Image: National Grid ESO.

The UK will have 50GW-plus of energy storage installed by 2050 in a best case scenario attainment of net zero, according to grid operator National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios report.

The report’s broader conclusions around the energy sector were covered in detail by Energy-Storage.news’ sister site Current yesterday.

It is published by the National Grid ESO (electricity system operator) each year and outlines four different pathways for the future of energy to 2050, including the energy storage deployments each entails (covering all technologies including batteries, pumped hydro, air-based solutions etc).

Four different Future Energy Scenarios with storage deployments

In the ‘Falling Short’ scenario, which does not achieve Net Zero, the UK will only have around 22GW/60GWh of energy storage.

‘System Transformation’ and ‘Consumer Transformation’ both achieve net zero but with the latter involving higher societal changes, like electrified heating, consumers willing to change behaviour, high energy-efficiency and demand side flexibility. The former entails 32GW/115GWh deployed and the latter around 40GW/165GWh deployed, by 2050.

In ‘Leading the Way’, the best-case scenario, the UK will have deployed just over 50GW of energy storage power and just under 200GWh of capacity.

The capacity of different types of storage by 2030/50 under ‘Consumer Transformation’ are illustrated in the report’s graph below.

Roles for storage in providing flexibility

Currently, the vast majority of flexibility provided to the system, totalling nearly 18TWh, is from natural gas. As of the end of 2021, the non-gas assets comprise 25.8GWh of pumped hydro and 1.6GWh of battery storage.

Electricity storage capacity is set to increase in all scenarios to ensure peak demand can be met reliably as an increasing proportion of the UK’s electricity is generated from weather dependent renewables.

The main roles for electrical energy storage in providing flexibility the report spells out are as follows, with the durations required:

Managing seasonal differences in supply and demand (longer duration storage, i.e. four hours-plus)Managing several days of oversupply or undersupply (longer duration storage)Balancing daily variations in supply and demand (longer and shorter duration storage) Reserve for unplanned outages/forecast error (shorter duration storage) Real-time operability (shorter duration storage)

National Grid ESO expects battery storage to make up the largest share of storage power capacity in all scenarios by 2050 to help with shifting demand within the day and managing network constraints as battery costs fall.

But for storage capacity (GWh), pumped hydro is likely to remain the bulk. The report expects this to increase to 65GWh in 2030 and 84GWh in 2050, again under ‘Leading the Way’.

Under ‘Leading the Way’, battery storage capacity will increase to 20GW by 2030 and 35GW by 2050. Later on, the report said that up to 35GW of ‘electricity storage with an average discharge duration of less than 4 hours’ would be needed by 2050, giving an idea of the duration at which it sees non-battery alternatives dominating.

For non-battery technologies, some 11-56TWh of large-scale inter-seasonable storage could be needed by 2050. But, this amount depends on the rollout of green hydrogen, hydrogen storage and other flexibility assets.

One or two-hour average durations for batteries could increase to at least four hours in the coming years due to market-driven factors, the report said.

Read the full report here.

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A Convergent Energy + Power solar-plus-storage project in Maryland, US. Image: Convergent Energy + Power.

Convergent Energy + Power has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) for output from a solar-plus-storage power plant.

The energy storage developer said it had been successful in a competitive solicitation — hosted by the Puerto Rico Electricity Board (PREB) on PREPA’s behalf – with a 100MW solar PV project paired with 55MW of battery energy storage. The capacity of the battery energy storage system (BESS) was not disclosed.

Convergent Energy + Power’s locally based subsidiary, Convergent Coamo, will own and operate the project which will be located in the southern central Puerto Rico town of Coamo.

It is among the first contracts to be awarded to renewable energy and energy storage projects through a tranche of PREPA procurement, which again is part of a number of tranches that are ongoing.

In April, our sister site PV Tech reported the launch of a Request for Proposals (RfP) for 500MW of renewable energy and 250MW of energy storage on the Caribbean US island territory, which was noted to be the second tranche among six.

