The Baker-Polito administration is releasing $3.6 million in Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises Support Implementation and Planning Grants and Equity Workforce Training Grants to support 25 organizations committed to expanding access to career and business opportunities in climate-critical fields.

The awards, provided through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), will address the need to grow Massachusetts’ clean energy workforce as well as prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

“It is critical that we foster a vibrant, clean energy sector that will enable the Commonwealth to confront the many challenges associated with climate change and secure a clean energy future that will greatly benefit the state for many generations to come,” states Gov. Charlie Baker. “These grants will further support our ongoing efforts to strengthen the industry, which includes creating opportunities that provide a clear entry into a variety of clean energy fields to ensure a diverse and talented workforce is developed.”

“Equitable growth of the clean energy industry not only ensures the sector’s sustainability but also provides important benefits of generating a strong workforce within the sector, providing economic benefits within our communities and regions throughout the state,” says Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. “Our administration is proud to partner with these incredible organizations to expand access within clean energy as we work together to mitigate the impacts of climate change.”

Equity Workforce Training Grants have been awarded to 16 organizations for designing programs to prepare members of environmental justice (EJ) communities and fossil fuel workers for clean energy careers. Each $50,000 grant will reduce barriers faced by underserved individuals as grantees conduct research, develop partnerships and design the frameworks to create new job training pipelines to high-quality career pathways.

Additionally, Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises Support Implementation and Planning Grants were awarded to nine Massachusetts community-based organizations to advance efforts to assist over 199 Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE). MWBE support grants will facilitate the exploration, development and implementation of innovative training opportunities for Massachusetts-based MWBE companies. The grants of up to $1 million each will support MWBE entry, creation and expansion into fields critical to meeting net-zero goals. Funding for both programs was provided by MassCEC’s Workforce Equity programming, which was created following the enactment of the 2021 Climate Roadmap Act.

“It is crucial that Massachusetts continues to develop a qualified, well-trained, and diverse workforce within the clean energy sector that is able to both expand the industry and directly contribute to its continued success,” adds Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card. “The Baker-Polito Administration actively seeks partnerships so that we can work together to achieve our shared clean energy and decarbonization goals, and these Equity Workforce Training and Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises Support Implementation and Planning Grants are an important contribution to that effort.”

The nine MWBE support organizations are receiving $2.8 million to develop statewide programming, as well as location-specific support in communities. Similarly, the 16 Equity Workforce Planning grant awards will support statewide training and more targeted locations throughout the Commonwealth, including specific EJ communities. The equity workforce planning grantees will focus on developing holistic workforce programs that provide technical training paired with placement opportunities and extensive support services.

“The Baker-Polito Administration is proud to announce these Equity Workforce Training and MWBE grants, which supports focused, targeted programming to the communities they serve,” comments Jennifer Daloisio, MassCEC’s CEO. “These grants reflect MassCEC’s commitment to both growing the clean energy economy and increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sector. Importantly, these awardees have created exceptional plans and we can’t wait to see their programs thrive.”

Browning the Green Space (BGS) is receiving $508,500 to support 50 MWBEs. BGS will create more MWBEs by expanding the Accelerating Contractors of Color in Energy for Sustainable Success (ACCESS) program. ACCESS is an eight-week contractor boot camp for aspiring energy efficiency and renewable energy business owners that provides curated consulting, coaching, connections, mentorship, and access to capital.

Greentown Labs is gaining up to $500,000 to support 18 MWBEs. Greentown Labs will operate the accelerator program, Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders (ACCEL), to accelerate high-growth, tech innovation-based MWBE startups towards investment, partnerships and customers.

Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council (GNEMSDC) is receiving up to $500,000 to support 75 MWBEs. GNEMSDC will help MWBEs become aware of opportunities to obtain contracts in climate critical areas, build their financial and intellectual capital, and provide MWBE certifications, leveraging grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

GreenRoots Chelsea is getting $50,000 to explore training a wide range of people of color, workers in the fossil fuel industry, and youth from Chelsea and East Boston to enter the clean energy sector locally in careers related to solar energy and microgrids.

Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts (SBN) is developing the SBN Solar Business Accelerator with $50,000 to support the creation of new workforce programs to grow the solar industry. SBN will focus on jobs beyond electrical engineers and electricians, such as sales and marketing, information technology, drone operation, community engagement ambassadors, and vegetation management.

Read about additional organizations that received funding here.

Image: Nuno Marques on Unsplash

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The co-located solar and storage project in Malawi. Image: JCM Power.

The US’ International Development Corporation (DFC) has provided a US$25 million loan for a solar-plus-storage project in Malawi with a 5MW/10MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

The government-owned development finance institution’s CEO Scott Nathan signed the commitment letter last week (21 September) to provide the funding for the project which went online in in May.

The Golomoti Solar project pairs a 28.5MWp solar photovoltaic power plant and 5MW/10MWh BESS in southeast Malawi, although announcements describe it as a 20MW project.

The DFC’s loan comes two months after the World Bank announced it would provide guarantees for equity and shareholder loan investments into the project amounting to US$24 million.

CEO Nathan commented: “DFC’s US$25 million investment in Golomoti Solar will support a new solar energy plant in Malawi, delivering electricity to the national power grid to directly benefit Malawian businesses and communities. The Golomoti plant also includes Malawi’s first battery energy storage system, creating a reliable energy source that will promote economic stability for the country’s future development.”

JCM Power and InfraCo Africa co-developed Golomoti Solar. It is JCM Power’s second renewable energy project in Malawi, after the 60MW Salima Solar project entered commercial operation in October 2021.

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Powin’s stand at RE+ 2022. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media

Power conversion system (PCS) expertise allows battery storage system integrators an important degree of control over project design and costs, according to representatives of Powin Energy and LS Energy Solutions.

Powin has just acquired Spanish inverter and energy management system (EMS)/power plant controller maker EKS Energy to add capabilities in-house.

Meanwhile, LS Energy Solutions is a system integrator that began in the market as a power electronics player. The company launched after South Korean conglomerate LS Group acquired the grid-tied business of Parker-Hannifin in 2018, putting its first ‘all-in-one’ energy storage products onto the market in late 2020 and announcing its first US deployments a few months later.

The value and importance of PCS has been highlighted in recent weeks by the acquisition of two other US manufacturers: EPC Power was acquired by investors Goldman Sachs and Cleanhill Partners, while Dynapower was bought by industrial sensor manufacturer Sensata for US$580 million.

Energy-Storage.news spoke with Powin’s senior VP Danny Lu and LS Energy Solutions director of strategy and market analytics Ravi Manghani at last week’s RE+ 2022 solar PV and energy storage tradeshow in Anaheim, California.

Both said that while power electronics equipment represents only a small portion of a battery project’s overall cost, it’s often responsible for many of the issues which arise in operation. At the same time, owning their own PCS company means their companies can circumvent some of the supply chain issues around getting third party equipment onsite on time, they said.

To date, Powin has procured PCS equipment from “almost all of the Tier 1 suppliers in the energy storage space,” Danny Lu said.

“What we’ve experienced is that, when you’re dependent on third parties to do critical aspects of the system, you expect them to perform, be responsible for their scope, deliver everything on time, commission everything on time, and get it to the point where we can reliably operate the system.”

Powin realised that although the PCS might only represent 15% of a project’s total cost at most – and usually less than that – it can cause almost all of the issues that can happen during operation. The company is therefore “holding a lot of risk” by depending on third parties for such a critical aspect of its systems.

PCS: ‘Small portion of the cost, but a big portion of the headache’

Therefore, a major part of the rationale for acquiring Seville-headquartered EKS, considered a pioneer in the fields of renewable energy inverters, is that it will give Powin more control over project execution, delivery and commissioning.

Many of the Oregon battery energy storage system (BESS) manufacturer’s projects also have availability guarantees and the acquisition will further bolster its ability to deliver on long-term service agreements around those too, Lu said.

“For the portion of a system that makes up such a small cost, but makes up a large portion of the headache, we need to be able to control that service strategy and the service capability.”

LS Energy Solutions’ (LS ES) Ravi Manghani is a former head of industry research for what was GTM Research (now part of Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables). He noted that inverters are probably more complex than batteries and sit at the heart of a system and in many ways dictates what a BESS can do.

