The majority of the batteries were sold with the PV system, meaning around one-in-four PV systems come with a battery, and there are now 1.1 million home batteries installed across the continent.

It’s not clear if the 83% figure refers to growth in annual installations or growth in absolute installations to-date, but the figures imply the former.

The figures tally quite closely with those from trade body SolarPower Europe, which expected 420,000 home batteries to come online in 2022 pushing Europe “over the one million mark”, it said at the end of the year.

That equated to a total installed home battery storage capacity of 9.3GWh, SolarPower Europe added, with home battery systems typically anywhere from a few kWh to up to 20kWh at the largest.

The primary drivers leading the move to more home battery storage installations are three-fold, LCP said.

Consumers are increasingly looking to protect themselves from volatility in the energy market, while a shift away from feed-in-tariffs and net metering schemes and an increasing focus on optimising the self-consumption of PV are also contributing.

LCP Delta’s Dina Darshini commented: “The battery market is entering its early growth phase as more operators come into the market and the number of suitably qualified installers gradually increases.

“However, for the market to reach the next growth phase there is scope for policy initiatives to help increase uptake from households. For example, in Italy homeowners can get access to government subsidies which cover 90% of the cost of battery storage as the government encourages uptake.”

This is the ‘superbonus’, which has seen the Italian market grow to the second-largest in Europe after Germany, according to SolarPower Europe’s figures, although Germany is the largest by far.

Residential batteries have been the biggest segments in both Germany and Italy in the past few years, although the grid-scale market is starting to pick up in both too. Both countries have been the topic of feature articles in PV Tech Power in the past year, Solar Media’s downstream journal for the solar and storage markets; Italy’s for the most recent and Germany’s last year.

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The renewables developer is focused on the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment, providing low carbon energy solutions for energy intensive industries where abating emissions is challenging. Founded in 2022, it has attracted US$650 million in investment commitments from global investment group KKR and is working on a 4GW portfolio of renewable energy projects.

Earlier this month Serentica announced 1.25GW of renewable energy supply deals with unnamed “multiple industrial customers”, adding to 580MW of contracts already signed.

Meanwhile Greenko Group has an installed base of more than 7.3GW of solar, wind and hydroelectric renewables projects of its own, and is active in 15 states in India. It is developing a targeted 50GWh of PHES around the country to be added to its “Energy Storage Cloud Platform”.

Greenko directly contracts with corporate offtakers like metals company ArcellorMittal and infrastructure conglomerate Adani, and last year won a tender with Indian state-owned power producer NTPC with a bid costed at the equivalent of US$58/MWh for a once daily-cycled 500MW/3,000MWh PHES plant, claiming the cost goes down to as low as US$29/MWh for applications requiring more than one cycle per day.  

Greenko and Serentica first signalled their intent to create a joint offering of 24/7 round-the-clock (RTC) renewable energy a few months ago, leveraging energy storage specialist Greenko’s new-build pumped hydro plants and Serentica’s wind power and solar PV assets. As reported by Energy-Storage.news, an agreement was signed in November 2022.

Earlier this week (10 July), Serentica Renewables said it will be able to offer customers a guarantee of more than 95% renewable energy supplied, with an assurance of 85% per 15-minute block of time, enabled by the two plants’ 6-hour duration storage resources.

Serentica is a subsidiary of UK-Indian mining group Vedanta Resources through Twinstar Overseas, a Verdanta subsidiary which also owns India-focused power transmission developer Sterlite Power.

Expected commissioning dates for the closed loop PHES in Pinnapuram, Andra Pradesh and Gandhi Sagyar, Madha Pradesh were not mentioned in the release from Serentica.

At this week’s Energy Storage Summit Asia 2023, hosted in Singapore by our published Solar Media, the concept of RTC renewable energy contracts, particularly for industrial customers in India, was a frequently-referred to topic by speakers and attendees.

Some developments in that space reported by Energy-Storage.news in recent months include tenders from NTPC’s renewables and energy trading subsidiaries and the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and a US$1 billion financing for RTC projects by developer ReNew Power, claimed to be the largest deal of its type in the space to date.

While much of the interest in RTC deal has been for PHES-enabled offerings, ReNew Power’s was focused on a mix of renewable energy backed by battery energy storage system (BESS) technologies. Meanwhile according to various media reports NTPC Renewable Energy has just launched a new 2GWh tender for pumped hydro projects.

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Energy-Storage.news reported on the project back in 2017, which sought to show how the technology can reliable help the grid integrate renewables and improve flexibility, and the research has shown high long-term operating rates and capacity retention rates.

