A 100MW solar PV plant in Andra Pradesh, one of the regions where Greenko is building large-scale energy storage paired with renewables. Image: Tata Power Solar.

Independent power producers (IPPs) Greenko and Ayana Renewable Power will leverage large-scale energy storage to give industrial customers in India ‘round-the-clock’ renewable power supply.

The pair said this week that they are teaming up to offer industrial entities and distribution companies (discoms) decarbonisation solutions with up to 1GW of dispatchable renewable energy.

The two companies said the business model they are creating — with green energy supply underpinned by standalone energy storage capacity — could offer a template for such transactions in the country.

Ayana Renewable Power is owned by Indian sovereign wealth investment instrument National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and develops utility-scale solar, wind and hybrid renewable energy projects across India. 

Ayana’s other shareholders are UK government development finance institution CDC Power, which launched the IPP in 2018, and Green Growth Equity Fund, which is managed by EverSource Capital. It already has 1.19GWac of operating renewable energy projects and is developing or managing over 3.59GWac more. 

Greenko meanwhile is one of the country’s biggest developers, owners and operators of renewables, with an installed base of 7.3GW of solar, wind and hydro across 15 Indian states. 

In September 2020, an investment of nearly US$1 billion from Japan’s ORIX Corporation took Greenko’s valuation to about US$5.75 billion for its multi-gigawatt renewables development pipeline. 

It was awarded a contract for a hybrid pumped hydro, solar and wind project in Andra Pradesh by that state’s government earlier in 2020, which at the time was considered the lowest cost renewables-plus-storage project bid made in the world.

According to Greenko, it will offer capacity from the 1.5GWh of pumped storage at that site, from a total 6GWh of standalone energy storage it brings to the partnership with Ayana Renewable Power.

Energy-Storage.news asked for clarification from the two companies on the likely mix of energy storage technologies comprising that 6GWh figure, but had yet to receive a reply ahead of publication. 

Greenko said it is constructing a total 30GWh of energy storage capacity and targeting an eventual 100GWh.

The partnership follows on the heels of US-headquartered energy storage technology company Fluence announcing a forthcoming joint venture (JV) to target the Indian market with another Indian IPP, ReNew Power. One of the first projects that JV will work on will be a battery-backed round-the-clock renewable energy hybrid system.

GE Renewable Energy has also just opened a factory in Chennai, making equipment including solar inverters and integrated battery storage system technology.

India’s government keen to support energy storage market takeoff

Regular readers of this site will know that in light of India’s ambitions to deploy 500GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, the government as well as its industries are keen to support and foster the adoption of energy storage as an enabling technology.

Its Central Electricity Authority has modelled a need for about 29GW/108GWh of energy storage connected to the grid by that time.

“This transaction marks the first time two independent power producers have joined hands to facilitate the decarbonisation goals of industrial clients in India by developing storage infrastructure that will support India’s commitment to create 500GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 and reducing emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030,” Ayana Renewable Power managing director and CEO Shivanand Nimbargi said. 

In the Union Budget announced a couple of weeks ago, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ruled that energy storage systems can be classified as infrastructure investments.

This would go a long way to unlocking financing for both the upstream and downstream industry sectors, expert industry commentators Dr Rahul Walawalkar of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) and Ulka Kelkar of research group WRI India told Energy-Storage.news. 

Only a few days before that, the Ministry of Power issued a clarification of energy storage’s role in the power sector, including its legal status, how it could be defined as generator, or as part of the grid or wider electricity network and what sort of ownership models could be applied. 

Government ministers have said that they are prepared to handhold and support the industry until it can stand on its own two feet, including through holding government tenders for both standalone energy storage and hybrid renewable energy projects with storage at strategic locations. 

There is also an ongoing government scheme to incentivise up to 50GWh of production facilities for advanced chemistry cell (ACC) batteries within the country’s borders. 

“This partnership between Ayana and Greenko is in line with the Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy mission to create a standalone storage market in India,” Greenko’s founder, joint managing director and president Mahesh Kolli said.

“Such integrated renewable energy and storage projects, offering solutions superior to conventional energy sources in terms of dispatchability and round-the-clock supply, reflect the growing maturity of the renewable sector in India.”

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Enphase AC battery storage setup. Image: Enphase Energy via Twitter.

