP highlighted the crucial role customer batteries played in helping the utility supply energy when demand peaked as air condition units went on around Vermont.

Just over a period of roughly a week, about US$1.2 million costs were saved and demand for energy from the grid reduced by about the equivalent of 50,000 households worth of consumption.

The idea behind the BYOD programme is that customers buy battery storage to enable home solar self-consumption and backup power, and the utility then pays them a fee or discounts that battery purchase in exchange for being able to leverage the stored energy.

Companies GMP is working on the new larger-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) deployments with include developer Agilitas Energy, which earlier this month began construction on a 3MW/6MW project in the Vermont town of Bristol.

As with other facilities in and joining GMP’s portfolio, the Agilitas project will play into the regional ISO-New England energy markets.

“Higher demand for electricity, rising costs and climate change all negatively impact consumers in a way that wasn’t true even a few years ago,” Agilitas Energy CEO Blake Bilotta said a couple of weeks ago as the project was announced.

“By turning to energy storage — a solution we believe is paramount when talking about cost-effective energy — the benefits are shared among customers, the grid and the energy transition, all at the same time.”

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Image: Enerox/Cellcube.

European vanadium flow battery brand CellCube has formed an R&D partnership in Australia in anticipation of establishing a presence in the country’s long-duration energy storage market.

CellCube is the trading/brand name for Austria-headquartered technology provider Enerox. The company has partnered with BESS Research, a researcher of battery configurations.

The two will collaboratively work out how CellCube vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) could help meet the need for 24/7 low carbon energy in Australia, beginning with a pilot deployment of a 2MW/8MWh VRFB system.

The companies anticipate being able to develop and roll out a localised version of the CellCube VRFB system for the Australian market, claiming it could be ready and on sale by H2 2023. They will initially target the commercial and industrial (C&I) microgrid segment that CellCube is also pursuing opportunities in elsewhere in the world.

CellCube said C&I entities in Australia are actively looking for energy storage with duration in excess of four hours to enable decarbonisation of their operations.

The company anticipates marketing the flow battery technology, which it considers to be durable as well as long duration, to customers with industrial facilities located in remote areas with harsh climates and a need for versatile energy storage that can perform multiple applications.

BESS Research will procure the necessary parts, software, and service solutions for the pilot deployment from CellCube and could adapt or add elements to the VRFB design to meet specific needs of the Australian market.

Flow battery R&D at the forefront

Being able to source and scale raw materials and component supply is an important aspect of commercialising any technology and although the vanadium flow battery was actually invented in Australia, Windimurra, the country’s only working vanadium mine, went out of business some years ago.

Located in Western Australia, the co-developer of that plant is actually involved in the new VRFB partnership. Andrew McKee is now managing director at Nanomem, a membrane technology company.

Nanomem is helping CellCube and BESS Research to improve the proton exchange membrane that forms a key part of the VRFB system design as well as securing localised vanadium electrolyte supply.

It has also been a stated aim of the national and various state governments of Australia to develop expertise and an industrial base for manufacturing batteries, including lithium-ion and flow batteries.

That was the case even before the recent election of climate-friendly Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of the Labor Party, who set Australia’s first national clean energy targets, aiming for 82% renewables by 2030.

With government financial support disbursed to support those efforts, various entities have been developing both vanadium production, processing and electrolyte manufacturing facilities in the country. CellCube formed an agreement with one of those, Australian Vanadium, in 2020. That said, perhaps the best-known flow battery company based in Australia so far is Redflow, which makes systems based on zinc bromine electrolyte, not vanadium pentoxide.

“We are facing a high demand for double-digit megawatt storage systems in remote areas,” Nanomem’s Andrew McKee said.

“Australian customers want to see a successful proof of concept project with a megawatt battery storage delivering power and energy for multiple hours – a complete storage technology covered by bankable performance guarantees and with the ability to leverage finance through power purchase agreements (PPAs).” 

Other markets CellCube is targeting include the US. Towards the beginning of this year the company agreed a five-year vanadium electrolyte supply deal with producer US Vanadium. CellCube set up a US subsidiary in May and announced a 2MW/8MWh C&I microgrid project in Illinois a couple of months later.

