A.P. Moller – Maersk, an integrated container logistics company, and Ørsted have signed a letter of intent (LOI) about partnering on a new Power-to-X facility. On the U.S. Gulf Coast, Ørsted will develop a 675 MW Power-to-X facility that will produce approximately 300,000 tons of e-methanol per year, which Maersk will offtake for its newly ordered fleet of 12 methanol-powered vessels.

The facility will be powered by approximately 1.2GW of renewable energy from new onshore wind and solar farms. The biogenic carbon needed to produce e-methanol will be extracted through carbon capture at one or more large point sources.

The project is targeted to be commissioned in the second half of 2025. Final investment decision could be made in late 2023.

“We commend Maersk’s clear and ambitious action, which has made the company a leader in the difficult task of reducing the climate impact of the maritime industry,” says Martin Neubert, deputy CEO and chief commercial officer at Ørsted. “Partnerships with large offtakers of green fuels, like Maersk, is an important part of Ørsted’s strategic journey, as we broaden our Power-to-X footprint across the world to become a global leader in renewable hydrogen and green fuels. The project with Maersk is our first in the U.S., and we look forward to help accelerating the U.S. Power-to-X market while creating local jobs and economic activity, just as we’ve done in the growing offshore wind industry in the U.S.”

“To transition towards decarbonization, we need a significant and timely acceleration in the production of green fuels,” states Henriette Hallberg Thygesen, CEO of fleet and strategic brands for A.P. Moller – Maersk. “Green methanol is the only market-ready and scalable available solution today for shipping. Production must be increased through collaboration across the ecosystem and around the world. That is why these partnerships mark an important milestone to get the transition to green energy underway.”

The Power-to-X project in the US Gulf Coast region is the second green fuels collaboration between Ørsted and Maersk after the potentially 1,300 MW Green Fuels for Denmark project in Copenhagen, which the two companies are partnering on with other large offtakers.

“The U.S. Gulf States have an abundance of cheap renewable energy resources, both solar and wind, making the region a natural location for large-scale production of green fuels, which we expect there will be a very large demand for in the U.S. going forward,” adds Neil O’Donovan, CEO of Ørsted Onshore. “The Power-to-X project with Maersk will expectedly be powered by approx. 1.2 GW of new onshore wind and solar PV, which in itself represent a significant investment in the region, while also helping Ørsted reach its target of 17.5 GW of installed onshore capacity in 2030.”

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Dunwoody College of Technology has launched its Power & Construction Engineering Technology program. The program provides an online bachelor’s completion degree option for electrical graduates looking to advance into positions as solar energy systems engineers, electrical construction or design engineers, senior project managers, estimators, or drafters.

Power & Construction Engineering Technology is a specialized electrical engineering degree that focuses on the built environment – from vertical and horizontal buildings to infrastructure, including utilities. Graduates with a two-year degree in electrical construction or electrical design are eligible to transfer into the online program with part- and full-time options.

“At Dunwoody, we work closely alongside partners to understand the skills and training needed to fulfill the hiring pipeline ensuring that our students are the strongest candidates for the job,” states Polly Friendshuh, dean of construction sciences and building technology.

“Through extensive industry research, we identified a need for electrical and solar system engineers and are proud to offer the Power & Construction Engineering Technology program to current and future students,” Friendshuh adds. “Innovative pilot programs like this one help transform our learners into leaders and students into collaborators and creative problem solvers.”

Image: Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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UL has created a certification service for energy storage equipment subassemblies to evaluate for compliance to UL 9540, the Standard for Energy Storage Systems (ESS) and Equipment. Image: PRNewsfoto/UL.

Science safety leader UL has created a certification service for energy storage equipment subassemblies (ESES) to achieve UL 9540, allowing large storage assets to procure certified components when building systems.

UL 9540, the most widely used product safety standard certificate for energy storage, has been available to energy storage systems (ESS) for a while.

This move creates a way for the systems’ component subassemblies to be certified before assembly into a full ESS.

An energy storage system’s typical subassemblies would include the connection/metering subassembly, power conversion subassembly, the battery modules, and auxiliary service components like those for ventilation, air condition and fire safety.