There is a “lot more IP that goes into power electronics than people realise,” Manghani said, but it still only forms a small portion of the cost stack of a complete system. As a PCS provider itself, LS ES was providing hardware critical to the success of a project but only reaping that small portion of the financial benefit.

Coming from more than a decade and a half of experience making and testing inverters then seeing them operate in the field also means the company is well positioned to be able to integrate PCS and batteries together into an “optimised product that is capable of providing different use cases, with the help of the relevant software, EMS, battery management system (BMS) etc,” Manghani said.

“Coming from the power electronics side gives us a much more sort of hands-on understanding of how to interface with the grid and what kind of signals that we can use and how to provide microgrid capabilities, for instance, using the grid forming features that our inverter has.”

One of the main topics of discussion at last week’s RE+ event was battery storage supply chain constraints. While those are often talked about in terms of battery cell procurement – certainly the most impacted area – supply chain disruptions are present across other components too, including PCS.  

For both LS Energy Solution and Powin, having more control over that aspect of project delivery will help them to manage project timelines and ultimately add to customer satisfaction, Manghani and Lu both said.

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Ricardo Díaz

Enfinity Global has signed a definitive agreement with Capital Dynamics (advised by Barclays) to acquire a 400 MW utility-scale solar portfolio in the U.S., consisting of 28 operational solar power plants in California, North Carolina and Idaho. The portfolio reached COD within the last five years and holds long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) with utility off-takers.

“Our long-term ownership business model allows us to partner with relevant investors, stakeholders and customers, aligning capabilities that create a zero-carbon future,” says Carlos Domenech, CEO of Enfinity Global. “Our ability to deploy operational expertise across the entire renewables value chain, coupled with our international presence, translates into value creation for our investors and customers.”

“This transaction represents a unique opportunity to acquire a high-quality, geographically diversified portfolio of operating assets. We believe the U.S. market will continue to consolidate, allowing long-term asset owners to grow rapidly and benefit from efficiencies,” comments Ricardo Diaz, CEO of the Americas at Enfinity Global. “We will continue to pursue further investment opportunities in the U.S. with top-tier partners.”

“Our purpose is to create a fully integrated platform with a complete suite of in-house development, financing, construction, operations and asset management capabilities. To this end I am happy to see that top talent shares our vision and culture and are joining us,” adds Diaz.

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The cavern project in Sweden. Image: SSAB.

Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall has commissioned a green hydrogen storage pilot facility within a 100GWh capacity cavern.

The HYBRIT facility in Luleå, north Sweden, is a collaboration between Vattenfall, steel company SSAB and iron ore producer LKAB.

It was inaugurated in June and, following initial pressure tests, has now been filled with hydrogen gas up to a maximum operating pressure of 250 bar. A two-year test period has now started and will continue until 2024.

The technology will eventually go towards SSAB sponge iron production operations, but the announcement’s wording indicates the next two years is mainly just testing the hydrogen storage capabilities. Sponge iron is produced by reducing iron ore into iron using a reducing gas or elemental carbon, and is used in the production of steel.

The technology will be used on an industrial-scale for sponge iron production at SSAB’s facility in Gällivare, a few hours north of Luleå, within the next four years, Vattenfall said.

The pilot facility is 100 cubic metres in size and could be expanded to 100,000 to 120,000 cubic metres. This would equate to 100GWh of energy storage in green hydrogen form, which a press release said was enough to supply a full-size sponge iron factory for three to four days.

Lars Ydreskog, director of strategic projects at LKAB, said: “Hydrogen gas and its storage are central to our transition. In just four years, HYBRIT technology will be used for the production of fossil-free sponge iron on a large scale at a first demonstration facility in Gällivare. LKAB will become one of Europe’s biggest hydrogen producers, and this pilot project will provide valuable knowledge for the continuing work on creating the world’s first fossil-free value chain for the iron and steel industry.”

Vattenfall said the pilot facility in Luleå is the first in the world to test the technology with repeated filling and emptying of hydrogen gas.

Other large cavern facilities for storing green hydrogen which are in development include ACES Delta in Utah, US, and the HyStock project in the Netherlands. ACES has a total storage capacity of 300GWh and is expected to come online in stages starting in 2025, while the 26 million kg-capacity HyStock is expected online the following year. ACES will supply gas to a combined cycle power plant while HyStock’s developers have been vague on its use cases.

