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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The signing ceremony took place in front of attendees and media at RE+ 2022 in Anaheim, California. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media

FlexGen has signed a multi-year supply deal with CATL that the energy storage company’s CEO said puts it ahead of the queue in a crunch time for battery supply.

Kelcy Pegler spoke exclusively to Energy-Storage.news immediately after signing the 10GWh, three-year deal with the Chinese battery manufacturer, live at the RE+ 2022 tradeshow in Anaheim, California.

Throughout the show, supply chain constraints for battery storage have been a constant topic of discussion among the 20,000 attendees.

While the sector has long benefited from the scale and cost reductions coming from mass production of electric vehicles (EVs), demand from the EV market has now grown so much that it is eating up nearly all available supply, leaving little to none left for battery energy storage systems (BESS).  

“The market has become clear that there will be haves and have nots of battery supply, and we’ve really made it our intention to make sure that our customers will be in the have column,” Pegler said.

“This capacity agreement ensures that our customers’ projects will have batteries on time and will lead to successful projects.”

FlexGen’s Master Supply Agreement covers the delivery of CATL’s containerised liquid-cooled battery system, EnerC, which the energy storage integrator and software specialist will use for customer projects in the US.

EnerC is claimed to have an energy density of up to 259.7kWh per square metre and is targeted for multi-megawatt-hour applications, with an expected 20-year system lifetime.  

Model of CATL’s EnerC system at the RE+ tradeshow. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media.

CATL is one of the world’s biggest battery manufacturers, and crucially has also pursued a strategy of building up dedicated manufacturing capacity to serve the BESS market, which FlexGen’s Kelcy Pegler said was “at the forefront of our attraction to this partnership”.

Also key was CATL’s reputation and bankability as a Tier 1 supplier, Pegler said.

CATL’s hardware will be integrated with FlexGen’s Hybrid OS energy management system (EMS) software platform to create turnkey BESS solutions for utilities, merchant electricity markets and cooperative and municipal energy suppliers.

FlexGen’s current projects include integration work at a 2.15GWh, three-project BESS portfolio clean energy company Ameresco is building for utility Southern California Edison (SCE). In August it announced that it will provide software and battery storage systems to a 100MW Texas BESS portfolio owned by sustainable investment group SUSI Partners.

The firm has drawn significant recent investment: in August 2021, a US$150 million equity investment was arranged by asset manager Apollo and in July this year a Series C funding round closed with US$100 million raised from investors including Dutch energy trader Vitol.

FlexGen and CATL have already worked together on around 2.5GWh of energy storage system projects and Pegler said customer demand is so high that the contracted 10GWh will be “absorbed” into the energy storage integrator’s project pipeline with “reasonable ease”.

“This agreement allows everyone to plan more transparently together, not just for this quarter or this year, but through that portfolio visibility of several years,” Pegler said.

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Jennifer Morris (Credit: The Nature Conservancy)

Microsoft Corp., Planet Labs PBC and The Nature Conservancy are launching the Global Renewables Watch (GRW), a living atlas intended to map and measure all utility-scale solar and wind installations on Earth using artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery, allowing users to evaluate clean energy transition progress and track trends over time.

With initial mapping of solar and wind energy installations in Germany and India, as well as solar installations in Brazil and Egypt completed, the GRW is being built to serve as a publicly available renewable energy atlas with country-by-country insights into production progress and development trends. With access to satellite data dating back to 2018, and plans to update the atlas twice annually, the GRW aims to show countries’ renewable energy capacity, assist in understanding that capacity, and recognize patterns about the potential impact of the renewable energy siting on the landscape over time rather than as a moment in time.

The first full global inventory is expected to be completed by early 2023, at which point the results will undergo both scientific and technical validation. For this joint program, Microsoft is providing the AI and platform technology, Planet is contributing the underlying satellite imagery, and The Nature Conservancy is overlaying the subject-matter expertise to analyze the output.

“The theme for Climate Week NYC this year is ‘getting it done,’ and to do that, we need to move from pledges to progress,” says Jennifer Morris, The Nature Conservancy’s CEO. “Global Renewables Watch, which is a result of collaboration between Microsoft, The Nature Conservancy and Planet, is exactly the kind of action we need to see. This will be a publicly accessible resource to help researchers and policymakers understand current capacities and gaps so that decision-makers can scale much-needed renewable energy resources in a responsible, nature-friendly way.”