In May, CellCube signed a 1GW, five-year VRFB deployment agreement with South African energy asset developer Kibo Energy. South African primary vanadium producer Bushveld Minerals’ energy storage subsidiary also holds a stake in the VRFB player.  

“We are excited that the Australian government has put R&D at the forefront of their financial support to strengthen the localisation of technology and production to achieve net-zero with an Australian value chain. This cooperation follows our business strategy to establish regional offerings and working with local supply chain partners to build megawatt microgrids in our key markets,” Alexander Schoenfeldt, Enerox/CellCube CEO said.

“As started in North America and South Africa, we are now keen to start business in Australia and, as such, mobilising key staff to build local knowledge and teams and value in Australia for the Australian market.”

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OYA Renewables’ 6.7 MW DC Robinson Road solar farm in Orleans, N.Y. has reached commercial operation and will support broad consumer access to solar-powered electricity generation across the state.

The community solar project completed the final stage of commissioning in June of 2022. The 6.7 MW DC solar farm is expected to generate approximately 10,490,000 kWh annually, the equivalent of offsetting an estimated 7,434 metric tons of carbon and providing enough clean energy to power over 1,600 households annually. In total, OYA has 13 additional New York community solar projects expected to reach commercial operation by mid-2023, adding to OYA’s pipeline that already exceeds 572 MW in the state.

“We applaud the State of New York for being a driving force in the renewable energy transition with innovative programs to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the cost of electricity,” says Manish Nayar, founder and chairman of OYA Renewables. “We see the immediate impact on subscribers to OYA’s community solar programs as each new solar project goes online and a zero-carbon future comes closer to being realized.”

“This year New York became the top community solar market in the nation thanks to the many public-private partnerships that have been created under our successful NY-Sun Initiative,” comments Doreen M. Harris, president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development’s (NYSERDA). “Community-centered projects like OYA’s Robinson Road will ensure more families and businesses have access to affordable and renewable solar power that will help provide savings on their electricity bill and improve local air quality.”

The project received $1.4 million in support through NYSERDA’s NY-Sun program, the state’s signature $1.8 billion initiative to advance the scale-up of solar while driving energy costs down and making solar energy more accessible to homes, businesses, and communities. The project advances New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goal to generate 70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

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Weather, environmental and industrial measurement company Vaisala has launched Xweather, a forecast and observation suite of services providing real-time and hyperlocal weather and environmental data to predict and solve challenges, including for wind and solar companies.

Xweather uses a combination of intelligent hardware and software with the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Its services provide environmental information from road conditions and air quality to heat wave detection and lightning strikes. The solution also helps energy grid operators and energy companies with accurate predictions on the availability of wind and solar power.

“Until now, the lack of real-time, local data has been a major source for error in weather and environment forecasting,” says Samuli Hänninen, head of Xweather at Vaisala. “With Xweather, businesses and developers can utilize data about the environment in real time from a hyperlocal location that is relevant for them.”

Xweather observation portfolio of data services and solutions includes enhanced SaaS (Solution as a Service) and DaaS (Data as a Service) services created for businesses and developers whose products, operations or customers depend on high-quality weather and environmental information.

“For over 85 years, Vaisala has helped people and companies across the globe – with products even in space – to understand climate and weather,” concludes Hänninen. “Understanding is not enough: we need to take action. We want to help organizations not only think and plan, but to act. The data and insight are available now, let’s together put that data to work.”

The data products include MapsGL, a variety of tools to customize and integrate vector-based weather data, imagery and visualizations into applications, as well as historic data sets and forecasted wind and solar data. AerisWeather Weather API provides a range of hyperlocal environmental data such as minutely forecasts, and unique data endpoints like severe weather alerts, tropical storms, air quality, lightning strikes and wildfires.

The solutions for businesses included in Xweather are Wx Beacon, a solution for observation-enhanced microscale weather connected to AtmoCast sensor, Thunderstorm Manager and others.

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Al Monaco

Enbridge Inc. has acquired renewable project developer Tri Global Energy (TGE) for $270 million in cash and assumed debt. Additionally, up to approximately $50 million in payments could be made contingent on successful execution of TGE’s project portfolio. TGE currently has a development portfolio of wind and solar projects representing more than 7 GW of renewable generation capacity.