The main use case for green hydrogen technology at scale is as a feedstock for various industrial processes to help them decarbonise, followed by replacing fossil fuel in transportation and the finally blending with natural gas for conventional gas power plants.

Storing green hydrogen for conversion back to electricity – power-to-X-to-power – has a round-trip efficiency too low to be economical for now, most industry observers say.

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EnerVenue’s energy storage system solution. Image: EnerVenue.

Metal-hydrogen battery startup EnerVenue has signed a master supply agreement (MSA) with Green Energy Renewable Solutions for 250MWh of its technology over the next three years.

The deal will see EnerVenue deliver 50MWh of its product to Green Energy in 2023, 100MWh in 2024, and 100MWh in 2025.

Green Energy shares common ownership with Sweden-based aluminium and steel structure manufacturing company Nicon Industries, and will package the battery vessels into building blocks for applications across Nicon’s portfolio. Nicon is active in the wind, offshore and maritime industries.

Through Green Energy, Nicon aims to build 1GW of energy storage projects within the three years of the initial EnerVenue agreement.

Nicon has not revealed its supplier or technology of choice for the remaining capacity, with EnerVenue’s battery tech’s 2-12 hours of duration implying the 250MWh deal amounts to only 20MW-125MW of power. If that 250MWh order covers the 1GW pipeline, it means Nicon is procuring the systems at just 15 minutes’ duration.

Henrik Jensen, CEO, Nicon Industries A/S said: “EnerVenue’s technology features exceptional longevity and durability with minimal maintenance required, and its fire-safe properties are especially critical in our expected applications. EnerVenue’s transformational technology will help Green Energy Renewable Solutions provide superior value to our global customer base.”

Energy storage systems deployed in the offshore and maritime market must meet particularly strict DNV certification, which assesses the reliability of components and systems in the face of marine hazards, and CE certification. The zero fire propagation risk is especially crucial in offshore locations such as oil rigs.

Jens Juul, COO at Green Energy, added: “By 2024, Nico’s forklifts will be converted from fossil fuel to electric power and will be charged with Green Energy battery containers. Additionally, the power needed for our sea fastenings jobs on wind installation vessels will be supplied from our own battery containers charged overnight with renewable energy coming from the windfarms.”

“Green Energy’s maritime and offshore renewable energy applications offer use cases where the safety, flexibility, and maintenance-free durability of our battery vessels deliver compelling business opportunities and competitive differentiators,” said Randy Selesky, chief revenue officer, EnerVenue.

EnerVenue’s CEO Jorg Heinemann positioned its nickel-hydrogen batteries as a simpler, safer and more versatile alternative to lithium-ion in a recent interview with Energy-Storage.news. The technology the company is aiming to commercialise at scale was originally developed for use in space.

The company raised US$100 million in investment one year ago to achieve that, which was followed by supply memorandum of understandings (MOU) with developers in Puerto Rico and mainland US. By July this year, the company claimed to have 5GWh of customer orders. It has a production line in Fremont, California.

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It’s time to get smart about batteries. Image: ACCURE Battery Intelligence.

With the great demand for lithium batteries comes great responsibility to install and use them safely. Although much of that responsibility lies with manufacturers, Dr Kai-Philipp Kairies of ACCURE Battery Intelligence discusses how a combination of data gathered from the field and analytics embedded in software can make batteries safer to operate while maximising value.

This is an extract of an article which appears in Vol.32 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes ‘Storage & Smart Power,’ a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news.

The incredible success story of LIB…

The energy and mobility world are accelerating on the path to decarbonisation. One of the most important assets for this transition are energy storage systems, particularly lithium-ion batteries (LIB).

To put the incredible success of this young technology into perspective, the annual production capacity of the recently announced Volkswagen SalzGiga factory (40GWh) in Salzgitter, Germany, will be larger than the world’s total LIB demand in 2013. Just let that sink in for a moment.

There are many reasons for the dominance of LIB in the energy and mobility world. One major advantage over other battery technologies is the flexibility. LIB cell types have been successfully used in electric cars, ships, buses and large-scale storage systems, allowing for synergies and scaling effects. But certainly, the strongest drivers of LIB were the stark increases in energy density and the (until recently) continuously falling prices.

