Another Solar Alliance solar project in New Market, Tenn.

Solar Alliance Energy Inc. has commenced construction on a 500 kW solar project in Kentucky for Louisville Gas and Electric Co. (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Co. (KU), regulated utilities that serve more than 1.3 million customers.

The project represents section five of LG&E and KU’s Solar Share Program, a cost-effective option available to the utilities’ residential, business and industrial customers who want to support solar energy for as little as 20 cents per day.

“Our portfolio of tools and programs, like Solar Share, make it possible for customers to support renewable energy sources right here in Kentucky and the region,” said Eileen Saunders, vice president of customer services for LG&E and KU. “We’re providing information in near-real time, simplifying the processes and partnering with customers who are interested in finding cost-effective solutions to achieve their sustainability goals.”

The contract includes an option for LG&E and KU to select Solar Alliance to build an additional 500 kW system at the same location. A total of eight 500 kW Solar Share sections are planned for the Simpsonville facility, for a total of four MW. Under the terms of the contract, the identity of the customer was confidential until the commencement of construction.

“Solar Alliance is proud to be building another large solar project in Kentucky for this utility partner,” comments Solar Alliance CEO Myke Clark. “Our contracted pipeline of large solar projects is growing, and this is the latest example of the type of project we are consistently delivering for our customers.”

Continue reading

SVOLT’s energy storage system (ESS) solution. Image: SVOLT.

Lithium-ion battery producer SVOLT has announced an LFP-based energy storage system (ESS) solution having until now predominantly focused on battery cells for the electric vehicle (EV) market.

The Jiangsu-headquartered company with a presence in Europe says its Energy Storage Units (ESU) are now available and use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology.

It says its CE-Series ESU is a “highly modular and standardised energy storage solution” which can help with renewable energy integration, dynamic capacity expansion, demand-side energy management, distributed power generation, emergency power supply and fast charging of electric vehicles.

The solution has cells with 280 Ah and 3.2 V, it adds, and it has medium-scale systems available which boast advanced thermal management and fire protection mechanisms. The company also has a ‘cloud-based big data service platform for regional energy supply’ available.

“From 2023, modular liquid-cooled ESS components will then be launched on the market. In the same year, SVOLT also plans to offer accompanying Smart Energy Professional Services,” the press release said.

SVOLT is a spinout from Chinese sports and truck vehicle manufacturer Great Wall Motors. It has to-date mainly announced deals with the automative sector, including its former parent company.

It is the most recent example of a vertically integrated battery manufacturer adding BESS products to its range and thus becoming a direct competitor to system integrators like Fluence, Wartsila and Tesla. Others to have done this include BYD, LG Energy Solution, CATL and Samsung SDI.

SVOLT was the second-most funded battery storage company in the world last year after Swedish group Northvolt, according to Mercom. It raised US$2.6 billion over two fundraising rounds.

It has new gigafactories planned in Germany, India and China. It is says it is investing €2 billion (US$2.19 million) into its Saarland, Germany, site. Some two dozen companies are building lithium-ion gigafactories in Europe.

Continue reading

Connected Energy’s project for Umicore in Belgium, repurposing Renault Kangoo batteries as a frequency regulating grid asset. Image: Connected Energy / Umicore.

Following a recent announcement by carmaker Toyota that it will be exploring how to make batteries easier to recycle, more attention should also be paid to giving used EV batteries a ‘second life,’ argues Matthew Lumsden, CEO of Connected Energy. 

Toyota recently announced a bold plan to develop ‘green batteries’ – batteries that are low carbon, low in cost, and easy to recycle. 

Some ‘simple’ changes at the design stage of batteries could add significantly to their ‘reusability’ before end of life. 

It is our assessment that up to 30% of vehicle batteries can be re-used in second life energy storage systems. Second life applications must become ubiquitous across the world if an unacceptable waste of resources through premature end of life battery recycling is to be avoided. Vehicle manufacturers can help this to happen.

In China, second life use is translated as “cadence”, “gradient”, or “ladder” use, and this ladder analogy is a great way to think about the life of a battery, by considering if each step in the life cycle has been made to work with the next. Vehicle batteries are broadly speaking rectangular metal containers. But they vary and this variation can add difficulty and complication to the second life use. 

Connected Energy is the only company in the UK to use second life batteries in a practical way, supplying energy storage systems to Europe and the UK made from second life car and van batteries. 

Stacked together in bespoke containers we utilise our control systems so that the batteries are used exactly as they are in vehicles, this approach capitalises on all the R&D and safety systems invested in them by OEMs. This process could be made dramatically easier and universally considered with a few ‘simple’ design changes.

