Invinity grid-scale flow battery units at a site in England, UK. Image: Invinity Energy Systems.

Invinity Energy Systems will supply vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology to a solar-plus-storage project in Alberta, Canada.

The project, Chappice Lake Solar + Storage, will combine a 21MWp solar array with a 2.8MW/8.4MWh battery storage system, Anglo-American flow battery company Invinity said today, together with the project’s developer, owner and operator, Elemental Energy.  

Alberta is largely synonymous with fossil fuels; it hosts crude oil production from sites including its northern tar sands, produces a large portion of Canada’s natural gas and is largely reliant on the country’s largest coal fleet for electricity. 

One of the province’s key climate and pollution pledges is now the phasing out emissions equivalent to 50% of that coal fleet by 2030. 

The Chappice Lake project was one of a number of ‘shovel-ready’ projects awarded funding late last year through the provincial government’s Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) scheme. 

In that round of funding, reported by Energy-Storage.news in November 2021, a 400MW closed-loop pumped hydro project called Canyon Creek was picked out for support too. Also benefiting were a number of projects seeking to reduce the emissions and increase the efficiency of some of the region’s fossil fuel extraction and refining activities. 

At the time, ERA said it would administer the award of CA$10 million (US$7.89 million) of the total expected cost of Chappice Lake, just over CA$40 million. 

Invinity’s flow battery will be directly DC-coupled with the solar array, improving the project’s efficiency, operational flexibility and costs. Charging from the solar PV modules, it will store and send out low-carbon, low-cost energy. 

Being able to deliver power on demand will also help alleviate constraints to deploying more renewable energy on the grid, eliminating bottlenecks in power flow, Invinity said. 

The project is expected to go into service later this year.

Developer Elemental Energy is also partnering with local indigenous group Cold Lake First Nations, which will hold an equity interest in the Chappice Lake project and the community will also benefit from the new electricity capacity addition as well as employment opportunities the clean energy industry can bring to the area, Elemental claimed. 

“Alberta has a long history of leadership in energy; the fact that this shovel- ready project will expand that leadership in new directions while creating great new jobs is a testament to how Alberta can innovate and build,” Invinity Energy Systems’ chief commercial officer Matt Harper said.

“Clean energy on demand is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity; in delivering solar and storage together at Chappice Lake, we will prove that solar generation plus Invinity’s utility-grade vanadium flow batteries can make Alberta a powerhouse for the North American grid.”

Vanadium flow batteries have been touted as a long-duration, long-life energy infrastructure asset. Capable of being scaled up in energy capacity by increasing the size of their electrolyte tanks, the systems are expected to last decades in services without degradation or fading of battery capacity. 

In December, Lockheed Martin announced that the first megawatt-scale pilot for its own flow battery technology — for which the aerospace and defence giant has not revealed the battery chemistry publicly — will also be in Alberta. 

Lockheed Martin claimed that a 6.5MW/52MWh unit of its GridStar Flow battery energy storage system (BESS) technology will be paired with a 102.5MW solar farm in development by infrastructure company TC Energy. Lockheed will invest about US$9 million into the Saddlebrook Solar + Storage Project, with an expectation that funding will also come from ERA.

On a broader note, Energy-Storage.news has reported on a number of other Alberta-based energy storage projects in the past couple of years. The province’s first grid-scale battery storage system, a 10MW/20MWh Tesla lithium-ion BESS called WindCharger, went online in late 2020, paired with a local wind farm. 

TransAlta, the Canadian company behind that project, has just applied to Alberta regulators for approval for WaterCharger, a 180MW BESS paired with hydroelectric generation facilities. 

Alberta’s grid operator AESO is also piloting the use of energy storage resources for fast frequency regulation. 

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Solar PV paired with battery storage at another mining site in Australia. Image: Aggreko.