Microinverter supplier Enphase Energy posted strong Q4 2021 results last week that saw strong revenue growth, following high demand for its IQ microinverters and a 53% jump in orders of its IQ batteries compared with Q3 2021, despite supply chain constraints.

In response to the surge in demand for batteries, it has added extra capacity to its facilities in Mexico and India.

Enphase recorded US$412.7 million in revenue for the three months ending 31 December 2021, up from US$351.5 million in Q3 2021, according to its Q4 2021 financial results released 8 February. This was a 17% jump on the record revenue posted in Q3 2021.  

It said strong demand for its IQ microinverters and IQ Batteries in the US and international markets drove the increased revenue despite “supply chain constraints and logistical challenges”.

Enphase shipped roughly 3,033,891 microinverters totalling 1,082MWdc and 100MWh of Enphase IQ Batteries. In Q3, it shipped 2.6 million microinverters, equivalent to around 913MWdc, and 65MWh of storage systems.

The company has 180MWh of storage production capacity today, up from 120MWh in Q3, and is in discussions with additional storage suppliers to increase capacity further, it said.

“Our lead times for batteries are still long today at approximately 14 to 16 weeks primarily due to logistics challenges, which are global,” said Enphase CEO Badri Kothandaraman in discussing results with analysts.

“The lead times should come down once global shipping and port conditions improve.”

Enphase expects to ship between 110-120MWh of batteries in Q1 this year, said Kothandaraman, up 15% from Q4 last year. But expect prices for Enphase’s battery storage products to go up in March this year, Kothandaraman told analysts.

The company expects revenue of US$420-440 million in Q1 versus prior estimate of US$397 million, according to a ROTH Capital note that added the better-than-expected figures are “due in part to anticipated growth in storage as Enphase expects to ship 110-120MWh of storage in Q1 for implied sequential growth of 15% versus prior ROTH estimate of 105MWh.”

Analyst call transcription via The Motley Fool.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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Solar power plant in Hokkaido, northern Japan, invested in by Daiwa. Image: Daiwa.

Renewables developer Solariant Capital and energy investor Daiwa Energy & Infrastructure (DEI) are collaborating to develop a portfolio of US solar and energy storage projects.

The partnership will first focus on developing California-based Solariant’s existing portfolio, which comprises more than 1GWac of solar and 2.5GWh of battery energy storage systems across the US Southeast and Southwest. The companies will also look to acquire other development-stage projects.

DEI, which is part of Japanese financial service company Daiwa Securities Group, said it is committed to supporting Solariant’s development efforts with its financial resources. 

“With the current favourable environment for renewable energy in the U.S. driven by the recent administration’s aggressive climate goals and support from state and local governments, we believe this partnership is a great opportunity for DEI to expand our footprint into the US market,” said Morimasa Matsuda, CEO of DEI. 

Daiwa Securities previously set up a fund in 2018 to make investments in large-scale solar projects in Japan.

Solariant Capital managing director Daniel Kim said the partnership with DEI will help his company expand its operations into new markets.

This story first appeared on PV Tech.

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Image: Cambridge Power.

Ontario, Canada-headquartered renewable energy asset developer, owner and operator Brookfield Renewable Partners has signed a Framework Agreement with the UK’s Cambridge Power to develop a portfolio of battery storage and solar PV.

The two are to develop on an exclusive basis more than 800MW of full consented battery energy storage systems (BESS) and 185MW of co-located solar for investment over the next five years.

Brookfield will provide capital to construct the portfolio, while Cambridge Power will manage the construction and operation of the assets.

Projects are to commence construction this year, with energisation scheduled for 2023.

Richard Stanton, chairman of Cambridge Power said: “This partnership represents a terrific opportunity for Cambridge Power to develop and operate one of the UK’s leading BESS and solar PV portfolios.”

Brookfield Renewable, 60% owned by Brookfield Asset Management, currently has a portfolio of hydroelectric, wind, solar and storage facilities in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. It totals over 21,000MW of installed capacity, with an approximately 62,000MW development pipeline.

At the beginning of this month, it tripled its US development pipeline to 31GW through the US$650 million (£479 million) acquisition of clean power developer Urban Grid, taking on its pipeline which includes 13GW of utility-scale solar and 7GW of energy storage across 12 US states.

This story first appeared on Solar Power Portal.

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Dave Ranhoff

Enphase Energy Inc. is launching a partnership that enables Enphase Energy Systems, powered by IQ Microinverters and IQ Batteries, to participate in Swell Energy Inc.’s distributed, virtual power plant (VPP) programs in California, New York and Hawaii.