Committing to second life

A first basic would be to ensure that batteries are regular cuboids and stackable. Removing odd shapes or additional sections that protrude sounds simple, but would no doubt have some complications. However, these need to be designed out. Adding fixing holes and channelling into the external casing of the batteries could transform the ease with which they can be cost effectively installed and connected once outside a vehicle. 

To incorporate these simple yet highly effective changes into battery design, however, requires a real commitment to second life use whilst designing for the first life. 

Over its lifetime in operation, a second life BESS can save an additional 450 tonnes per MWh of CO2 equivalent compared to using first life batteries so we must ensure the use of second life batteries in energy storage systems. This will not just save carbon and use the embedded carbon better but reduce competition for raw materials. 

The world cannot afford all BESS to come from first life batteries so here’s the challenge: design for reuse as well as for recycling.

Batteries from Audi vehicles are used at this site in Germany, recently brought online by RWE. Image: RWE.

About the Author

Matthew Lumsden is CEO of Connected Energy, a UK-headquartered company working internationally to provide and enable second-life battery energy storage systems. The company’s E-STOR energy storage systems have been developed to enable thousands of batteries, with varied levels of degradation, to be aggregated, controlled and reused as one stationary energy storage system.

Continue reading

After six years of trying, a newly passed Indiana bill makes it more difficult for homeowners’ associations (HOA) to ban residents from putting solar panels to their homes, according to Sarah Bowman of Indianapolis Star.

With House Enrolled Act 1196, homeowners now have a process to petition their HOA boards if they wish to install solar panels and follow specific requirements. Gov. Eric Holcomb signed House Bill 1196 into law Thursday morning.

Senate co-sponsor Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, proposed the legislation in 2017 and Rep. Mike Speedy, R-Indianapolis, joined as the House co-sponsor.

While a review Indianapolis Star did of HOAs found that many HOAs expressly prohibit all solar panels, the language in other associations’ bylaws is vague.

Read the full article here.

Image: Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

Continue reading

Sungrow’s ST2752UX liquid-cooled battery energy storage system, recently launched to the global market. Image: Sungrow.

Sungrow will supply a 16MW/64MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) to a customer in Israel, which will lower emissions and improve efficiency at one of the country’s biggest power plants. 

The energy storage division of the China-headquartered PV inverter manufacturer announced the deal with Israeli infrastructure solutions company Afcon yesterday. 

Sungrow will supply its newly-launched liquid cooled BESS unit for utility-scale applications, ST2752UX, together with the company’s SC5000UD-MV power conversion system (PCS), integrated in enclosures. Sungrow will also provide maintenance services for the battery equipment. 

It will be installed at the 912MW Dalia Power Station combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant, which is responsible for 8% of Israel’s entire electricity production. 

The batteries will improve efficiency and reduce the runtime of the plant’s turbines, allowing generators to be turned down quickly and improving the speed and flexibility of their response. 

Afcon’s EPC subsidiary is taking on the project for independent power producer (IPP) Dalia Power Energies, which owns and operates the gas plant. Afcon EPC Division is taking the lead on planning, procurement and execution as well as operations and maintenance (O&M) of the overall project. 

The deal announcement comes not long after Sungrow was awarded an even bigger project in Israel. The company said at the beginning of this year that it has been contracted to supply 430MWh of BESS by developer and IPP Enlight Renewable Energy. 

That project will be installed in two phases, the first of 230MWh and the second of 200MWh. 

Sungrow’s country manager for the UK and Ireland, Andy Lycett, spoke with Energy-Storage.news for an interview published this week on the technology trends the company is expecting to see in energy storage in 2022 and over the next few years to 2030. 

Lycett said liquid cooling thermal management of the type used in the ST2752UX model will be a prevalent technology and could begin to dominate the market this year.

“This is because liquid cooling enables cells to have a more uniform temperature throughout the system whilst using less input energy, stopping overheating, maintaining safety, minimising degradation and enabling higher performance,” Lycett said. 

Israel could need 8GWh of storage by 2030

Israel is targeting getting 30% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, equating to about 12GW of solar PV. Its national electricity authority, PUA, modelled an expectation of a required 2GW/8GWh of energy storage to reach that goal. 

PUA has made a start on deployments with two tenders held in 2020 for solar-plus-storage. The first saw 168MW of solar PV and 672MWh of battery storage contracts signed, the second 608.95MW of PV and more than 2,400MWh of storage. Prices in the second auction for four-hour batteries paired with solar came in at a clearing price of 17.45 Shekel cents per kilowatt-hour (US$0.0544/kWh at that time).