Current methods for tracking solar and wind energy projects globally are an immensely complex undertaking, cutting across countless jurisdictions and with much of the data held by private organizations. The GRW aims to provide this data by coupling AI with high-resolution satellite imagery and presenting it in a dynamically updated time series.

“Each of the partners brings unique knowledge and value-add to this initiative,” states Will Marshall, Planet’s co-founder and CEO. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so by combining Microsoft’s AI and cloud computing capabilities, Planet’s comprehensive and high-resolution satellite imagery, and The Nature Conservancy’s deep subject-matter expertise, we hope to build a powerful platform for surfacing – and democratizing access to – renewable energy data.”  

The partners will continue to map additional countries and are aiming to build awareness of the tool among those tasked with managing the world’s clean energy transition in the weeks leading up to and during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, taking place in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, Nov. 6-18, 2022.   

“The world needs access to data in order to make responsible environmental decisions, and the Global Renewables Watch will serve as a critical tool for understanding humanity’s progress toward fulfilling the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all,” mentions Juan Lavista Ferres, Microsoft’s VP and chief data scientist.

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The LDES Council is aiming for deployment of between 85TWh and 140TWh of long-duration energy storage worldwide by 2040. Image: Kenueone / Pixabay.

Oil and gas major TotalEnergies, thermal energy storage system company 1414 Degrees and six other companies have joined the Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council.

The CEO-led organisation, founded at COP26 last year, said the new members have joined towards the end of quarter three.

The LDES Council has welcomed four new technology members – companies providing long duration energy storage solutions – and four new anchor members – companies with interests or operations within the broader energy sector.

The new technology members are: molten silicon thermal energy storage system (TESS) provider 1414 Degrees, high-density hydro energy storage startup RheEnergise, broader heating solutions company Thermowatt and Mine Storage, a company which says it operates medium-to-large-scale power storage solutions in underground mines.

New anchor members are UAE state-owned aluminium conglomerate Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), energy company EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, mining and metals group South32, and TotalEnergies.

The Council was set up to enable the deployment of between 85TWh and 140TWh of long-duration energy storage worldwide by 2040. It recently said the LDES sector will need significant policy support to achieve this until 2030-35.

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The company’s String Optimizer. Image: Ampt.

Power conversion technology provider Ampt has received an order for its String Optimizers to power a large solar-plus-storage plant with an energy capacity of 600MWh in California.

The Colorado-based firm will provide its Ampt String Optimizers to connect the PV system to 600MWh of energy storage through a shared DC bus. The plant will supply power to the California grid operated by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).

The nameplate power of the solar PV array is 380MW, making this the company’s largest project order to-date. In July, it delivered 240MW of its String Optimizers to Latin America’s largest solar-plus-storage project in Chile, as reported by Energy-Storage.news’ sister site PV Tech.

Ampt String Optimizers are DC/DC converters that improve system performance by applying maximum power point tracking (MPPT) to each string of PV modules and then delivering that full power at a high and fixed voltage, whereas other systems suffer from a variable and lower voltage, the company claimed.

It added that this reduces the requirements of entire systems, which then lowers the costs of electrical components such as cables, battery converters and inverters, and that the predictable DC bus voltage also simplifies battery and inverter controls to improve grid responsiveness of the power plant assets.

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The zinc-iron flow battery technology was originally developed by ViZn Energy Systems. Image: Vizn / WeView.

Shanghai-based WeView has raised US$56.5 million in several rounds of financing to commercialise the zinc-iron flow battery energy storage systems technology originally developed by ViZn Energy Systems.

WeView announced yesterday (21 September) that it had completed the fundraising rounds in the last six months with a total amount raised exceeding RMB400 million (US$56.5 million). Investors include Gaorong Capital, Songhe Capital, Ultrasound Juneng, Dashu Evergreen, ZhenFund and other venture capital firms.