UL, full name Underwriters Laboratory, recently certified three subassemblies for NHOA Energy (formerly Engie EPS). The company’s head of certification and quality L. Costanza said that achieving the certification to UL 9540 for its subassemblies allowed the installation of high-density 40-foot containers in two utility-scale storage systems in California and Massachusetts.

“Through the new Energy Storage Equipment Subassemblies Certification, a DC storage system manufacturer has an easier and faster path toward Certification to UL 9540. This is another example of how our cost-effective and time-sensitive certification strategies deliver the utmost flexibility and superior certification methods, accelerating time to market,” said Maurice H. Johnson, a product manager for batteries and energy storage systems in UL’s Energy and Industrial Automation group.

Alongside UL 9540, UL is also known in the energy storage sector for UL 9540A, a large scale fire test for BESS. It is the industry standard certification for fire safety in stoage alongside NFPA 855 from the National Fire Protection Association.

The national lab also works with battery producers to explore chemistries of new battery technology, most recently Redflow’s zinc-bromine redox flow battery.

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Sungrow BESS units at a recent project in Japan. Image: Sungrow.

PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow’s energy storage division has been involved in battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions since 2006. It shipped 3GWh of energy storage globally in 2021.

Its energy storage business has expanded to become a provider of turnkey, integrated BESS, including Sungrow’s in-house power conversion system (PCS) technology. 

The company ranked in the top 10 global BESS system integrators in IHS Markit’s annual survey of the space for 2021. 

Aiming at everything from the residential space to large-scale — with a major focus on solar-plus-storage at utility-scale — we ask Andy Lycett, Sungrow’s country manager for the UK and Ireland, for his views on the trends that might shape the industry in the years to come. 

What are some of the key technology trends that you think will shape energy storage deployment in 2022?

Thermal Management of battery cells is of vital importance to the performance and longevity of any ESS system. With the exception of the number of duty cycles, and the age of the batteries, it has the greatest impact on performance.

The lifetime of batteries is greatly affected by the thermal management. The better the thermal management, the longer the lifetime combined with higher resultant usable capacity. There are two main approaches to cooling technology: air-cooling and liquid cooling, Sungrow believe that liquid cooled battery energy storage will start to dominate the market in 2022.

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. 

The Power Conversion System (PCS) is the key piece of equipment that connect the battery with the grid, converting DC stored energy into AC transmissible energy.

Its capability to provide different grid services in addition to this function will affect deployment. Because of the rapid development of renewable energy, grid operators are exploring the potential capability of BESS to support with power system stability, and are rolling out a variety of grid services. 

For example, [in the UK], Dynamic Containment (DC) was launched in 2020 and its success has paved the way for Dynamic Regulation (DR)/Dynamic Moderation (DM) in early 2022.

Apart from these frequency services, National Grid also rolled out the Stability Pathfinder, a project to find the most cost-effective ways to address stability issues on the network. This includes assessing the inertia and Short-Circuit contribution of grid-forming based inverters. These services can not only help to build up a robust network, but also provide significant revenue for customers.

So the functionality of the PCS to provide different services will affect the choice of BESS system. 

DC-Coupled PV+ESS will start to play a more important role, as existing generation assets look to optimise performance.

PV and BESS are playing important role in the progress to net-zero. The combination of these two technologies have been explored and applied in lots of projects. But most of them are AC-coupled. 

The DC-coupled system can save the CAPEX of primary equipment (inverter system/transformer, etc), reduce the physical footprint, improve conversion efficiency and decrease PV production curtailment in the scenario of high DC/AC ratios, which can be of commercial benefit.

These hybrid systems will make PV output more controllable and dispatchable which will increase the value of the generated electricity. What’s more, the ESS system will be able to absorb energy at cheap times when the connection would otherwise be redundant, thus sweating the grid connection asset. 

Longer duration energy storage systems will also start to proliferate in 2022. 2021 was certainly the year of the emergence of utility-scale PV in the UK. The scenarios that suit long-duration energy storage including peak shaving, capacity market; improvement of the grid utilisation ratio to reduce transmission costs; easing peak load demands to reduce capacity upgrade investment, and ultimately reducing electricity costs and carbon intensity.