The ex-post evaluation by external experts was concluded in December 2022 with a results presentation and tour of the site in February earlier this year (viewable on Youtube), but Sumitomo only announced the completion publicly last week (7 July).

The external experts gave high marks on the four evaluation items with “many positive comments”, Sumitomo said, outlined in the table below. Much of the comments and research relates to the suitability of the technology for use in Japan.

“The knowledge obtained through this demonstration project will be particularly useful in forming an electricity market in Japan and creating a system for its operation, and it will serve as a basis for promoting and achieving decarbonisation in Japan,” said one expert comment.

“Technically, it is extremely significant that the storage battery system showed a high operating rate (99% in the final year of the project) and durability (a capacity retention rate of 90% or more for 20-years) in the actual electricity market.”

The project was part-funded by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz).

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) finds vanadium-alternative in ‘record-breaking experiment’

Sumitomo’s technology uses vanadium as an electrolyte, as most redox flow battery companies do.

However, US national lab PNNL said this week that it found a common food and medicine additive alternative that can “…boost the capacity and longevity of a next-generation flow battery design in a record-setting experiment”. The study was published in journal Joule.

The lab said the flow battery project maintained its capacity to store and release energy for more than a year of continuous charge and discharge, using a simple sugar derivative called β-cyclodextrin. Use of the derivative of starch boost the battery’s longevity and capacity.

The scientists optimised the ratio of chemicals in the system until it achieved 60% more peak power.

Then, they cycled the battery continuously for over a year, only stopping the experiment when the plastic tubing failed. During this time, the flow battery “barely lost any of its activity to recharge”.

PNNL claimed it is the first laboratory-scale flow battery experiment to report minimal loss of capacity after a year of continuous use.

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National Grid, an electricity, natural gas, and clean energy delivery company serving New York and Massachusetts, recently launched its first-ever solar grazing pilot at two company-owned solar sites in Attleboro, Mass.

The pilot – in partnership with Solar Shepherd, a Massachusetts-based company founded by a third-generation rancher – combines renewable energy and agriculture by introducing sheep to feed on the plentiful grasses that grow around ground-mounted solar panels, providing a sustainable form of vegetation control.

The practice of harnessing grazing livestock as natural groundskeepers is a variation of agrivoltaics, described by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the use of land for both agriculture and solar photovoltaic energy generation. The pilot launched in May 2023 with an aim to replace traditional landscaping methods with a cleaner solution. It also adds an additional purpose to large-scale solar site locations, supporting agricultural production and local Massachusetts ranchers as they adapt and advance their businesses.

“Grazing sheep reduce the need for herbicides, pesticides and gas-powered lawnmowers, cutting down on carbon emissions and noise pollution at solar sites and the surrounding community,” says Arnaldo Arnal, a lead product developer at National Grid. “Over time, the sheep’s natural fertilizer has the potential to boost soil biodiversity and enhance carbon sequestration on company land.”

National Grid currently owns and operates 30 solar sites in Massachusetts, including its solar grazing locations in Attleboro, which collectively comprise 5,000 panels spanning 10 acres of land. The two grazing sites inject a total of 1600 kW into the grid, providing load relief to a nearby substation during peak summer days. National Grid expects to introduce grazing sheep to other sites as its solar portfolio expands.

Photo by Vincent Delsuc on Pexels.

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“Northern Colorado has been a great home to Microvast, and we are excited to expand our operations by opening a manufacturing facility in Windsor,” said Zach Ward, president of the Microvast Energy Division.

“The Windsor facility is expected to be operational in 2023 and is poised to play a significant role in delivering superior energy storage systems (ESS) to the fast-growing, utility-scale energy storage market, while boosting the local economy and creating more jobs here in Colorado.”

The company did not reveal the annual capacity of the manufacturing plant but said it would provide nearly 100,000 square feet of production space. It will produce its ME-4300 ESS, 20-foot battery container for which it claims an industry-leading 4.3MWh energy capacity, powered by its 53.5-Ah battery cells while will be produced in a Tennessee gigafactory, starting in Q4 this year.

Microvast said the plant will help it optimise its supply chain, reduce lead times for delivering the ESS solutions to US customers. The company is headquartered in Texas, with manufacturing plants in Tennessee, Germany and China.

Alleged links to the Chinese government have been criticised by Republican politicians in light of its applications for a Department of Energy (DOE) grant for a new plant in Kentucky, which was set to be approved only for the DOE to cancel it in May. Microvast has denied the links in a statement and fact sheet.