…and why we need to talk about safety

The focus on ever-increasing battery energy densities and cost reductions, combined with a dizzyingly fast ramp-up of global production capacities has brought LIB into countless applications. As more industry players enter the market and deploy at a rapid pace, safety incidents also increase. Battery fires and explosions have become a regular sight in the news and on social media.

Three events that caught worldwide attention:• In 2019, a cell failure in a battery system at an APS facility in McMicken, Arizona, led to a thermal runaway and ultimately caused an explosion that injured several first responders.• Between April 2021 and May 2022, over 80 electric buses and 4 bus depots burned down across France, Germany, and the UK.• Since 2020 thousands of electric scooters have caught fire around the world – some in private homes, some in warehouses.

While everyone in the industry agrees that battery safety should be the top priority, the reality is that the expectations and pressures relating to growth create conflicting priorities, in addition to the pressures to commercialise new, innovative technologies. Higher energy densities, for example, inevitably mean more energy that can fuel the fire during a failure.

So, what are our options to prevent critical failures and make batteries—and clean energy—as safe as possible?

Cloud-based analytics

A proven strategy to improve battery safety is the use of cloud-based analytics. By detecting critical faults at an early stage using more sophisticated and modern analytical methods, battery operators can act before any damage is done.

Diagnostics based on existing field data streams can be applied to any LIB system without the need for any product modification.

Figure 1: Schematic workflow of ACCURE’s predictive diagnostics. Image: ACCURE

The concept of cloud-based analytics is presented in Figure 1 above and summarised in the following.

Step 1: Data acquisitionThe starting point for all cloud analytics is the continuous stream of measurements from the BMS (“raw data”). This raw data is passed to the communication bus and then pushed to the cloud where it can bestored, consolidated, and analysed by the battery operator or a third-party service provider.

Step 2: Data pre-processingTo leverage the raw data, extensive data cleaning needs to be performed. For one, outliers and systematic measurement errors in the raw data need to be detected and flagged as such, to avoid false interpretations. But, more generally speaking, every BMS has its own (systematic and statistical) errors and idiosyncrasies that need to be understood to make sense of the data. If you plan to evaluate a cloudbased analytics solution, then make sure it works with any kind of input data and is able draw the right conclusions from every new data point. This pays off in terms of scalability for diverse BMS’s.

Step 3: Fault detectionFault detection algorithms scrutinise the battery data to check for potential faults. A fault can be identified through changes in primary parameters such as voltage, temperature, and current or in secondary parameters such as impedance, a shift in the open circuit voltage curve, or the amount of active lithium in each cell. To track secondary parameters, model-based algorithms, which consider reduced orderphysical-/chemical processes through mathematical equations are used. Identifying and tracking specific patterns in these parameters for the millions of similar cells, which are in operation, enables thesealgorithms to find anomalies before they become dangerous.

Step 4: ReportingIf a battery is identified as dangerous by the cloud analytics, automated warning notifications are generated to allow the operator to act – by bringing the system into a safe state and arranging for maintenance or replacement.

A technical example of one of 20 safety indicators

There are many ways field data can reveal safety-critical battery behavior. In fact, there are at least 20 safety indicators a robust cloud analytics solution should track multiple times per day.

They are based on electrical, thermal and mechanistic models empowered by machine learning. The algorithms mirror electrochemical relationships and processes, revealing insights about the internal states of the battery.

In Figure 2, an analysis of the loss of lithium inventory, a process closely linked to lithium plating, is presented.

Figure 2: Model-based safety diagnostics track the loss of active lithium over time and give automated warnings if thresholds are reached. Image: ACCURE

Lithium plating, where metallic lithium gathers on the outside of the anode, has been a major headache in the LIB world for decades. It mainly occurs when a battery is charged with high current rates at low temperatures but can also happen under “normal” operating conditions. Not only does it quickly degrade a battery’s capacity, but it can also become a safety threat by forming metallic dendrites andtriggering side reactions such as gassing.

It manifests itself in a decrease of the lithium inventory which is no longer available for the main reaction.Cloud-based safety algorithms, among other things, must closely track the loss of active lithium to accurately predict safety critical events.