The market is calling for long term energy storage. We believe that 2022 will kick off the era of such technology. 

Hybrid Residential BESS will play an important role in the green energy production / consumption revolution at household level. Cost -effective, safe, Hybrid residential BESS which combine the roof’s PV, battery and a bi-directional plug-and-play inverter to achieve a home micro-grid. With the rise in energy costs biting and technology ready to help make the change, we expect rapid take-up in this area. 

Sungrow’s new ST2752UX liquid-cooled battery energy storage system with an AC-/DC-coupling solution for utility-scale power plants. Image: Sungrow.

How about in the years between now and 2030 — what might some of the longer-term tech trends influencing deployment be? 

There are several factors that will affect energy storage system deployment between 2022 to 2030.

The development of new battery cell technologies that can be put into commercial application will further push forward the rollout of energy storage systems. In the last few months, we have seen the huge jump in the raw material costs of lithium which leads to a price increase of energy storage systems. This may not be economically sustainable.

We expect that in the next decade, there will be lots of innovation in flow battery and liquid-state to solid-state battery field developments. Which technologies become viable will depend on the cost of raw materials and how quickly new concepts can be brought to market.

With the increased speed of deployment of battery energy storage systems since 2020, battery recycling has to be taken into consideration in the next few years when achieving the ‘End-of-Life’. This is very important to maintain a sustainable environment.

There are already many research institutions working on battery recycling research. They are focusing on themes such as ‘cascade utilisation’ (making use of resources sequentially) and ‘direct dismantling’. The energy storage system should be designed to allow ease of recycling.

The grid network structure will also affect the deployment of energy storage systems. At the end of 1880s, there was a battle for dominance of the electricity network between AC system and DC systems.

AC won, and is now the foundation of the electricity grid, even in the 21st century. However, this situation is changing, with high penetration of power electronic systems since the last decade. We can see the quick development of DC power systems from high-voltage (320kV, 500kV, 800kV, 1100kV) to DC Distribution Systems.

Battery energy storage may follow this change of network in the next decade or so.

Hydrogen is a very hot topic regarding the development of future energy storage systems. There is no doubt that Hydrogen will play an important role in the energy storage domain. But during the journey of hydrogen development, existing renewable technologies will also contribute massively. 

There are already some experimental projects using PV+ESS to provide power to electrolysis for hydrogen production. ESS will guarantee a green/uninterrupted power supply during the production process.

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Vistra’s large-scale battery storage project at Moss Landing, California, which repurposed a natural gas plant site. Image: Vistra Energy.

There is still plenty of educating decision-makers on storage’s place on the grid to do for other US states to follow in the footsteps of early-movers like California and Texas, and it goes beyond overcoming technical challenges.

That was the message from speakers on the ‘Evolving Grid’ panel discussion at Berkeley Lab’s virtual National Energy Storage Summit yesterday (9 March).

Kelly Sarber, CEO of consultancy Strategic Management Group & Board Member for storage association NY-BEST, started by explaining how California and Texas’ grids had achieved their GW-plus levels of storage deployment.

“It’s because those markets value the revenue stacks that developers can benefit from like resource adequacy, voltage or frequency support, backup peak power etc as well as being able to upgrade the transmission without necessarily investing in that transmission using very well-placed energy storage,” she said.

Energy storage experts have a big role to play in educating states’ decision-makers about storage’s place on the grid, she said. That would then allow them to replicate the early-movers ways of incentivising investment in the sector.

Haresh Kamath, Director of Energy Storage and DER Integration at research organisation Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) echoed this, saying: “We really have to make sure that the decision-makers are educated about the potential here to try to understand how energy storage fits in, not just from a technical standpoint, but also from a business and regulatory standpoint.”

Something all panellists touched on was the breadth of stakeholders that will be involved in the deployment and integration of energy storage into the grid at scale, and the challenges that involves.

Julia Souder, Executive Director of the Long Duration Energy Storage Association of California, highlighted one specific way of maximising the results of discussions between those different stakeholders:

“I think what also needs to happen is there needs to be a lot more funding from government and other sources to help improve the technical capacity of stakeholders, so that when we are discussing benefit cost ratio, or risks, or modelling, it’s a level playing field.”