In total, PREPA is seeking 3,750MW of renewables and 1,500MW of storage through the solicitations, including distributed virtual power plants (VPP) as well as large-scale front-of-the-meter resources, with contract terms running between 10 and 25 years.

Puerto Rico is targeting 100% renewable energy by 2050, with incremental steps along the way including 40% by 2025 and 60% by 2040. It is also well known that PREPA, which had been facing severe financial difficulties already, was thrown into major crisis along with Puerto Rico’s residents as Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017 destroyed as much as 80% of the region’s grid network.

Switching to higher shares of renewable energy with batteries would therefore not only increase the region’s resiliency to future weather events and reduce the need to rebuild transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure, but also as with other island regions like Hawaii, reduce reliance on expensive and polluting imported fossil fuels for electricity generation.

Convergent Energy + Power said it expects its Coama project to come online in 2024. Recent projects by the company reported by Energy-Storage.news include a solar-plus-storage power plant built in New York State as a cheaper, ‘non-wires alternative’ to T&D buildout at a congested load pocket, completed in May. Others include a portfolio of three mid-sized solar-plus-storage projects in Maryland, a 5MW/15MWh standalone BESS for a cooperative in Massachusetts and three standalone BESS projects totalling 100MWh brought online in California in January and February of this year.

Regular readers of Energy-Storage.news however might know the company best for its commercial and industrial (C&I) behind-the-meter battery systems for customers in Ontario, Canada, where peak shaving offers big reductions in electricity costs for large industrial consumers of power. One such project, completed last September for a specialist glass manufacturing plant could save the facility owner CA$450,000 (US$356,000) per megawatt on power costs over summer periods, Convergent Energy + Power claimed at the time.

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The solar-plus-storage project proposal comes a year after construction started on Mozambique’s first. Image: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Power project developer Ncondezi Energy has launched a feasibility study for a 300MW solar PV plant with battery storage, in Mozambique, Africa.

The project will be located within Ncondezi’s 25,000-hectare concession area in the Tete Province, with three preferred sites of c.500MW generation potential each already identified, the company said. It hasn’t clarified what size the battery storage portion will be.

But, it added, the project will also be able to leverage existing advanced stage development work from its 300MW thermal power project which will significantly cut development costs and accelerate project delivery. That means the co-located project could be completed and grid-connected as early as 2024, it said.

The feasibility study will take four months to complete and will be led by WSP Group Africa, which Ncondezi CEO Hanno Pengilly described as “one of the top technical consultants in solar PV”.

Ncondezi estimates that the investment totals a pre-money net present value (NPV) of between US$60-65 million and fully diluted cash flows of between US$130-180 million over a 25 year period.

It will connect to the Mozambique grid and offtake agreements will be sought with companies both in Mozambique and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), a cross-border electricity market comprising 13 countries in Southern Africa.

Ncondezi said it has engaged the relevant Mozambique government authorities throughout the project’s development process and received the prerequisite support to launch the feasibility study. It added that the project is aligned with Mozambique’s strategy to increase energy availability in a sustainable manner and promote new energy investments in the private sector.

Construction started on the first solar-plus-storage project in Mozambique in June 2021, as reported by Energy-Storage.news. The Cuamba Solar PV plant will be a 19MWp (15MWac) generation plant with 2MW/7MWh of energy storage.

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Concept drawing of the BESS being built at Kinokawa Substation, Wakayama, Japan. Image: Orix.

A joint venture (JV) in Japan between financial services group Orix and regional utility company Kansai Electric (KEPCO) will build and operate a large-scale battery storage system.

Orix said last week that the JV is preparing to begin construction this August of the 48MW/113MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project, to be in operation by 2024.

The announcement comes ahead of rule changes in the Electricity Business Act which governs Japan’s electricity sector, through which grid-connected BESS assets of 10MW or higher output will be eligible from next year to register as generation resources for participation in trading opportunities like day-ahead markets.