Construction has started on BHP’s “first off-grid large-scale renewable energy project”, totalling 38 MW of solar power and a 10.1MW/5.4 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), at two nickel mines in Western Australia which supply Tesla for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

The Northern Goldfields Solar Project will comprise a 27.4 MW solar farm at Mt Keith and a 10.7 MW solar farm with the BESS at nearby Leinster. It will help replace power currently supplied by diesel and gas and reduce scope 2 emissions at the two mines by 12%, or 54,000 tonnes of CO2e, and will start generating solar power in November. 

This will bolster BHP’s journey to becoming net zero but also shore up the energy-intensive mines’ energy supply and reduce costs for transporting and burning diesel, and the group is one of many mining firms launching such projects in Australia and elsewhere. 

BHP is investing AU$73m (US$52m) in the project which is being built and operated by global renewables group TransAlta Renewables, which has contracted German company Juwi for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) duties. 

The sites will supply electricity to BHP’s mines under a power purchase agreement (PPA) with TransAlta which runs to 2038, and the two parties have agreed to identify potential sites for 40-50 MW of wind generation which would further reduce scope 2 emissions at the mines by 30%. 

BHP Nickel West Asset President Jessica Farrell noted that it is BHP’s “first off-grid large-scale renewable energy project across our global operations,” and it also marks TransAlta’s first renewable energy project in Australia.

Energy company EDL says there is about 2 GW of off-grid energy demand in Australia, and that around $2.5bn of investment will be needed to meet half of this with renewables.

The country has been a hotbed of such projects recently.

Last week IGO Limited announced that solar-plus-storage would be installed at its Nova copper-cobalt-nickel mine at Fraser Range allowing the site to temporarily operate on 100% renewable energy. Rio Tinto announced plans to install a 4MW solar and 4MWh BESS at its Weipa bauxite mine in September, with construction expected to begin later this year. 

The group’s solar solar-wind-storage system totalling 28.25 MW, of which 8.25 MW is storage, at its QMM ilmenite mine in Madagascar is further along with solar operations expected to begin in Q2 2022 and wind by the end of the year. It should eventually provide 60% of the mine’s electricity.

Elsewhere in Africa, equipment manufacturer Caterpillar recently supplied 7.5MW of battery storage to the microgrid powering the Kibali gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In April last year, an off-grid hybrid energy system at gold mine Fekola, Mali, went online with 30MW of solar PV and a 17MW/15.4MWh BESS. Across the Atlantic, Energy-Storage.news reported last week that technology group Wärtsilä had won a contract to provide the South American nation Suriname’s first-ever utility-scale energy storage system, a 7.8MW/7.8MWh BESS to an unnamed gold mine.

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Also on the rise: Phoenix solar market could be brought back to life. Owners of distributed solar and distributed storage may soon earn money from participating in wholesale markets through an aggregator. Hyperlight licenses design of plastic CSP receiver from NREL. Fire at Vistra’s Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility not caused by battery. Mississippi Power issues RFP seeking 200MW of solar. Cybersecurity specialist offers considerations for renewable power plants. Massachusetts community solar to provide electricity bill credits to low-income subscribers

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Water will come down into Gouvães reservoir (pictured), from Daivões reservoir 650 metres above it. Image: Iberdrola.

Iberdrola expects its 880MW pumped hydro plant at the Tâmega energy storage complex in northern Portugal to become fully operational in the middle of this year. 

It has just connected the first of four 220-MW turbines at the Gouvães hydroelectric power plant, which will provide 880MW of pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) alongside two run-of-river hydroelectric plants which bring the complex’s total hydoelectric power to 1,158MW. Gouvães and one other will go online in mid-2022 while a third will start in mid-2024. 

The Gouvães plant will increase Portugal’s pumped hydro power by 30% from where it is today. 

The Tâmega energy storage complex is being built on the Tâmega river with €1.5 billion (US$1.69 billion) of investment by Iberdrola, with the help of a €650 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

It will be able to produce 1,766 GWh per year and will be a hybrid plant with two attached wind farms totalling 300MW. The wind power will partially be used to drive the water back up to the Gouvães reservoir, as well as being fed into the grid. 