This is an extract of an article which appears in Vol.32 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes ‘Storage & Smart Power,’ a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news. Subscribe to the journal and read the newest (Q3 2022) edition and all previous issues here.

About the Author

Dr. Kai-Philipp Kairies is a scientist and entrepreneur focusing on innovative battery energy storage solutions. He worked as a battery researcher and consultant in Germany, Singapore, and California.Since 2020, he is CEO of ACCURE Battery Intelligence, a battery analytics solution provider that supports companies in understanding and improving their batteries’ safety and longevity to reduce risk and increase value and sustainability.

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Viper Networks Inc. has started receiving solar panel shipments from Toledo Solar to commence deployment for commercial and residential customers throughout the U.S. market. The two companies

previously entered into a strategic U.S. manufacturing and partnership agreement to expand into the American-made solar energy market. Toledo Solar is a manufacturer of CdTe thin film photovoltaic (PV) for both residential and commercial rooftop markets with frameless, all-glass, hermetically sealed, solar panels.

The CdTe solar panels require significantly less energy to manufacture. Thin-film CdTe panels are 100% recycled with over 90% of all materials reused. Toledo Solar’s panels qualify for the 40% ITC credit (available through 2032) that applies to solar panels that are fully made in America.

“The world is changing and Viper Networks is gearing up for the rapidly increasing demand for renewable energy,” says Farid Shouekani, CEO and president of Viper Networks. “Our manufacturing partnership with industry leader Toledo Solar is quickly evolving as we are now in the process of staging a major proof-of-concept project with them for our EcoTech Solutions operations in Illinois, which we acquired last February.”

“We are proud to help lead America’s rebirth in solar manufacturing by building utility-grade, CdTe PV solar technology panels for the residential and commercial markets,” states Aaron Bates, CEO at Toledo Solar. “From day one, we have pledged to deliver the highest quality solar solutions while also maintaining the highest ethical standards. Our impressive team of skilled workers is entirely based at our rapidly growing factory in Ohio, where we have always sourced our components from suppliers with strict ESG controls.”

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Yitsik Marmelshtein

Ashtrom Group has signed its first PPA agreement for a long-term sale of electricity in the U.S. market. As part of the agreement, a dedicated project company, jointly owned by the Ashtrom Group and Kenlov Renewable Energy, will sell electricity generated by the Tierra Bonita project in the U.S., in the total capacity of about 235 MW DC (about 60% of the total capacity of the project) and the green certificates for it.

The electricity will be sold to CPS Energy, the municipally owned electric and natural gas utility of the City of San Antonio, Texas and will be supplied to the utility at a fixed price for a period of 20 years. The remaining project-generated electricity and its green certificates will be sold on the open electricity market in Texas.

Tierra Bonita project is a large-scale solar project in Texas, and already achieved major development milestones, including the securing of its main land rights and signing of a grid connection agreement. According to the company’s assessment, completion of the project development processes, and the start of construction should take place in the second quarter of 2023, and its commercial operation is expected at the end of 2024. 

“This agreement signifies a major milestone in our investment activity in the U.S. and reflects the continued progress of our renewable energy activity in this market for the long term,” says Yitsik Marmelshtein, CEO of Ashtrom Renewable Energy. “We are currently working on advancing other PPA agreements for additional projects that we are developing in the U.S.”

“At present, our renewable energy development pipeline in the US includes projects in various development stages in the U.S., with total planned capacity of ~1.5 GW,” Marmelshtein continues. “We are aiming to expand our investments in the renewable energy sector, mainly in the U.S and in Europe.”

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ESS Inc’s stand at RE+ 2022 in Anaheim, California. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media.

A flow battery supply deal with Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) will accelerate the California utility’s decarbonisation while derisking that process, according to tech provider ESS Inc.

Earlier this week ESS Inc and SMUD announced the multi-year agreement for the non-profit, community-owned energy supplier to deploy up to 200MW/2,000MWh of ESS Inc’s iron electrolyte flow battery technology in its service area.

ESS Inc senior VP of sales and business development Hugh McDermott told Energy-Storage.news that the deal fits perfectly with SMUD’s plan to decarbonise by 2030 and that the flow battery maker identified the utility as an ideal partner.