In a webinar hosted by Energy-Storage.news in November in partnership with energy storage expert consultancy Clean Horizon in November ahead of the second auction, PUA regulatory department head Yossi Sokoler said that the 8GWh figure was not a target as such, but the modelled amount the authority believed Israel needed to integrate that 30% share of renewables. 

Israel is likely to reach that figure well ahead of 2030, Clean Horizon CEO Michael Salomon commented. 

Continue reading

The utility has completed three new BESS projects. Image: Duke Energy.

US utility Duke Energy has announced the completion of three battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling around 34MW/58MWh in Florida.

The three lithium-ion systems are in the Gilchrist, Gulf and Highlands counties and will improve grid reliability and critical services in the event of an outage.

The largest of the three at 18MW will be located at Duke’s 45MW Lake Placid Solar Power Plant in Highlands while the smaller two are standalone sites of 11MW and 5.5MW at Trenton and Gulf respectively. It says the colocated battery will make Lake Placid’s energy dispatchable by its grid operators – Duke Energy Florida is responsible for managing the grid in the state.

The company did not reveal the durations of the battery systems in the press release, but a report provided by the company to Florida’s public service commission in April last year revealed the systems’ guaranteed energy storage for a minimum of 10 years.

It says that Lake Placid will have a storage capacity of 34MWh making it a roughly two-hour system; Gulf County will 14.3MWh of energy making it about two-and-a-half hours; while it implies Trenton’s duration will be just under an hour, with a capacity of 10.1MWh on power of 11MW.

It adds, in reference to these and three other BESS projects: “These projects may serve a variety of purposes including, but not limited to substation upgrade deferral, distribution line reconducting deferral, power reliability improvement, frequency regulation, Volt/VAR support, backup power, energy capture, and peak load shaving.”

A press release photo indicates the batteries at at least one site are being supplied by CATL, the largest lithium-ion battery producer in the world.

By the end of 2022, Duke Energy says the six projects in Florida will have a combined 50MW power. The other three are in Jennings (5.5MW/5.5MWh), Micanopy (8.25MW/11.7MWh), and a 1.5MW/2.5MW solar-plus-storage microgrid at a school in Pinellas County. The company has previously said that installing storage is an economic alternative to building out its distribution grid.

Florida has been slower than other states like California and Texas when it comes to adding energy to its grid. But it did recently unveil the largest BESS to be be paired with solar PV late last year.

Duke Energy also recently announced a partnership with technology group Honeywell to set up microgrids across the US.

Continue reading

Rendering of a large-scale CO2 Battery project alongside a solar farm. Energy Dome said its intent is to make renewable energy dispatchable 24/7. Image: Energy Dome.

Startup Energy Dome has scored its first commercial licensing agreement for its carbon dioxide-based energy storage solution, with Italian power engineering firm Ansaldo Energia.

The agreement allows Ansaldo Energia to commercialise Energy Dome’s technology in its core markets where it has a historic commercial presence. Energy Dome has two products: the carbon dioxide (CO2) battery and its Energy Transition Combined Cycle (ETCC) technology.

The CO2 Battery is its core underlying technology product while the CO2 ETCC is a proprietary turbine technology which can combine with existing gas turbines and the CO2 Battery. The group claims the latter enhances the battery to be able to have multiple working modes in addition to charge/dispatch.

[embedded content]

The two companies plan to start building the first ETCC and CO2 Battery commercial plants by the beginning of 2023. Ansaldo plans to integrate the ETCC into its gas turbine product portfolio and to offer the CO2 Battery as a product within its energy transition portfolio.

Ansaldo Energia will provide the turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package using Energy Dome’s Front End Engineering Design (FEED). The companies have not revealed the power output of the planned commercial units but Energy Dome has previously suggested that 25MW/100MWh or 200MWh plants could be built once the tech is ready for market.

Ansaldo Energia is a power engineering firm specialised in building power plants, power equipment including heavy duty gas and steam turbines and generators, as well as nuclear activities. The license agreement follows on from a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last year for the firm to test the technology readiness level of Energy Dome’s solution.

The Milan-based startup raised US$ 11 million in a series A three months ago. Its technology uses a thermodynamic cycle to storage and dispatch energy with a 4-24 hour duration.

It ‘charges’ by drawing carbon dioxide from a large atmospheric gasholder – the Dome – and stored under pressure in a high density liquid state at an ambient temperature. To dispatch the energy, it is evaporated and expanded into a turbine to generate electricity and returned back to the Dome.