There is also a need to get long-duration storage projects in the ground at full-scale by 2026 meaning they need to be kicked off in the next 12-15 months, said Ben Bollinger, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Malta Inc, a electro-thermal energy storage system technology provider.

But as well as new technologies and deployments, leveraging existing capacity in clever ways can also increase the amount of storage on the grid.

Christian Belady, Vice President and Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft said that the company has gigawatts of energy storage which provides backup power for servers and hence mostly sits idle. Microsoft is looking at ways it can participate those assets in the grid ancillary services market, he said.

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Inside display model of Eos’ zinc hybrid cathode battery, 2018. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media.

Eos Energy Enterprises has entered a master supply agreement with energy developer Bridgelink, through which up to 500MWh of Eos’ zinc battery storage systems could be deployed at projects in Texas, US. 

Bridgelink Commodities, a division of Bridgelink mainly focused on energy trading and operations and maintenance (O&M) activities, has committed to purchasing an initial 240MWh of Eos Znyth battery storage technology.

The deal could expand to the half gigawatt-hour figure over a three-year term. That would take the total value of the order up to US$150 million, Eos said in a release yesterday. 

Eos listed on NASDAQ in 2020 after a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger. Chief commercial officer Balki Iyer said that the Bridgelink deal grows the battery company’s backlog to a figure in excess of US$200 million and “rapidly approaching 1GWh” of orders. 

Eos is targeting US$400 million in booked orders for 2022 and considers its pipeline of commercial opportunities at present to stand at a value of more than US$4 billion.

In November last year, it announced another big sale to solar EPC company Blue Ridge Power, which is buying 300MWh of Znyth systems for multiple projects this year and next.

Bridgelink, which is developing more than 8GW of renewable energy projects, will use Eos’ proprietary zinc hybrid cathode batteries to reduce curtailment of generated renewable energy and provide balancing and resiliency services to Texas’ ERCOT grid.   

Texas has been identified as the leading US state for planned solar and battery storage capacity additions over 2022 and 2023 by the US government’s Energy Information Administration. 

Bridgelink Commodities is a Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE) to the ERCOT market, which means it can submit bids and offers on behalf of resource entities (RE) or load-serving entities (LSE) — including electric retail utilities. 

Bridgelink managing director William Flaherty said that Eos’ battery storage units, which come in three-hour duration increments, but can be stacked together to create long-duration energy storage with up to about 12-hours’ duration, were a perfect solution for his company’s needs. 

“ERCOT is a dynamic market that requires long-duration storage technology to achieve success in this evolving environment,” Flaherty said, adding that Eos’ zinc-based battery is safe, requires low operating expenditure and is made in the US.

Eos had noted that the deal with Bridgelink was at the letter of intent stage when reporting financial results in late February. The company has offered 2022 revenue guidance of US$50 million and recently got its programme of expansion underway at a manufacturing facility in Pittsburgh, ramping up to 800MWh annual production capacity. Eos secured a long-term supply deal for the zinc-bromide used in its battery electrolyte from sources in the US with chemicals company TETRA late last year.

In a recent Guest Blog for this site, Zinc Batteries Initiative trade group manager Dr Josef Daniel-Ivad described the metal as being versatile, abundant and promising for energy storage across a range of applications and different technologies.

“Now with 30 years of innovations under their proverbial battery belts, zinc battery developers are innovating their way around the challenges and are poised to compete effectively with their less safe and sustainable competitors,” Dr Daniel-Ivad wrote.

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Solar and battery storage dominate planned capacity additions through 2023, with another 10GW of battery storage. Image: US EIA.

From 10GW of battery storage expected to be deployed in the US over the next two years, more than 60% will be installed with solar PV, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The EIA conducts surveys to collect statistics on existing and planned generators and associated equipment at power plants, of 1MW or more nameplate capacity. The independent group is an agency of the US Federal Statistical System. 