In January, Japanese news outlet Nikkei reported that numerous large corporate entities are preparing a play for market share in the battery storage space as it emerges.

To date, the country has one of the largest residential battery markets for backup power and solar self-consumption in the world, and commercial and industrial (C&I) systems for peak shaving are increasingly popular too.

However, interest in large-scale batteries has not really progressed beyond the pilot stage, except in the northern island region of Hokkaido, where an excess of renewable energy installations means solar PV and wind project developers must add storage to their projects under the rules of that region’s monopoly utility Hokkaido Electric Power.

Reforms to the market via the Electricity Business Act could change this landscape considerably. Japan has also raised its target for adding renewables to its energy mix to be 36%-38% of power supply by 2030. This still lags behind many other countries’ targets but is a significant increase from a previous target of 22%-24%, while longer term, Japan has committed to net zero emissions by 2050.

Nikkei noted in its January article that Orix owns a 20% stake in US geothermal power producer Ormat Technologies. Ormat has recently diversified into other energy technologies including energy storage. There was no mention of the US company in Orix’s statement last week including whether it would provide equipment or services to the JV’s project.

The Orix-KEPCO 50:50 JV is called Kinokawa Energy Storage. KEPCO is one of Japan’s 10 major utility companies. Historically, these utilities have been responsible for everything from generation and supply to transmission and distribution of electricity.

As part of ongoing reforms to liberalise the energy market, these regional monopolies have been broken up, or unbundled – KEPCO for example is now separate from Kansai Transmission & Distribution, which took over the T&D part of its business in 2020.

Kinokawa Energy Storage’s 48MW BESS will be deployed at a Kansai Transmission & Distribution substation Wakayama, the southern prefecture of the Kansai region which also includes the major cities of Osaka and Kobe.

The BESS will absorb power from the grid when there is a surplus, such as at times of abundant solar or wind generation. It will store the electricity and then output to the grid at peak times when it is most needed.

KEPCO will operate the facility while Orix will be in charge of maintenance and asset management.

The pair said that they hoped their JV would be able to contribute to solving issues such as the shortage of electricity supply for use on the grid and the ongoing curtailment of variable renewable energy assets.

Orix has plenty of experience in the renewables sector, having invested in, owned or operated assets in countries including the US, China and Latin America. It is also an investor in Greenko, the Indian renewable energy developer which is marketing dispatchable wind and solar coupled with pumped hydro, and Orix also set up a UK office in 2018.

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An example of a utility-scale solar-plus-storage system owned and operated by Convergent Energy + Power.

The Puerto Rico subsidiary of Convergent Energy + Power, a provider of energy storage solutions in North America, has entered into a power purchase and operating agreement with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) for a 100 MW solar generation project paired with a 55 MW battery to be located in Coamo, Puerto Rico, a town in the south-central region of the island.

The solar-plus-storage system will be owned and operated by Convergent’s Puerto Rico subsidiary, Convergent Coamo. Subject to satisfaction of customary conditions, the system is currently expected to come online in 2024 and is part of a larger plan to accelerate Puerto Rico’s strategic clean energy transition.

Puerto Rico has set a goal of achieving 40% renewable energy by 2025 and 100% renewable energy by 2050, relying on its most abundant resources: solar and wind.

Convergent’s large-scale solar-plus-storage system is among the first awarded by PREPA in response to its multi-tranche solicitation effort to modernize Puerto Rico’s electric grid. Partnering with PREPA, Convergent will work closely with local stakeholders to increase the reliability of electricity for Puerto Ricans while supporting the commonwealth’s renewable energy goals.

“Puerto Rico has commendable renewable energy goals and is taking concrete steps to reach them. Convergent Energy + Power is ready to help Puerto Rico deploy more solar energy, accelerating the clean energy transition,” says Johannes Rittershausen, Convergent’s CEO. “We are thrilled to help bring cleaner, more reliable power to Puerto Rico with the help of our local partner Ashford Renewable, and PREPA.”