Colorado State Representative Mike Lynch said: “I am thrilled about the exciting expansion of Microvast in Windsor, Colorado. Microvast’s investment is significant for our state, as it will create economic growth, new jobs, and important technological advancements. Colorado is a hub for innovation, especially in clean energy. Microvast’s expansion is part of this trend, and it will have a positive impact on our local economy and inspire other companies to invest in our great state.”

The ESS factory will also help Microvast’s customers benefit from a 10% ‘domestic content’ adder to the investment tax credit (ITC), which the Inflation Reduction Act extended to standalone energy storage having previously only applied to generation or generation-plus-storage.

The domestic content adder requires a minimum of 40% of an ESS project’s products and components (calculated on cost) to be made in the US, rising to 55% in 2027, the IRS revealed in May. Since battery cells typically account for 40-50% of a project’s cost, using Microvast’s Tennessee cells alone would most likely make a system qualify, but its full ESS product with in-house cells makes it a certainty.

However, some sources believe the cost disclosure of an ESS that appears to be needed to file for the domestic content adder may prove problematic for the industry, although there are varying views on this as reported in our article last week on the topic (Premium access).

Other companies which will be building both lithium-ion cells and containerised ESS solutions using those cells in the US are Turkish firm Pomega and US outfit Kore Power.

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The project in Troy, Vermont, will have a capacity of 3MW, making it EVLO’s third-largest project by capacity, behind the Tonnerre project in France and the Parent facility in Canada. It is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

The project will consist of three EVLO 1000 battery units, each with a capacity of 1MW, and the EVLOGIX monitoring and management system, which EVLO will use to assess and manage the project for 20 years.

“EVLO is proud to lend its decades-long experience and technical expertise in battery energy storage systems development and operations to this renewable integration project,” said Sonia St-Arnaud, president and CEO of EVLO. “Battery energy storage systems are a key means to transform the grid since they help reduce peak demand events and enable renewable energy generation.

“This project provides an exciting opportunity to demonstrate how they can benefit utility customers and New England’s energy system.”

The project’s US$2 million cost will be shared among EVLO and the US Department of Energy through the Sandia National Laboratories, a series of research institutions owned by the US government and operated by a subsidiary of Honeywell International. The project received government funding through Sandia’s Electrical Energy Storage Demonstration Projects program, an initiative which has offered support to 17 BESS projects around the world.

The project will also provide data to the US Department of Energy and the Sandia National Laboratories on how the grid is used in the north-east of the US. With new battery technology seeing considerable interest and investment from those in the sector, collecting and assessing data from BESS projects will provide vital insights that could inform future decisions made in the US energy sector.

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The money will go towards scaling up production of its Max solution, a mobile BESS unit which Allye claimed is the “world’s first mobile energy storage system to repurpose healthy battery packs from electric vehicles (EV)”.

Repurposing of used EV batteries into BESS units, or second life energy storage, has been covered extensively by Energy-Storage.news.

Max is a 300kWh unit that Allye is aiming to deploy as a replacement for diesel generators, which are often used in construction sites but also by the UK’s grid operator National Grid and smaller distribution network operators (DNOs) to maintain regional networks.

It expects to provide its first systems for industrial users in Q3 this year, and is targeting 10,000 Max units by 2030 with an installed capacity of 3GWh. From that year onwards, it wants to install 5,000 units annually. Target revenues for 2024 are £8.5 million with £45 million in 2025.

Allye CEO Jonathan Carrier said in a statement: “Elbow Beach Capital and Alpha Future Fundsshare a commitment beyond the financial. They believe smart energy storage can acceleratethe decarbonisation of the electricity grid and help businesses and households accesscleaner, cheaper energy. This investment will provide us with the platform for future success.”

The company also wants to develop solutions for commercial and residential markets.

Allye’s claim of its product being a world-first may be true of a proprietary mobile BESS solution developed in-house by a company, but it is unlikely to be the first time that EV batteries have been configured into such a unit.

Norwegian firm Evyon last year told Energy-Storage.news for Vol.33 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry, that it was selling its second life BESS solution to companies building charging solutions for construction sites, which would presumably be ‘mobile’ to some extent.

Allye’s founding team of Jonathan Carrier, Jack Levy and Lorenzo Bergamaschi bring automotive industry experience from Arrival, McLaren and Jaguar Land Rover.

Mobile BESS solutions hold much promise thanks to being greener and quieter than diesel generators. US company Moxion recently saw California Governor Gavin Newsom visit its factory in the state which, once operational, promises to have an annual production capacity of 7GWh. Tech giant Amazon recently ordered its products for film and TV production sites.