The Gouvães plant ranks as one of the larger pumped hydro projects of recent years.

It is the same size as a recently proposed 900MW project in Wyoming, US, and a bit smaller than India’s 1.2GW project in Andra Pradesh. The latter will be combined with 2GW of solar and 400MW of wind power, awarded to developer Greenko through a competitive tender process, recorded as the lowest priced renewables-plus-storage project in the world when it was approved in 2018.

Australia’s first new pumped hydro project in nearly 40 years is 250MW and currently under construction. Elsewhere a 500MW project in California and a 450MW project in Scotland are at different stages of gaining approval. 

Tâmega will provide around half the pumped hydro power of the largest existing pumped hydro plant in Europe, the 1,780MW Cortes-La Muela in Valencia, Spain, which was built in the 80s.

Workers in tunnels at the Tâmega complex. Image: Iberdrola

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The Energy Vault technology has undergone a major redesign from the free-hanging crane design resembling an amusement park ride swinging giant 35 tonne weights (see image at bottom of story) to a square building shape. Image: Energy Vault.

A 100MWh gravity-based energy storage system developed by Energy Vault is expected to begin construction in China in the second quarter of this year, the Swiss-American startup has claimed. 

Energy Vault has just received a US$50 million investment commitment as well as a US$50 million licensing agreement for its technology — which involves mechanically lifting and lowering large weights to release potential energy — from Atlas Renewable, a company majority-owned by Chinese environmental services firm China Tianying Inc (CNTY). 

Under the terms of the US$50 million license and royalty agreement, Atlas Renewable and CNTY will look to deploy Energy Vault’s proprietary technology across mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. 

A site has already been selected in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, with construction expected to start in the next few months on a 100MWh project. Power output in megawatts was not disclosed. 

CNTY as a waste materials processing and recycling company will assess how waste materials could be used to form the large blocks serving as weights in the Energy Vault systems. 

The announcement made this week by the gravity storage company comes as it targets a New York Stock Exchange listing (NYSE) via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger. Shareholders of the SPAC, Novus Capital Corporation II, will vote on the transaction on 10 February. 

In October last year a Form S-4 filed by Novus Capital Corporation II disclosed that Energy Vault — which to date has only built one system, a 5MW demonstration project in Switzerland — had not yet perfected its large-scale energy storage system platform technology, called EVx, nor had it closed any sales. 

That has not so far prevented the company from securing multi-million dollar investment commitments, with the most recent being a US$50 million commitment into the SPAC transaction from Korea Zinc. The startup has also launched a software services division, called Energy Vault Solutions and headed by former Greensmith Energy CEO John Jung.

Energy Vault said the SPAC merger and listing will value the startup at US$1.1billion.

Atlas Renewable’s fresh US$50 million investment commitment is an uplift from a US$150 million commitment already made by the company to Energy Vault-Novus’ private investment in public equity (PIPE). 

Energy Vault has claimed the advantages of its technology include scalability and the use of low-cost materials. Some sources have however voiced scepticism of its reliance on moving parts which could require heavy maintenance, as well as doubts over the ability of the systems to effectively store and release large amounts of energy on demand as required. 

Energy Vault’s existing 5MW demonstration project in Switzerland. Image: Energy Vault.