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Projects NHOA is working on include 422MWh of BESS for parent company Taiwan Cement Corporation. Image: NHOA.

The CEO of energy storage and e-mobility solutions company New HOrizons Ahead (NHOA) has hailed its “unparalleled” performance in the first half of this year, despite industry headwinds.

NHOA, formerly known as ENGIE EPS, was acquired by Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) last year and its new owners have overseen the setting of ambitious performance targets for the technology group.

NHOA is aiming to grow its business tenfold by 2025, with its activities including system integration and turnkey supply of stationary battery energy storage systems (BESS), electric vehicle (EV) charger infrastructure, fast EV chargers and related areas like microgrids.

The Italy-headquartered company last week released its unaudited financial results for H1 2022, which showed that it had almost equalled its €15.9 million (US$16.15 million) FY2021 sales figures from its energy storage Global Business Line (GBL) for the entire FY2021 within the first quarter of 2022 (€15.5 million).

FY2021 had represented a doubling of storage revenues from the year before, and during H1 2022 NHOA reported €73 million energy storage sales.

It has now surpassed the gigawatt-hour figure (1,043MWh) for storage projects under development including 292MWh with secured contracts and 751MWh of turnkey supply contract backlog. The company did modest business in that regard this year however, netting only one 30MWh new contract for a customer in Peru in Q1 and no large contracts in Q2.

It grew its pipeline of energy storage opportunities from €764 million in 2021 to €1,031 million. Meanwhile consolidated sales across all of its business lines leapt from €7.2 million in H1 2021 to €82.2 million for the same period this year.

While it presented an “unparalleled” performance for the company so far, energy storage represents the technological heritage and the backbone of the group ever since its founding nine years ago CEO Carlalberto Guglielminotti said in a conference call to discuss results.

Guglielminotti said that the 30x growth in energy storage revenues from H1 2021 (€2.3 million), was in line with expectations of the group given NHOA finished last year with a strong backlog, but “shows our ability to perform” and meet those expectations.

As has been experienced across many industries, supply chain issues are a challenge. Referring to NHOA’s e-mobility joint venture (JV) Free2Move solutions with automobile OEM Stellantis, the CEO said that lead times for delivery of some critical components have gone from 12 weeks to 15 months “overnight”.

“We had to cope with a detracted supply chain,” Guglielminotti said. The CEO took over the company back in 2014, then known as Electro Power Systems, as it restructured from a previous bankruptcy, before then being acquired for €108 million by European utility and power group ENGIE.

‘Daily challenge of managing supply chain disruption’

Shipping of equipment and components from China has been impacted this year by the country’s localised COVID-19 lockdowns, while other deliveries from countries in the Black Sea region are being directly affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine, NHOA’s head of energy storage Giuseppe Artizzu said.

NHOA has had to prove it can deliver equipment and provide services on time while managing costs and risk, Artizzu said, adding that its strong revenue recognition is testament to the company’s ability to do so. It was “managing daily the effect” of supply chain disruptions, Artizzu said and NHOA’s cost base remains consistent with its expectations and budget.

He said that the lack of big orders in the last three months was to be expected. Turbulence in commodity markets and battery pricing have made it difficult for NHOA’s clients to reach a final investment decision (FID).

Late last year, former parent company ENGIE cancelled a solar-plus-storage hybrid project in Hawaii to which NHOA was to supply a 240MWh BESS, citing supply chain conditions, as well as other factors like high costs of grid interconnection and solar PV import tariffs.

However, the company is modestly optimistic that clients will start to make FIDs again soon, with some “calming down” of commodity market turbulence observed in the past six to eight weeks.

Meanwhile, energy market dynamics mean that the fundamental value proposition of battery storage and therefore demand remains strong, even though it is undeniable the rising cost base for lithium-ion batteries and related equipment has presented a major challenge.

The industry is maturing though, and battery suppliers are coping better than before with commodity risk, while many suppliers of batteries – and other equipment – are accepting some long-term exposure to upstream risk in order to invest in new materials and reduce their exposure to spot market fluctuations in metals prices, according to the executive director for NHOA’s global strategy.