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As part of the agreement, Eku is already funding projects with over 100MW of combined capacity in the South of the country, where renewable energy penetration from solar PV is high.

Sandra Grauers Nilsson, CEO of Eku Energy commented: “Italy is a key market for Eku Energy as we continue our global expansion, and we’re thrilled to have partnered with Renera Energy to help meet the country’s growing need for energy storage.”

Lars Konersmann, CEO of Renera Energy Italy commented: “Battery storage is the perfect complement for renewable energy production. Combining it with our Solar Power Plant pipeline we are moving Italy an important step ahead on the way to a completely renewable energy supply.”

Italy is forecast to be the third-largest energy storage market in Europe by 2030 by which date transmission system operator (TSO) Terna aims to have a renewable energy mix of 65%, Eku said.

Battery storage projects in the south will primarily provide load shifting of renewables while those in the north will be more focused on ancillary services to the grid.

Energy-Storage.news recently did a deep-dive on the grid-scale energy storage market in Italy for Vol.35 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry.

Since then battery storage news has come thick and fast. Developer Altea Green Power announced it was selling 2GW of early-stage projects, developers Emeren and Matrix Renewables signed a 1.5GW development agreement, while UK-based Aura Power had a 200MW/800MWh project approved.

They have joined UK company Field, Innovo Group and Aquila who last year announced plans to deploy storage in Italy, each of whom we interviewed for the PV Tech Power feature.

But most importantly, Italy’s energy regulator ARERA approved new market rules which allow Terna to run large-scale auctions for battery storage, which are now being consulted on with the industry with the first auctions set for late 2023/24.

The Eku and Renera deal appears to be similar to Emeren and Matrix’s, with one party, Renera, taking charge of more of the early-stage development work before transferring the projects at a later stage to Eku, which will own and operate the projects.

Global investor Macquarie launched Eku Energy in November last year through its Green Investment Group (GIG) vehicle, but is now jointly owned with Canadian pension fund BCI. Eku Energy has a pipeline of 1.2GWh of battery storage projects “in delivery” globally.

These include a 40MW project in England and a 150MW project in Australia, both inherited from GIG.

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This is an extract of a feature which appeared in Vol.35 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.

Introduction

BESS projects do not only come with high costs, but also with high risks of failure or unplanned downtime. Between 2015 and 2022, 58% of energy storage system failures happened in the first two years of operation. Two thirds of the incidents occurred in the first year, shortly after the storages were deployed. 

These incidents have many different causes, from cell and fan issues, cooling system errors, inverter breaks, battery management system (BMS) malfunctions, and more. Figure 1 above illustrates this point with data taken from the EPRI BESS Failure Event Database.  

Get what you pay for (since you are paying a lot!) 

Commissioning 

Before deploying an energy storage system, a process generally referred to as “commissioning” takes place to test and verify that the storage system and its components are installed and configured correctly.  

Commissioning is performed once the project is handed over from the EPC to the owner. The aim is also to test the operability of the storage at its initial state in terms of performance, reliability and safety. To put it simply, not only are the keys handed over, but also the responsibilities and risks regarding the asset. 

Industry standards for commissioning reports have not yet been developed, but more and more common practices are emerging. 

What commissioning typically includes 

The part of the commissioning covering the battery typically includes information such as the system’s capacity, efficiency, and power output. It also includes details on issues that were identified during the commissioning process and the steps taken to resolve them. Additionally, the report will serve as the foundation in case of warranty claims or disputes about the asset’s status.  

What commissioning does not typically include 

However, conventional storage commissioning comes with drawbacks.

One of the significant drawbacks of commissioning reports for batteries is that they often focus on the system level, which is not where most issues are happening. Most problems occur at the sub-component level, such as individual cells, modules or strings. 

The overall system performance is determined by the weakest sub-component; hence it is essential to identify underperforming and high-risk strings and modules as early as possible. Identifying and replacing these underperforming sub-components can significantly improve the efficiency and lifespan of the system. However, commissioning reports that only focus on the system level may not provide this level of detail, leading to continued use of underperforming sub-components and decreased efficiency. 

The benefits of more insights into storage commissioning

Deeper insights than can be provided with onsite commissioning are crucial to get an overall picture of the asset and uncover more manufacturing failures, system design failures or other issues. 

Let’s look into the inside of a storage system and at three common findings that could be fixed with additional KPIs. 

You got off to a great start – now keep up the good work! 