The partnership will enhance solar and battery access along with choice for energy users while delivering critical resources to the local grid. It also aims to expand solar and battery deployment in key energy markets. Swell’s virtual power plants will now be available to homeowners with Enphase Energy Systems that include IQ Batteries.

“Our partnership with Enphase enables homeowners to interact with the power grid in new ways and maximize the value delivered by their home batteries,” says Suleman Khan, CEO of Swell Energy. “The combined offer puts participating customers in control of their electrons with greater functionality, automation, and value within the transactive grid of the future.”

Swell’s VPPs aggregate distributed energy resources and provide GridRevenue to customers utilizing their home batteries for savings and security, while also supporting overall grid reliability. By creating a cohesive network of solar powered batteries in a region, VPPs can provide a variety of services to utilities. Swell’s VPP programs serve utilities, wholesale markets and customers alike in a more participatory and equitable manner.

“Together with Swell, we share a mission to provide a world-class customer experience and cutting edge, smart technology,” states Dave Ranhoff, chief commercial officer at Enphase Energy. “Swell’s programs make it even more compelling for homeowners to choose Enphase Energy Systems, so they can reliably and efficiently run their lives on clean energy, protect against grid outages, and better manage costs.”

​​Enphase delivers an enhanced solar-plus-battery solution which does not expose installers or homeowners to high-voltage DC. Enphase IQ Batteries feature Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry, which provides a long cycle life and smooth operation through excellent thermal stability. The batteries are equipped with Enphase Power Start technology, which also helps seamlessly power-up air conditioners and well-pumps. Homeowners have insight into their systems, along with the ability to go off-grid during power outages through the Enphase App. Enphase IQ Batteries accommodate over-the-air software upgrades and come with a 10-year limited warranty.

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EDPR NA Distributed Generation LLC, the distribution business unit of EDP Renewables, has partnered with the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) as part of its Solarize Philly Program to help expand access to onsite renewable energy solutions for business, commercial and industrial properties throughout the city.

Launched by PEA in 2017, Solarize Philly is Philadelphia’s first city-wide solarize program. With a goal of expanding the city’s onsite solar market, the program aims to make the process of installing solar as easy and affordable as possible while also supporting solar training at the School District of Philadelphia and improving access to clean energy across the city’s neighborhoods. Since the program’s launch, more than $12 million has been invested in communities across Philadelphia, helping improve access to clean energy throughout the city.

“At EDPR NA DG, we’re dedicated to providing equitable access to local, reliable, and cost-saving energy, regardless of where you live or do business,” says Richard Dovere, EDPR NA DG’s chief investment officer. “We’re delighted to be a part of Solarize Philly’s vital mission in supporting businesses on their net-zero carbon journey through the adoption of onsite renewable energy generation.” 

EDPR NA DG was selected through a public solicitation process to be one of Solarize Philly’s dedicated partners focused on providing commercial, industrial and real estate property owners full turnkey onsite energy solutions. Technology solutions will range from distributed solar to co-located storage, electric vehicle charging, micro-grid, energy demand/energy resilience and energy efficiency technologies. This year is the first time Solarize Philly Program is open to retail, commercial and industrial entities throughout Philadelphia.

“Businesses are vital to the continued growth and development of Philadelphia,” states Emily Schapira, president and CEO of PEA. “We’re excited for this collaboration with EDPR NA DG to reduce energy costs for our citizens’ businesses, support the community through the creation of good-paying jobs to bolster the local solar industry, and assist our businesses in minimizing their carbon footprint.”

“The opportunity to have businesses power themselves by local clean energy whilst helping to spur additional 21st-century businesses, create jobs, and provide a more resilient energy future for Philly is a ‘triple win’,” comments Matt Stern, senior director of commercial programs at the Philadelphia Energy Authority.

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The US has energy storage system assembly sites like this one pictured in Oxnard, California, but precious few facilities higher upstream in the supply chain. Image: SimpliPhi Power.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has provided dates and a partial breakdown of grants totalling US$2.9 billion to boost the production of batteries for the electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage markets, as promised by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

The money will be provided by DOE branch the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and will go towards battery materials refining and production plants, battery cell and pack manufacturing and recycling facilities.