“SMUD, as anyone who has been following the utility industry for any amount of time knows, is one of the more progressive if not one of the most progressive utilities when it comes to innovation and being an early adopter,” McDermott said in an interview at the RE+ 2022 trade conference and exhibition in California.

“They were one of the first utilities in the US, for example, more than 15 years ago to make the investment in smart grid metering,” an investment on which SMUD made a good return, McDermott pointed out.

“We thought, here’s a progressive, really forward looking, really aggressive utility. Let’s dig in and see if there’s any room for what we do. We basically saw an opportunity to help them not only achieve their goals, but to potentially de-risk their goals in terms of making technology available sooner than they were otherwise anticipating.”

ESS Inc will deliver its Energy Center and Energy Warehouse commercial-scale and grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions to SMUD, beginning in 2023.

McDermott said that will begin with a number of smaller distributed energy resource (DER) projects and a front-of-the-meter BESS likely in the range of 3-5MW, as well as community-based storage systems. The agreement potentially represents one of the biggest long-duration battery storage deals seen to date.

The company is the only manufacturer of flow batteries with nontoxic and nonflammable iron and saltwater electrolyte. It holds the IP for a technology that it claims uses only abundant materials that can be nearly all sourced and then assembled into complete systems domestically within the US.

ESS Inc became publicly listed in late 2021. Now in its commercialisation phase, the company realised its first revenues since listing in Q2 this year, and said when announcing second quarter financial results that it now has 500MWh annual production capacity.

ESS Inc field-installed containerised system. Image: ESS Inc.

Flow battery workforce training

Through its strategic partnership with SMUD, ESS Inc has also agreed to set up battery system assembly, operations and maintenance (O&M) support and project delivery teams and offices in the Sacramento region.

The partners will also establish a local Center of Excellence to support training up a local advanced energy storage industry workforce, something that McDermott said will benefit ESS Inc and the wider industry as well as the local area and economy.

After supply chain constraints and interconnection and permitting challenges, a lack of qualified workforce is one of the biggest chokepoints for energy storage deployment and is only likely to become more acute in such a rapidly expanding industry.

“SMUD is striving for a clean energy future that increases grid resiliency, supports under-resourced communities and maximises local economic development. Long-duration battery technologies move SMUD’s 2030 Zero Carbon Plan forward by expanding our dispatchable renewable energy resources and opening doors to innovation, job training and development opportunities in the green energy sectors,” SMUD CEO and general manager Paul Lau said.

ESS Inc’s Hugh McDermott said the iron flow battery systems could be safely sited in more populated areas than lithium-ion likely could, while serving many of the same service quality and reliability applications.

However, the ability of the flow batteries to be cycled very frequently at high depth of discharge also meant they could be used by the municipal utility in a more versatile way than lithium systems. Energy-Storage.news asked if he thought it likely the systems’ 10-hour duration would be called upon more for shorter duration grid stability applications, or for longer duration time shifting applications.

“Here’s the beauty: it actually doesn’t matter, because the battery can do all those things. If you had a lithium-ion battery, you’d be pretty narrowly constrained for life of the battery, for safety, and for warranty limits that you have on the battery.

“[With a lithium battery] you get one cycle a day out of a four-hour battery; better use it wisely. Our battery is one of those that, whether you use it for 50×15 minutes cycles a day, or 4×3 hour cycles a day, there’s no limitation. We actually think it’s going to open up an entirely new way of how you think about optimising and operating.

“The classic use cases of 30-minute frequency support, two-hour frequency and voltage support are going to be now completely re-examined. For example, right now, nobody values resiliency, at least [not] monetarily, in any of the market structures.”

Conversely, for a utility being able to serve its customers reliably not only has a very real economic cost but is also the main basic service they’re contracted to provide – and SMUD is community-owned.

McDermott gave the example that a flow battery system could keep energy capacity in reserve to help ride out a grid outage lasting four hours while still serving other use cases like grid services.

“What’s the cost [for a utility] of four hours of outage that could have been avoided if you had a battery out there that had four hours of equivalent storage in reserve at all times? On a 10-hour battery that I’m only using for six hours every day.”

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