The money will go towards the development of its zinc-iron liquid flow batteries and the construction of gigafactories, with an aim to exceed a gigawatt of production capacity by the end of 2023. The company appears to be directly continuing the work of the original developer of the technology, US group ViZn Energy Systems.

In 2019, WeView partnered with ViZn, which had developed the zinc-iron flow battery technology, as reported by Energy-Storage.news at the time. The companies said then that WeView was preparing a GW-scale manufacturing facility in China for ViZn’s energy storage technology, in a deal which also involved WeView taking a minority stake in ViZn as well as a technology licensing agreement for the China market.

The deal came shortly after ViZn had to furlough a majority of staff in 2018 because of a lack of funding after a major investor was unable to lead a further fundraising round, as CEO at the time Steve Bonner told Energy-Storage.news.

Bonner was succeeded shortly after that by John Lowell, who secured the deal with WeView. His LinkedIn profile says he stayed at the company until August this year, and appears to reveal that a Chinese company, presumably WeView, acquired a majority stake in ViZn in 2020.

“Controlling interest in ViZn was successfully sold to Chinese strategic partner in Q1 of 2020,” it reads.

ViZn still has a website but it has not been updated since 2016.

WeView, founded in 2018, describes itself as a company focusing on grid-level energy storage technology targeting system integrators, new power plants, power grids and commercial and industrial (C&I) users with the ‘world’s leading zinc-iron flow battery technology’.

It was founded as a joint venture company formed by companies including Hasen Electric and Shanghai Lingxin (controlled by Jingyi Electrical), both power conversion and switchgear equipment makers.

WeView plans to invest around RMB10 billion (US$1.4 billion) in its technology over the next five years, building a 5GW factory, research & development base and electrolyte production centre.

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The Commission and Parliament have ramped up their energy policy announcements in the past week. Image: European Union 2017 – European Parliament.

Recent policy announcements from the European Union could boost the energy storage market, an analyst says, but also reveal inherent weaknesses of the bloc’s free electricity market.

Energy was a prominent theme in Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union Address on 14 September, and was preceded by a raft of proposed market interventions by the European Commission and followed by the European Parliament approving the 45% renewables target for 2030 set out earlier in the year by RePowerEU. Some countries have also increased their own targets.

“There is no doubt that the more intermittent renewables on the grid, the more flexible technologies such as energy storage will be required to integrate them,” Corentin Baschet, head of market analysis at energy storage consultancy Clean Horizon told Energy-Storage.news.

The Commission’s proposals for temporary market intervention to mitigate the energy crisis, which is set to amplify substantially over winter, are three-fold.

The first is a mandatory target to reduce electricity consumption during peak hours by 5%. The second is a cap on the revenues of energy producers with low production costs, like renewables and nuclear, and for those excess profits to be re-invested to support the vulnerable (energy storage is not classed as one of these ‘inframarginal’ producers). The third is a solidarity contribution, or windfall tax, on the record profits of oil and gas companies.

Taking France as an example, Baschet said that the installation of 3,500 MW/7,000MWh of energy storage would be enough to achieve the 5% reduction there, if the assets charged and discharged twice a day (night and morning, and then afternoon and evening, respectively).

“However these measures are meant to be effective from December 2022 to end of March 2023 which means that there is not enough time for the deployment to take place,” he cautioned. “What will determine whether or not storage will benefit from this obligation is the set of measures that will be enforced in each country to deal with this obligation”.

We could see some residential and commercial & industrial (C&I) customers install and commission energy storage units within that timeframe to reduce their peak demand, but the effect of these on the overall system will be marginal, he added.

And the more telling aspect of the EU’s announcements is not necessarily the interventions themselves but what they reveal about the energy market today, Baschet said.

“I believe that this set of emergency measures also reveals a key weakness of the European free electricity market: private sector investors make decisions based on market prices which are highly volatile, it is thus very complex for them to make investment decisions.

“These type of incentives to reduce dependency on imported gas would have a lot more effect if they were planned ahead with clear mechanisms to remunerate infrastructure over the years (for instance encouraging C&I to reduce their peak consumption for the next five years rather than for the next four months).”

The limitations of formulating a business model based on market prices was something alluded to by German contacts discussing the country’s utility-scale market in a special report published in Vol.32 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry.

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