EERE has released two notices of intent (NOI) to issue funding opportunity announcements (FOA) on or about April-May 2022, it says. The estimated period of performance for each award will be approximately three to four years, it adds.

The announcement is the culmination of years of the US wanting to have more of a hand in the battery supply chain. Most countries including the US get the vast majority of their EV and battery energy storage system (BESS) batteries from Asia, notably China.

Funding specifics

The first FOA, the ‘Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Funding Opportunity Announcement,’ will be the bulk of the money at up to US$2.8 billion. It has set minimum funding amounts for specific areas. The first three are in battery material processing:

– A minimum of US$100 million for new commercial-scale battery material processing facilities in the United States 

– A minimum of US$50 million for projects to retool, retrofit, or expand one or more qualifying existing battery material processing facilities located in the United States 

– A minimum of US$50 million for demonstration projects in the United States for the processing of battery materials 

The second three are in battery component manufacturing and recycling: 

– A minimum of US$100 million for new commercial-scale advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, or recycling facilities 

– A minimum of US$50 million for projects to retool, retrofit, or expand one or more qualifying existing facilities for advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, and recycling 

– A minimum of US$50 million demonstration projects for advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, and recycling 

All facilities must be in the US. 

The second, smaller FOA, the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Electric Drive Vehicle Battery Recycling and Second Life Applications”, will make US$40 million available for ‘Recycling Processing and Reintegration into the Battery Supply Chain’ and US$20 million for ‘Second Use Scale-Up Demonstration Projects’. 

The US$2.9 billion is one of a few pots of money promised by the bill, including half a billion dollars for energy storage demonstration projects via the US$20 billion Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and another US$3 billion in grants for grid flexibility.

Energy-storage.news sources were uniformly positive about the announcement back in November, but all highlighted that introducing a tax credit for energy storage investment would be the real game changer for the sector. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will provide a total of US$62 billion for the country’s push to a cleaner energy sector.

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Zinc fuel cell module at Zinc8’s facilities in North America. Image: Zinc8.

Zinc: versatile, abundant and very promising for energy storage across a range of applications and technologies. From data centres to long-duration storage for the grid, this metal looks increasingly likely to play a part in the future of the energy transition, writes Dr Josef Daniel-Ivad from the the Zinc Battery Initiative.

Did you know that Allesandro Volta relied on zinc to build the world’s first battery two centuries ago?

Or that the first secondary zinc-bromine battery was patented in 1885? Or that the father of electricity Thomas Edison patented a nickel-zinc battery in 1901?

Despite this promising start, when zinc batteries faced the challenge of short lifespans, competing technologies, such as lithium-ion and lead acid, became the stationary storage darlings of the 1990’s. 

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

The key challenges to the zinc batteries of yore with alkaline electrolytes were zincate solubility, shape change, gassing, dry-out, capacity loss and dendrite formation, which resulted typically in associated capacity fade and a limited cycle life. 

The new breed of zinc rechargeable batteries has overcome these old problems with innovative solutions. The issue of shape change, capacity loss and dendritic growth has been resolved by applying engineered negative electrodes containing nucleation and migration stabilisation additives that work symbiotically with novel electrolytes to stabilise the zincate ion. 

The dry-out problem has been overcome by integrating gassing suppressant additives into the negative electrode and incorporating recombinant devices into the battery that facilitate the recombination of oxygen and hydrogen formed from the decomposition of water.

Solving these key issues puts zinc batteries in a much better position to compete in the stationary storage market.

Some new zinc battery developers have moved away from alkaline electrolytes altogether and are applying a mild acidic to neutral electrolyte and harnessing the reversible 2-valent zinc ion reaction on stabilised zinc metal surfaces.

Another novel approach in development is the use of a 3D zinc micro-sponge electrode that overcomes the dendrite problem by providing a stable 3D electrode structure that does not change form and therefore avoids separator shorts.

Already, zinc batteries have found their storage sweet spot in providing data centre backup power. The massive amounts of data being generated and stored each day mean that battery technology needs to evolve to support this crucial sector.

Enter Nickel-Zinc Batteries!

Nickel Zinc batteries are safe, non-toxic, and non-flammable. With lithium-ion batteries, a single cell failure can disable a storage system, but Nickel Zinc batteries safely operate at a high range of temperatures. They also deliver higher power, operate in a wider temperature range, and require less maintenance.