“TGE will enhance Enbridge’s renewable platform and accelerate our North American growth strategy,” says Al Monaco, Enbridge’s president and CEO. “TGE’s significant development pipeline, coupled with our renewable capabilities, and existing self-power opportunities, make this a truly synergistic investment that further positions us to grow organically at attractive equity returns. We’re excited to be welcoming the TGE team to Enbridge, further strengthening our capabilities as we ramp up our renewable business.”

TGE’s development portfolio includes 3.9 GW of renewable generation projects TGE previously sold to operators, which will generate development fees and accretion to distributable cashflow per share in the first year following the acquisition of TGE. In addition, 3 GW of late-stage development of wholly owned projects are expected to be placed into service between 2024 and 2028.

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Sheldon Kimber, CEO of Intersect Power

Intersect Power LLC has closed an aggregate of $2.4 billion of new financing commitments and the allocation of $675 million of previously announced commitments for the construction and operations of four solar energy projects totaling approximately 1.5 GW DC PV and 1 GWh BESS. The transactions represent construction financing, tax equity, operational letters of credit and a portion of previously announced portfolio level term debt with partners.

All four projects – Lumina I, Lumina II, Oberon I and Oberon II – are expected to be operational in 2023. The Lumina I and II projects, located in Texas, total approximately 840 MWp. The Oberon I and II projects, in California, total approximately 685 MWp + 1,000 MWh BESS. These projects are part of the company’s late-stage portfolio totaling 2.2 GW of late-stage solar projects with 1.4 GWh of storage.

“These closings culminate a multi-year process raising more than $6 billion to build out one of the largest solar + storage portfolios our country has seen to date which serves as a platform for future growth into green hydrogen and other decarbonization technologies,” says Sheldon Kimber, CEO of Intersect Power. “The strength of our partnerships and collective teams’ determination further validates our path to decarbonize the hard-to-reach corners of the economy.”

As with Intersect Power’s $2.6B financing announcement in November 2021, these financings follow the company’s approach by incorporating structuring and pricing provisions designed to account for the higher proportion of uncontracted revenue in the portfolio. Proceeds from the term facility will support both construction and operation of the portfolio.

MUFG and Santander served as co-lead arrangers on the approximately $1.6 billion construction financing with NORD/LB, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Helaba, CoBank, Bank of America, and Zions Bancorporation acting as joint lead arrangers. CoBank ACB is providing operational letters of credit to the Oberon I and II, and the Lumina II projects.

“Intersect Power has robust capabilities as a developer of transformative renewable energy projects,” mentions Louise Pesce, managing director of project finance at MUFG. “We are honored to be a financing partner for this phase of their large solar plus storage portfolio which will catalyze the transition to a more sustainable energy infrastructure.”

“We are very proud to have supported Intersect in this transformative capital raise process in such a meaningful way,” states Nuno Andrade, managing director and head of structured finance U.S. at Santander’s Corporate & Investment Banking. “Intersect continues to position itself as an innovative company that develops renewable energy projects at scale to provide clean energy and U.S. jobs, both of which are critical for the economy and the energy transition.”

“CoBank was pleased to work with the Intersect Power team to provide operational letters of credit on a bilateral basis under an innovative structure to the Oberon I, II and Lumina II projects of the portfolio,” adds Jackie Bove, managing director and head of project finance at CoBank, ACB.

Concurrent with the closing of the construction financing, Intersect secured approximately $775 million of commitments from tax equity investors, including Morgan Stanley Renewables Inc. (Oberon II), a Fortune 100 technology company (Lumina I) and U.S. Bank (Oberon I and Lumina II).

“We’re excited to partner with Intersect Power to grow solar capacity and storage with these investments in California with Oberon I and Texas with Lumina II,” comments Jon Peeples, environmental finance business development director with U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., the tax credit and community investment division of U.S. Bank. “Investments like these are a tangible way U.S. Bank can be a responsible steward of the environment and combat climate change while creating jobs and positively impacting local communities.”

“We are proud to again partner with Intersect Power by providing them capital to help accelerate their scalable and innovative approaches to decarbonizing energy sources,” says Jorge Iragorri, managing director and head of the Alternative Financing Group at Morgan Stanley.

The allocation of $675 million of previously announced term-loan commitments was provided by HPS Investment Partners and Co-Investors.

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