[embedded content]

On its website, Energy Dome compares its technology to compressed air energy storage (CAES) and liquid air energy storage (LAES). It says its CO2 battery has an energy storage density 10-30 times that of CAES although only two-thirds that of LAES. However, it says that LAES requires cryogenic temperatures making the system complex and ‘uncompetitive’, while the liquid in its solution can be stored at ambient levels.

Energy Dome is one of several companies offering novel energy storage solutions based around compressed gas though some have come and gone. Netherlands-based Corre Energy raised €20 million last year for its green hydrogen production and compressed air energy storage solution, before listing on the Irish stock market later in the year. Canada-based Hydrostar is seeking approval for a 400MW advanced compressed air (A-CAES) plant in Ontario.

SustainX merged with another company and abandoned its efforts to create CAES technology which didn’t require huge underground caverns in 2015. Lightsail Energy, founded in 2008, attempted something similar with big VC backing (including Bill Gates and Peter Thiel) but shut down in 2018 (its founder recently wrote publicly about it for the first time).

Continue reading

Inauguration of a 1MW Tesla Powerpack project in New Zealand in 2018. Mercury CEO Fraser Whineray stands with New Zealand Minister for Energy Dr Megan Woods. Image: Mercury Energy.

Construction will commence in New Zealand on the country’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS) project so far in July this year, with the 35MW system expected to be commissioned in December.  

Project partners WEL Networks — and electricity distribution company — and renewable energy developer Infratec announced this week that major equipment suppliers have been contracted for the project.

They include vertically integrated BESS solutions company Saft and inverter electronics company Power Electronics NZ. This week Saft was also announced as contractor to the largest BESS project in the Arctic and recently completed work on France’s biggest project of its type.

In October 2021, Energy-Storage.news reported that WEL Networks and Infratec were in the final assessment stages of the project, to be built in Huntly, a town in the Waikato district of the Upper North Island. 

Expected project costs cited by WEL Networks chief executive Garth Dibley at the time were about NZ$25 million (US$17.13 million).

The BESS will provide fast reserve ancillary services to the local grid, as well as providing backup power in the event of emergencies. Dibley said on Monday that it will support electric vehicle (EV) charging and maximise the benefits of solar power. 

New Zealand has an ambitious goal of sourcing all of its electricity from renewables by 2030 — albeit thanks mainly to hydropower and then geothermal and biomass with some wind, the country is already on a fairly advanced pathway towards that goal. 

However, much of its baseload and balancing energy still comes from different thermal power sources including coal and gas. 

The country’s first 1MW/2.3MWh BESS, using Tesla Powerpack 2 equipment, was connected in 2016 at the distribution level by Vector, another of New Zealand’s 29 electricity distribution companies. In 2018, another 1MW Tesla Powerpack project, this time with 2MWh capacity, was inaugurated by energy retailer Mercury Energy at its R&D centre at a cost of NZ$3 million. Mercury’s was the first to be connected to the high voltage transmission grid.

Since then, although neighbouring Australia’s rapid growth of solar PV and wind has driven some investment into (some very) large-scale batteries, New Zealand’s market has been much quieter. 

Regulator ready to invite more investment into battery storage

A much larger BESS project than the Huntly 35MW system has been announced by another generator and retailer company, Meridian Energy. In February Meridian reaffirmed that a BESS of “at least 100MW” is being planned for construction in combination with a utility-scale solar farm at Ruākākā Energy Park, a development adjacent to Marsden Point oil refinery, also in the far north of New Zealand. 

The national regulator, the Electricity Authority has said it will amend the Electricity Industry Participation Code to allow energy storage systems to participate in the national reserve market. This will promote competition in the wholesale market and contribute to reliability of electricity supply, according to the Authority.

Transmission system operator Transpower also published studies in 2017 that showed the potential value of large-scale battery storage for balancing New Zealand’s grid and in 2019 that showed the potential value of distributed storage. 

Grid-scale batteries are already able to participate fully in New Zealand’s energy market as generation or as dispatchable demand, and can also offer interruptible load while charging. It is however prohibited from providing generation reserve. The Electricity Authority has noted that the need to interconnect electricity supply between the country’s North and South Islands will provide a need for ‘buffering’, which battery storage can do.     

The regulator is expected to amend the code by April this year. 

As mentioned above, while New Zealand boasts large hydropower capacity, dry years due to low snowmelt or rainfall can leave hydroelectric unavailable for long periods. A government-supported project, NZ Battery, will investigate the feasibility of “non-hydroelectric energy storage options”.

These could include bioenergy, geothermal, hydrogen, compressed or liquid air storage and flow batteries, engineering solutions company WSP said after being awarded a contract to work on a feasibility study for the project in January by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). 