These batteries are ready for commercial prime time; for example, nickel-zinc batteries have been been specified by sustainable data centre developer Wyoming Hyperscale White Box, which plans to commission its first development site in Aspen, Wyoming, later this year.

This data centre will be the first of its kind to utilise sustainable nickel-zinc battery-based uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) as its sole source of backup energy storage, complementing its commitment to minimising its environmental footprint.

Long-duration zinc for the grid

Zinc batteries also are finding their niche in large-scale, stationary storage applications, where development has entered the demonstration phase.

Zinc can provide power when the sun doesn’t shine and when the wind doesn’t blow. Competing lithium technologies are limited for short duration discharge due to high-cost issues, but zinc batteries offer the ability to release power back into the grid for a few hours, or even whole days at a time, as their intrinsic low-cost, non-flammable, safe and abundant materials do not have the same cost-constraints.

For example, zinc-air flow batteries can be designed to fit any size system and provide the lowest cost of storage for long-duration applications, even up to 100 hours, as the duration can be easily selected by the size of the zinc storage tank.

Zinc8 Energy recently announced that it will demonstrate its zinc-air flow batteries for a 15-hour long duration storage demonstration project in a New York apartment complex that has solar renewable power.

Another type of zinc-air battery that is configured in a non-flow setup by e-Zinc will be put to the duration test in a demonstration project for the commercial and industrial (C&I) market funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC). A 125-acre commercial greenhouse site in Camarillo that presently hosts a 1MW solar array will add 40kW with 24 to 48 hours of storage duration.

During normal times, it will capture solar generation to discharge during peak hours and to power irrigation at night. When blackouts loom, it can shift to backup power mode in long-duration mode. This installation is expected to go into service by end of 2022. 

Within the next few years, when more and more demonstration project come online, zinc-air is expected to prove its ability to provide multi-day backup power and compete economically. As a truly green bonus, zinc-air offers a sustainable, eco-friendly alternative to the gas or diesel generators still commonly used for off-grid applications.

Building and home energy storage are two other areas where ‘Think Zinc’ has become a trend.

Zinc batteries offer a fire-safe and sustainable alternative as well provide power in the event of an outage – with capabilities ranging to multiple days of electricity supply. In particular, the same safe zinc-manganese dioxide chemistry found in AA household alkaline batteries that essentially everyone knows and uses, proves ideal for backup power of homes or other buildings for as long as two days when re-engineered for this purpose.

Another type of household battery most are familiar with, the zinc-carbon or heavy duty battery, was reimagined with new research to yield a technology that is mainly referred to as zinc-ion, which works much like lithium-ion batteries but uses all benign material and is water-based with no risk of fire. 

These home storage technologies are well into the demonstration phase and could be available commercially soon.

Zinc-bromine batteries are another category of Zn-based technologies that fit very well in the 3-to-12-hour storage duration range. 

They come in two varieties: flow and non-flow configurations. Since the energy is stored in a zinc bromide solution, and the battery electrodes are mere means to facilitate the electrochemical redox reactions, they have a very long-life expectancy and don’t have cycle life limitations per se. 

An example for a recent zinc-flow installation is the deployment of a 2MWh energy storage system by Redflow in California. The energy storage system is designed to store up to 2MWh of energy and reduce peak energy use at Anaergia’s Rialto Bioenergy Facility as part of the facility’s microgrid. 

Non-flow zinc-bromine battery developers have booked orders for their systems in excess of 700MWh for deployments starting this year.

2MWh of Redflow zinc-bromine flow battery energy storage and Dynapower inverters at the Anaergia biogas facility, California. Image: Redflow.

Abundant material to meet a global need

The biggest challenge facing all energy storage sources today is whether energy storage solutions available today can be scaled to the terawatt scale to meet growing demands. BloombergNEF’s 2021 Global Energy Storage Outlook estimated that by 2030 one terawatt of new stationary storage capacity needs to be added, and that is 20 times more than what was available in 2020.

Fortunately, abundant zinc is ready to meet this challenge. Unlike lithium and other elements, zinc is found around the world and in large supply.

The supply chain for zinc can be completely westernised if required, as it is globally mined and refined in 50 countries, establishing a secure, conflict-free, and sustainable supply chain. Further, zinc is very versatile when it comes to recycling, and many options are available for reuse or repurpose. 

Given zinc’s abundance and zinc battery innovation, the zinc battery market is expected to grow rapidly.