Successful commissioning and the detection of potential anomalies in the early phase of storage life is only the first step to profitable and reliable energy storage operations. After deployment, in-life monitoring and analytics is essential to ensure high availability and avoid safety-critical incidents. 

In-life analytics for a safe and healthy operation 

Using safety analytics, possible safety incidents can not only be identified, but grouped into meaningful technical units so that trends can be detected, and Operation & Maintenance (O&M) teams can plan and act accordingly.  

One temperature or voltage value outside the boundaries is not necessarily a cause for immediate concern, but an accumulation could be a long-term risk. Values occurring outside safety-critical thresholds must be interpreted correctly and considered in the context of other KPIs. Notifications can be helpful in finding out when an unsafe level has been reached. This is where battery analytics is the ideal solution. 

To make it more concrete, a vital component of battery safety involves detecting anomalies and trends outside the norm. Deviations from the average distribution in resistance and temperature, for example, could indicate side reactions within battery cells. These are the incidents you want to know about and fix as quickly as possible. Having enough time to fix such anomalies before they escalate will help to keep storage availability high. 

Energy storage management systems (ESMS) usually do not provide sufficient information to ensure health and safety of energy storage systems. Such systems do not provide an analysis of historical data and hence do not supply the necessary data to detect long term trends or anomalies.  

Conclusion 

Battery energy storage systems are valuable assets. As much as BESS are advantageous in storing and trading energy, reliable insights are essential to ensure continuous operation and optimal performance of the batteries. At the beginning of the storage life, the storage needs to be commissioned. However, the main concern with conventional commissioning is that it often lacks detailed insights into the batteries. Digital commissioning can provide the necessary insights to ensure problems can be solved before deployment. This lays the foundation for a safe and long lifetime as well as high availability. 

Digital commissioning is one option to deal with these challenges. Once digital commissioning has been carried out on an asset, the data connection is established and in-life analytics can finish what digital commissioning has started. 

About the Authors  

Dr. Stephan Rohr is Co-CEO of TWAICE. Before founding TWAICE with Dr. Michael Baumann, Stephan completed his Ph.D. at the Technical University of Munich after working in start-ups, PE, and in consulting. 

Sebastian Becker: Sebastian is Director of Partnerships & Industry Strategy for the Energy sector at TWAICE. In his role, he drives the TWAICE go-to-market approach to enable integrators, developers and owners of battery energy storage systems to get the most of their assets.  

Dr. Matthias Simolka: Matthias Simolka is part of Technical Solution Engineering at TWAICE. In this capacity, Matthias bridges the gap between Sales, Product and Tech, working with all teams to ensure maximum value and the optimal solution is delivered to battery customers. 

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The authority last Friday (7 July) launched the next phase in an ongoing programme to support the development of clean energy solutions suitable for Singapore’s specific needs, supporting its transition to a net zero economy by 2050.

Then, yesterday the EMA announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to work on the development of renewable energy generation and transmission across the ASEAN region, and to collaborate on establishing a cross-border power grid for ASEAN countries.

The EMA said the nation’s challenges include its hot and humid tropical climate, densely populated urban environment and land constraints. It is seeking proposals for industry-led projects to further R&D development to overcome these challenges, as well as helping lower the cost of energy storage systems and optimising them for safety.

Its Grant Call for energy storage is an invitation to industry and researchers to work on developing those solutions, and is open until mid-September.

Violet Chen, a director at the industry development department of the Energy Market Authority was among the speakers at the Energy Storage Asia Summit 2023, hosted this week in Singapore by our publisher Solar Media.

Taking part in a panel discussion on Singapore’s perspectives on energy storage, Chen said that with power sector emissions comprising around 40% of total emissions, it is a must to decarbonise it “as we move towards a clean energy future”.

Doing that will require promotion and advancement of cleaner thermal generation from gas, deployment of solar PV – and developing an ASEAN regional grid, Chen said.

The EMA manages the grid as well as energy markets, and quickly recognised that the introduction of higher shares of solar would present an intermittency of generation that energy storage can help manage.

Violet Chen’s role includes facilitating public-private partnerships as a crucial aspect of the EMA’s role in developing a “vibrant ecosystem to support the energy transition,” and key pieces of that include innovation to overcome those constraints and knowledge exchange to share learnings from projects.

Chen said that the authority was aware that the energy storage industry wants to be involved in this ecosystem development and the EMA was “very excited” to launch the Grant Call.

As regular readers of Energy-Storage.news may know, Singapore already reached a 200MW energy storage deployment target two years ahead of time with the start of commercial operations at a large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) at Jurong Island, which is home to much of the country’s energy generation infrastructure.

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