In reporting its most recent monthly stats, the group noted that 3.1GW of battery storage was added in the US during 2021. This was a considerable increase on 2020, when cumulative installed capacity by the end of that year was found by EIA to be 1,650MW. 

It’s an even more phenomenal rise when considering that installed base was about 100MW a decade ago in 2012 and crossed the 1GW line only in 2019. Over the next two years, another 10GW is expected to be added across the country.

When installed together at the same time and meeting certain conditions on charging, solar PV and battery storage can qualify for the investment tax credit (ITC), which lowers the capital cost of investment.

This has been a powerful driver for solar-plus-storage in the US but has not applied to standalone energy storage, which does not qualify for the ITC without PV. Industry groups and advocates continue to lobby for the inclusion of storage in the ITC, as well as a direct-pay option to unlock ITC benefits more quickly and simply.

The falling costs of battery storage have also been cited as a driver for activity, albeit at the moment a combination of shipping delays, high demand from the EV sector and raw materials price shocks are among factors arresting the sharp-trajectories in cost reduction batteries have enjoyed for the last 10 years.

Industry battles supply chain uncertainty

Industry sources have commented that they see many of the issues — particularly those relating to the COVID-19 pandemic — resolving in the next few months. Some have also changed strategies, with energy storage technology provider Fluence recently deciding to include raw material index-based pricing in contracts.

Fluence and others are also seeking to lock in long-term supply contracts and increased production of batteries in North America and Europe as planned over the next few years will undoubtedly change the landscape further. 

Over the next two years, 41GW of utility-scale solar PV plants and 10GW of battery storage are planned by developers and operators of power plants, EIA said, which is 60% of the entire expected 85GW of capacity additions over the 2022-2023 timeframe. 

Texas, California and New York will be the leading states for solar and battery storage in that time, between them accounting for 27GW of new additions. The US will also see 16GW of natural gas and 15GW of wind power installed in the next two years. 

Sister site PV Tech reported that EIA expects 22GW of new utility-scale solar PV online in the US in 2022. The sector deployed 13GW in 2021.

EIA’s reported numbers for 2021 battery storage deployments are lower than the approximately 4.2GW of battery storage capacity found to have been added to the grid during last year in research by BloombergNEF, as recently reported on this site. 

BloombergNEF’s report, produced for The Business Council for Sustainable Energy, accounted for all segments of the storage market, from residential and commercial to industrial and utility-scale. 

Meanwhile a similar year-end 2021 report from the American Clean Power Association found 2.6GW of utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) deployments in the US during the year.  

You can keep up with the monthly and annual generator and electricity sector reports and other information from the EIA at its website here.

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FlexGen has been appointed as supplier of battery storage for the three-site project in California. Image: FlexGen.

Ameresco has secured a US$262 million increase to its credit facility, funding future growth and supporting the energy efficiency and renewable energy company’s 2.1GWh battery project in California. 

The company said earlier this week that an amendment and restatement has been made on its senior secured credit facility, arranged with lenders led by Bank of America, taking the total credit facility size to US$495 million. 

This includes an increase of US$200 million in Ameresco’s revolving loan facility, an increase to an existing term loan which takes it up to US$75 million and a new Delayed-Draw Term Loan A for up to US$220 million, the latter on an 18-month term. 

The funds will be used for both near and long-term growth objectives, starting with Ameresco’s design-build EPC agreement for 537MW/2,150MWh of battery storage, signed with California investor-owned utility (IOU) Southern California Edison (SCE). 

In reporting its fourth quarter and full-year financial results at the beginning of the month, Ameresco had said the contract awarded last October for the three battery storage plants to be built at SCE substations, had driven a significant rise in revenues.  

In an earnings call with analysts to explain those results, CEO George Sakellaris had said that following the announcement of the project, enquiries from electricity suppliers in the US into Ameresco’s battery energy storage system (BESS) offerings had also increased.

System integrator and technology provider FlexGen has been hired to supply the full BESS solutions for the three sites. 

In addition to the SCE project, Ameresco said the increased credit available will be used to grow the company’s energy asset portfolio, for potential acquisition opportunities and for general corporate purposes. 