Giuseppe Artizzu said earlier this year at the Energy Storage Summit hosted by our publisher Solar Media that ultimately he believed energy storage supply chains would come out stronger from challenges, which in part have come about because demand for battery storage has grown faster than many anticipated.

Artizzu noted that some significant battery deliveries have been made in the past three months, including to NHOA’s 200MWh project with utility Synergy in Australia, while deliveries to a major 442MWh order for parent company TCC’s projects in Taiwan are expected to fall within Q4 this year.  

The company’s CEO did not rule out revising its revenue guidance upward in the coming weeks as NHOA issues its audited H2 financial results by the end of this month or the beginning of August. Carlalberto Guglielminotti said EBITDA projections will also be offered at that time, but said it is possible its two main business divisions, for energy storage and its Free2Move JV could break even in EBITDA terms before the end of this year.

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The San Roque Dam, the Philippines’ largest dam. Image: Rawen Balmaña.

Prime Infrastructure Capital, owned by Filipino businessman Enrique K Razon, is in line to provide 500MW of pumped hydro power to national utility Meralco.

Prime Infrastructure Capital subsidiary Anuhan Power has gained ‘original proponent’ status for its offer to supply 500MW of power through pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) to national utility Manila Electric Company (Meralco).

Anuhan’s original proponent status for the project means that third parties can provide competing bids but Anuhan has the right to match any competing proposal. This method of public procurement for big infrastructure projects is sometimes called a Swiss Challenge.

Anuhan has nominated two projects to supply the 500MW of power. The first, Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Plant Project, is undergoing pre-development by the company in Laguna, a province near Manila. Anuhan expects it to reach commercial operation by Q1 2027, according to information provided in a project description dated May 2021.

It has two separate project stages. Stage I will deliver 700MW of net capacity to the Luzon grid for primary and tertiary reserve ancillary services. Stage II will provide 500MW of capacity for mid-merit services under a Power Supply Agreement (PSA).

The second plant is undergoing pre-development by another company, Olympia Violago Water & Power Inc. (OVWPI), in which Anuhan has agreed to acquire a controlling interest.

The plants have a capability of a minimum guaranteed output of 12 hours a day which would cover Meralco’s peak hours.

It is the second large energy storage project that Prime Infrastructure has moved forward with in the space of a month. In mid-June, it proposed a solar-plus-storage plant which would be one of the largest in the world, with 2,500-3,500MW of solar PV generation and 4,000-4,500MWh of battery storage capacity.

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Josh Herlands

Whetstone Power and Rosemawr Sustainable Infrastructure Management, the sustainable infrastructure arm of Rosemawr Management, has acquired a 30 MW AC operating solar power generation facility located in Alamosa, Colo.

The output of the facility is currently fully contracted to Public Service Company of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy. Whetstone Power Operations, a wholly owned subsidiary of Whetstone, will be providing operations and maintenance and asset management services for the facility. Longer term, Whetstone and Rosemawr intend to refurbish the facility by replacing the existing high concentrating systems with a standard photovoltaic system that may also include an energy storage system. As part of the modifications to the facility, much of the existing infrastructure would remain in place.

“We believe this is a great asset, and alongside Rosemawr, we are proud to continue to serve the City and County of Alamosa, the San Luis Valley and the State of Colorado for years to come with clean renewable energy,” states Collin Franceschi, Whetstone’s founding partner.

“Rosemawr is committed to renewable energy, and we are excited about the potential of this facility as well as our continued partnership with Whetstone,” adds Josh Herlands, managing partner at Rosemawr Sustainable Infrastructure Management.

FTI Capital Advisors served as sell side advisor to the project.

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Rendering of Cranberry Point developer Plus Power’s 185 MW / 565 MWh Kapolei Energy Storage project in Hawaii. Image: Plus Power

Developers of two large-scale battery projects in Massachusetts have appeared before the general public at hearings hosted by the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB).