According to the BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook report, the energy storage market is expected to grow exponentially to 1,028 GWh by 2030, and the zinc battery market will grow to 10% of that in 2030.

That’s a huge potential market share, one zinc batteries are prepared for with their safety, sustainability, and competitive technologies.

The first battery invented is back and ready to claim its growing place in the energy storage chain. 

About the Author

Dr. Josef Daniel-Ivad is Manager of the Zinc Battery Initiative, the voice of the growing zinc battery industry. ZBI formed in 2020 to represent zinc batteries with their many unique chemistries and applications. Members of ZBI include some of the leading companies in the zinc battery sector, including ZincFive, Zinc8, Salient Energy, Urban Electric Power, e-Zinc, Redflow, Enzinc, Enerpoly, ZAF Energy Systems, AEsir Technologies, Inc., and Imprint Energy.

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Image: Swell Energy.

Swell Energy, a US company specialising in virtual power plant (VPP) projects aggregating residential solar PV and battery storage, has launched a distributed energy resources management system (DERMS) software platform. 

Swell Energy has won VPP contracts representing more than 300MWh of battery storage, with utilities Souther California Edison (SCE) and Hawaiian Electric Co (HECO), as well as a smaller project with Con Edison in New York. It has raised US$450 million in financing to date. 

Last week the company announced the launch of GridAmp, Swell’s proprietary DERMS platform which will do the technological heavy lifting to aggregate distributed energy resources (DERs) like battery storage and rooftop solar arrays to form much larger energy or grid services resources. 

The Hawaii VPP project will be the first to see GridAmp brought onboard. The project has already been approved by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission and will see 80MW of new and existing customer-sited resources across three islands in the Pacific US state leveraged to help HECO. 

The software uses optimisation algorithms and machine learning models to inform and automate the operation of aggregated systems. It can maximise revenues for both the utility and the end-customer, across multiple value streams, Swell Energy claimed. This includes co-optimisation across multiple ’stacked’ value streams that come from delivered different applications. 

In an in-depth two part interview series with Energy-Storage.news last year, Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan said that one of the main drivers for the Hawaii project is to allow HECO to maximise its use of wind energy that might otherwise be lost. 

Home battery storage systems will be charged with wind energy considered surplus to grid requirements at times of overproduction.

“So we’re basically helping HECO not clip excess wind energy. We’re storing that excess wind energy, which is a big deal, given how much wind HECO has and consumption at night,” Khan said. 

This application, although important, is only one of several the VPP will perform: it will also help the utility with its ramp up and ramp down of solar and other resources as well as performing frequency regulation. Khan described the latter as a fairly “benign” use of batteries from a cycling standpoint, requiring “short, direct hits into the grid”.

In other territories, the applications the VPPs will be directed to perform vary depending on the needs of the utility contracting for them. 

For one of two projects with SCE in California, Swell’s VPP will be at a new home development. By using aggregated customer resources, the utility company can defer the need to spend money and resources building out electric distribution network infrastructure to meet the growth in load. 

In New York, Swell has also been contracted to provide a ‘non-wires solution’ for Con Edison, deploying about 500kW of home battery storage to mitigate need for capital expenditure on substation equipment upgrades.  

The VPPs will do all of this while also offering homeowners with the means to use their own solar-generated power and keep some energy in reserve for backup in the case of emergencies and outages. 

Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan said in a statement that the new software enables the co-optimisation of the “VPP experience”.

“GridAmp co-optimises the VPP experience for end-users and the utility, fundamentally enhancing value and customer participation in generating, consuming, and transacting renewable electricity,” he said.

Last September, the VPP specialist revealed that the 6,000 or so participating homes in the Hawaii VPP programme on the islands of O’ahu, Maui and Hawaii Island would receive around US$1,500 per battery device over the project’s five-year lifetime. A customer with as many as three battery systems at their home could get back US$11,700 over that time. 

In the middle of last year, HECO also began a ‘Battery Bonus’ scheme, offering one-time cash incentives to residential and commercial customers on Oahu that get battery storage to pair with their solar PV. 

Swell Energy works with equipment from numerous OEMs on its VPPs, including Tesla’s Powerwalls. CEO Suleman Khan was working at Tesla in 2015 when the original Powerwall was launched, having taken his background in structure finance into the renewable space and then energy storage.