“This large-scale [credit] facility will provide a low cost and flexible source of capital as we continue to develop and diversify our portfolio of cleantech solutions and renewable energy projects,” Ameresco CFO and executive VP Doran Hole said. 

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Sol-REIT LLC has closed a term loan refinancing of the Inspira solar project in southern New Jersey. With the closing of this loan, Sol-REIT will be moving quickly to execute upon its $300 million and growing loan origination pipeline of construction-to-permanent loan financing opportunities for middle-market solar projects across the United States.

To capitalize on its loan investments, Sol-REIT is completing its initial round of senior preferred equity investor commitments and is in the process of raising an additional $300 million in an institutional round.

“Middle-market solar developers are the backbone of our emerging industry,” says Mark Settles, Sol-REIT’s CEO. “Sol-REIT is proud to provide developers fixed-rate, long-term financing that finally closes the gap in developer access to capital.”

The Inspira solar project currently serves the 210-room Inspira Medical Center, the 100-acre campus in Mullica Hill, N.J. The borrower has executed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the medical center. Sol-REIT’s term loan finances the remaining 13 years of operations under the PPA. The ground-mount solar project comprises nearly 3,600 solar panels generating 1.8 million kWh of renewable electricity each year.

“Our offerings streamline access to capital for solar developers while providing investors much-needed access to green investments,” states Brian A. Sidman, Sol-REIT’s co-founder and head of capital markets. “Investments like these in a portfolio, backed by solar projects with Inspira coupled with high-quality energy off-takers, provide both income-generating opportunities and growth potential.”

Image: Photo by Jadon Kelly on Unsplash

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Image: rawpixel.com.

Technology group Honeywell and utility Duke Energy’s Sustainable Solutions arm will jointly develop and deliver microgrid solutions to US cities and communities to increase energy resilience in the event of grid-level outages.

The strategic alliance will combine distributed energy resources (DER) from Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions with Honeywell’s battery energy storage systems (BESS) and Smart Cities Software solution, to create municipal microgrids alongside city-owned assets.

Those microgrids will help cities to continue providing essential services like water distribution, wastewater treatment or community centers during power outages, the companies say. In 2020, there were just over eight hours of electric power interruptions in the US.

“A smart city starts with resilient and sustainable energy resources,” said Matthew Britt, general manager, Smart Cities and Communities, Honeywell Building Technologies. “Our collaboration with DESS will create energy resiliency programmes that help cities and communities better prepare for unexpected events as well as help manage and measure progress of their long-term environmental, social and governance goals.”

Honeywell says its Smart City Suite, an AI-enabled internet of things (IoT) platform, will help communities make faster, more informed decisions to serve citizens. A corporate brochure says the Suite includes safe city solutions, mobility solutions, citizen engagement e-governance and – most relevant for this area – utilities and services.

The latter covers street light management and waste management through a web portal dashboard, map-based visualisation, scheduler for street lighting, faulty systems alert and comprehensive analytics.

The companies have not said how many potential customers there are for its new microgrid solution. Honeywell says that the Smart City Software Suite is deployed in 75 cities worldwide totalling a population of over 100 million people, though this could be for any of its four different solutions.

The move with Duke is part of Honeywell’s Energy Equity Resiliency (HEER) initiative which works to create energy equity and community resiliency.

Microgrids are a growing trend for local communities as well as for mining and large industrial users of electricity.

As energy policymakers look to wean their grids off large fossil fuel-generating power plants, this can increase grid instability to due intermittent renewables but also involves some decentralisation of power supply and management by virtue of increasing the complexity of the system. And in places like California, growing wildfire risk has reduced the reliability of the centralised power grid irrespective of moves to renewables, making microgrids an important part of communities’ energy resiliency.

Honeywell is a Fortune 100 technology group which is active in four main segments: aerospace, building technologies, performance materials and technologies, and safety and productivity solutions. Energy storage is fast-growing business line for the group but, for now, a negligible part of its top line of US$34.3 billion last year.

Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions provides wind, solar, resilient backup power and managed energy services to over 1,000 projects across the US with a total electric capacity of more than 5.1GW of nonregulated renewable energy. It is part of utility Duke Energy, a Fortune 150 company.

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