Comprising Medway Grid Battery Storage, a 250MW/500MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) and the Cranberry Point 150MW/300MWh BESS, Public Comment Hearings were held on 13 July and 14 July respectively.

Both projects have asked for special conditions to enable their development from the Energy Facilities Siting Board despite local authority restrictions, requesting for their approval as being in the public interest.

Medway Grid LLC, a company established to develop the project that bears its name, was awarded a 250MW capacity contract by regional electricity network operator ISO New England, to provide capacity in the Southeastern New England capacity zone by June 2024.

Christina Wolf, head of development for the company, noted also that it will make a significant contribution to meeting Massachusetts’ state goal of deploying 1,000MWh of energy storage by 2025. The Commonwealth is targeting net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all sectors of its economy by 2050.

While Massachusetts was an early adopter among US states of a policy target for storage (introduced as 200MWh by 2025 in 2017 and later upped), most battery storage development has been focused on solar-plus-storage through the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) scheme with projects much smaller than Medway and Plus Power’s proposals.

The state was also the first in the US to introduce a Clean Peak Standard, which mandates a proportion of peak demand must be met from low emissions sources and more recently is targeting significant offshore wind development off its coast, which would require much greater storage as well as transmission capabilities.

Medway Grid was launched by energy storage developer Able Grid, the development assets of which were bought by infrastructure investor Eolian. Medway Grid submitted a petition to the EFSB in March to construct the standalone BESS facility and a new electric substation, close to an existing transmission corridor and connected directly to the transmission grid via utility Eversource’s substation in Milford Street.

Wetlands expert Marc Bergeron of environmental permitting consultancy Epsilon presented on behalf of Medway Grid that construction on the project site would present limited environmental impact since it is already in-use land that was previously logged for timber.

Other points noted by Bergeron included that there will be no solid or hazardous waste stream from operations and that it will have no impact on vegetated wetlands.

Tesla’s Megapack BESS product has been picked for the project. In terms of fire safety, Wolf said that the project is being designed to meet standards including UL, NPFA and other key certifications and the operator will coordinate any emergency response plans with local fire departments.

Town of Medway town manager Michael Boynton said a draft agreement has been signed with Medway Grid, and that conversations and dialogue around the project to date have been “positive”.

Another town official, Todd Alessandri asked, with the system planned to be largely unmanned and controlled and monitored remotely, how quick response times could be in the event of a fire. Andrew Kaplan, general counsel for Medway, said that in discussion with the local fire chief, the fire department would be notified directly of any incidents and that response times would therefore be “immediate”.

There will be a buffer of space between the battery facility, its infrastructure and existing vegetation, Kaplan said.

Among the first >100MW BESS projects in MA

The next steps will be to get EFSB approval, then the developer will move to get building permitting, go through the town’s Conservation Commission, as well as agreeing financial and business terms with the town authorities.

Boynton noted that Able Grid had approached the town pre-COVID with its proposal for the site, selecting the Milford Street location due to its proximity to transmission lines and the West Medway grid.

However, to go ahead, the project needs to be exempted from local zoning laws. Something similar is happening with developer Plus Power’s Cranberry Point BESS proposal in Carver, another Massachusetts town about 80.5km from Medway.

Both towns have enacted a moratorium on the development of new large-scale battery facilities until zoning laws to properly accommodate energy storage can be introduced, each lasting 11.5 months until March 2023. In the case of Cranberry Point, certain agreements were made to proceed with development before the towns introduced their moratoriums.

Medway Grid general counsel Andrew Kaplan – an attorney with Pierce Attwood – said that as a facility of 100MW or greater classified as a generation asset by ISO New England, state laws mean the development team had to file with the nine-member EFSB for approval. The board includes heads of state environment and land use agencies along with energy industry experts and union representatives.

You can watch both EFSB hearings in full on the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities Public Hearing YouTube channel, including a broad range of questions from viewers in the local community. Watch the Cranberry Point hearing here and the Medway project hearing here.

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