Continue reading

Shanco, a roofing company in the Mid-Atlantic, is one of the first roofers to offer the new Timberline Solar roof. GAF Energy, a Standard Industries company and a provider of solar roofing in North America, recently launched Timberline Solar to deliver the first true solar roof to market. Timberline Solar incorporates roofing materials into a clean energy-generating system, resulting in a durable, attractive roof that produces energy. The solar roof is now available to residents in Maryland and Virginia.

“Over the years, we have looked into providing a solar option to our customers but have been challenged with finding the right solution. When we were introduced to the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle, we knew this was the right product,” states Leo Ruberto, owner of Feazel, the parent company of Shanco. “GAF Energy has created an impressive solar solution that will not only meet the needs of our customers but is reliable and aesthetically appealing. We are proud to grow our partnership with GAF Energy and offer this award-winning solar solution.”

“For us, working with Shanco is a game-changer,” says Jason Barrett, senior vice president at GAF Energy. “We’re thrilled to support the clean energy momentum already building in Maryland and Virginia as residents reap the benefits of harnessing solar power.”

This new system incorporates the world’s first nailable solar shingle, the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle. The product is assembled domestically at GAF Energy’s U.S. manufacturing and research facility in California.

Continue reading

Abigail Ross Hopper

In 2021, U.S. solar prices increased as much as 18% due to unprecedented supply chain challenges, trade actions and legislative uncertainty, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight 2021 Year in Review report. As a result of these issues, a third of all utility-scale solar capacity scheduled for completion in Q4 2021 was delayed by at least a quarter and 13% of capacity slated for completion in 2022 has either been delayed by a year or more or canceled outright, according to the report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, a Verisk business. Over the last six months, Wood Mackenzie has decreased near-term solar forecasts by 11 GW, or 19%, due in large part to continued supply chain constraints, price increases and interconnection challenges.

“In the face of global supply uncertainty, we must ramp up clean energy production and eliminate our reliance on hostile nations for our energy needs,” says Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s CEO and president. “Policymakers have the answers right in front of them: if we pass a long-term extension of the solar Investment Tax Credit and invest in U.S. manufacturing, solar installations will increase by 66 percent over the next decade, and our nation will be safer because of it. America’s energy independence relies on our ability to deploy solar, and the opportunity before us has never been more obvious or urgent.”

New 10-year forecasts from Wood Mackenzie show that passing a long-term extension of the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), new manufacturing tax credits and other clean energy incentives would increase solar installations by 66% over the next decade compared to baseline projections. In addition, if the manufacturing tax credits move forward, the industry could unlock nearly 20 GW of new domestic solar manufacturing capacity.

Under an ITC extension scenario, 10-year forecasts for the residential, non-residential (commercial and community solar) and utility-scale solar sectors would increase by 20%, 15% and 86%, respectively. Solar capacity additions by 2030 would exceed 70 GW annually under this scenario.

Without policy action in Congress, Wood Mackenzie projects that U.S. solar capacity would only reach 39% of what’s needed to hit President Biden’s 2035 decarbonization target.

“The supply chain constraints of the last year will hit 2022 installations the hardest, reducing capacity by 7% compared to 2021,” observes Michelle Davis, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report. “But our forecasts demonstrate long-term growth will overshadow these short-term challenges, especially if federal clean energy incentives are passed. In our ITC extension scenario, installed solar capacity is expected to multiply six times by 2032.”

Despite the headwinds, demand for solar remains high. In 2021, the residential market saw 30% year over year growth with over 500,000 U.S. homeowners installing solar, helping the industry reach 23.6 GW of new installed solar capacity.

However, the residential solar market’s momentum could slow as policymakers in California and Florida consider new programs that would reduce compensation in their net metering programs. Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts account for California’s December NEM 3.0 proposal to demonstrate its impacts. If the net metering proposal moves forward, the California residential solar market is expected to be cut in half by 2024.

Solar accounted for 3.9% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2021. Residential solar installations totaled 4.2 GW in 2021, a 30% year-over-year growth.

Community solar volumes reached 957 MW, representing 7% year-over-year growth, while commercial solar volumes in 2021 were nearly equal to 2020 at 1,435 MW. Project delays from interconnection challenges and supply chain constraints limited growth in both sectors. 

For utility scale capacity, 17 GW were installed in 2021, about 3 GW less than expected due to supply chain constraints, logistics challenges and trade headwinds. In Q4 alone, more than a third of all capacity expected to come online was delayed to 2022 or later.

Year-over-year price increases for utility-scale solar reached 18% for fixed-tilt projects and 14.2% for single-axis tracking projects in Q4.

Read the full report here.

Continue reading