California’s big three utilities keen to understand value of VPPs

In December, Swell Energy said it is among manufacturers and solution providers in the DERs space working to identify new use cases for residential grid services with California’s three main investor-owned utilities (IOUs): SCE, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).

The three utilities are working to expand the participation of residential resources in their Capacity Bidding Programs, ensuring their networks have sufficient power and can reduce the load they draw from the CAISO grid, particularly during the emergency situations and outage scenarios that have been experienced over the last few years. 

In addition to its two existing VPPs with SCE, Swell Energy will work to identify further applications for residential solar and storage assets, so that they could be used to help balance the grid in different scenarios and use cases. 

In PG&E’s service area, Swell Energy will enroll solar-plus-storage customers directly into the Capacity Bidding Program, managing their systems during periods of high demand or high wholesale electricity prices. 

SDG&E’s own Capacity Bidding Program has only been open to commercial and industrial (C&I) customers thus far — Swell Energy will help the utility broaden that out to include residential systems too. 

In October Swell Energy announced a 45MWh VPP contract with a different kind of California energy supplier: the company signed up with community choice aggregator (CCA) energy supplier Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) for the provision of energy capacity and back up power to a region beset with public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), selective grid blackouts triggered during wildfire seasons.

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Rendering of a large-scale Energy Vault project. The only megawatt-scale system the company has built to date is a 5MW demonstrator in Switzerland, based on its old design concept of cranes mounted onto towers swinging large blocks in the air. Image: Energy Vault.

Energy Vault has got its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing after the gravity-based energy storage company’s merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II completed. 

The SPAC’s shareholders voted to approve the business combination at a meeting last week. Energy Vault shares list on the NYSE today (14 February) under the ticker ‘NRGV’. Its warrants list as ‘NRGV WS’. 

The combination raised around US$235 million in gross proceeds for the company. US$195 million of that is a private investment in public equity (PIPE) commitment from Korea Zinc and Atlas Renewable — strategic partners in Energy Vault — along with a host of funds and accounts including Softbank Investment Advisors. 

On those two strategic partners, Korea Zinc had upped its PIPE commitment from US$100 million to US$150 million, Energy-Storage.news reported in January. Korea Zinc saw Energy Vault’s novel technology as a possible means to decarbonise its own extraction and refinery operations, including Sun Metals, a subsidiary in Australia. 

Atlas Renewable meanwhile partnered with Energy Vault on commercialising the technology in China, with a 100MWh project claimed to be set to begin construction in the second quarter of 2022 in Jiangsu Province.

Altas Renewable’s main shareholder is China Tianying Inc, a waste processing and recycling group. Atlas counts Jeb Bush, brother of former US president George W Bush, as its chairman. Energy Vault said a US$50 million technology licensing deal had been made between the two, as well as a US$50 million PIPE commitment.

In an interview with IPO Edge a few days before the vote, Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi said the principles of the gravity storage tech mirror those of pumped hydro energy storage, except that instead of water going downhill, an “energy elevator” is taking large composite block weights up and down to turn motors to discharge energy.  

“This is all with fully automated AI and computerised control software,” Piconi said. 

In forms filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Novus Capital Corporation II said it had been seeking an investment opportunity to acquire a target company from early 2021 before its announcement in September 2021 that Energy Vault had been selected. 

Novus noted that the gravity storage technology does not have the same geological siting constraints as pumped hydro and is designed to be less at risk of supply chain challenges than other energy storage technologies like batteries. 

However in a Form S-4 filed in October last year, Energy Vault outlined that its technology and design of its large-scale energy storage systems had not yet been finalised and that it did face challenges in making those cost-competitive.

The merger gives the combined entity a value of US$1.07 billion based on a price of US$10 per share. 

An Energy Vault representative told Energy-Storage.news the proceeds raised, along with a recently closed US$107 million Series C funding round, provided Energy Vault with more capital than it anticipated requiring in its business plan to deploy units and execute a growth strategy. 

It’s the latest in a wave of energy storage and related sector companies to go public through SPAC mergers. The last year or so has seen the likes of iron flow battery company ESS Inc, zinc-air battery company Eos, distributed commercial energy storage provider Stem Inc and recycling specialist Li-Cycle all go through the process.

In a March 2021 Guest Blog article for this site, finance expert Charles Lesser at clean energy transaction consultancy Apricum wrote of the high risks and potential pitfalls, as well as rewards, of the SPAC route.

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