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“We’ve worked in partnership with NREL on our in-house developed world-beating low-cost reflector system for close to a decade,” said John King, CEO and cofounder of Hyperlight Energy.Hylux differs from conventional CSP design in that it uses recyclable plastic as opposed to the large quantities of steel normally used to construct CSP plants. Constructing with steel presents several challenges including cost of materials and transportation, supply chain issues, etc. With plastic, Hylux can be installed on-location and designed to fit a range of industrial settings.“The new technology from NREL offers a breakthrough in design methodology that optimizes optical capture, with no additional cost for the hardware,” said Guangdong Zhu, inventor and senior engineer at NREL. “Up until now, the receiver design process started with an equation followed by a ‘guess-and-check’ approach through optical modeling of multiple iterations of the curve. However, the best way to do it is to use optical modeling from the start and let that tell you the optimal design with no guess work involved. You end up with the same material and production cost, but with a boost in performance for free.”Hyperlight received a $5.5 million grant from the California Energy Commission to develop a commercial solar field to provide process heat for the Saputo cheese factory in California. The project deploys Hylux to provide a portion of the heat necessary in Saputo’s cheese-making processes via a 1.5-acre solar array. The company also has an MOU for a thermal enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project to decarbonize the transportation supply chain as well as multiple additional projects in the pipeline.The title was amended on Feb. 3, 2022 to remove mention of receiver design replacing steel with plastic. The receiver itself is still made with the same materials. 

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As global markets transition toward more renewable energy sources, cyber hackers will look for ways to exploit those resources. Cybersecurity is now a business imperative. February 2, 2022 Kyle TobiasIn recent years, the power industry has become more connected than ever, with a delicate grid supporting much of our critical infrastructure. Any disruption could be catastrophic, highlighting the need for organizations to proactively protect their assets from pressing risks, including the surge in cyber attacks. The addition of solar and other renewable energy plants has only heightened these vulnerabilities, as these assets are targets for attackers.As a result, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards now include cybersecurity requirements with hefty consequences for violations. This has made compliance top of mind for chief information security officers (CISOs) and their teams, but implementing good cyber hygiene requires more than baseline compliance—it requires an investment into an industrial cybersecurity program that grants you full visibility and control over your operational technology (OT).NERC CIP Standards: Cybersecurity is Here to StayThe old adage “spend a dollar today to save a hundred tomorrow” rings true for compliance. In 2021, NERC CIP enforcement charged 37 compliance penalties totaling $16,786,000, an average of $453,676 per violation. As significant as these fines are, most power producers understand that these penalties can incur even higher costs.Kyle TobiasRegulations are constantly being updated, and now include cybersecurity controls. What was once only required of medium or high-risk groups is now commonplace at low-risk levels. To best prepare themselves for imminent regulatory standards and inevitable cyber attacks, organizations should not wait for regulations to dictate what cybersecurity looks like at their facilities; the probability of it being more expensive in the long run (through penalties or attackers exploiting regulation gaps) is high. It leaves fleet owners in a position of constantly playing catch-up; an unnecessary burden as regulations are clearly moving in a direction that requires strong cybersecurity measures.Staying ahead of requirements also allows organizations to implement controls at a manageable pace, proactively keeping costs down and enabling managers to spend more time assessing and addressing risk.Moving Beyond Compliance: Adopting Cybersecurity Best PracticesBefore adopting an OT cybersecurity program, it is important to understand the difference between compliance and best practices. Although they can seem interchangeable, internal teams and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) should understand that a cyber risk management program will go beyond compliance to truly manage, monitor, detect and defend an organization against growing cyber threats.Compliance is a minimum set of rules or actions that a team must follow to conform to a policy or standard. However, best practices establish actual methods and techniques that leadership will adapt to because they are superior to any alternatives, proven by their results. Furthermore, best practices are built into an organization as a standard way of operating.Knowledge is Power: Educating Your Organization from the Top DownEducation about cybersecurity best practices, including procedures, processes and the use of technology solutions, must be consistent at all levels, from the CISO to site operators. Power generation CISOs (or those responsible for compliance within an organization), are beginning to understand the importance of industrial cybersecurity—especially with the rise of cyber attacks and the outward threat against the US power grid from foreign adversaries. Furthermore, boards of directors are becoming actively involved in cybersecurity as it now affects the bottom line.At a more granular level, operators are now being instructed to complete system inventories, including both hardware and software to determine the criticality of these systems. Knowing which systems to protect allows plant operators and managers the ability to prioritize their budget and focus on protecting their most critical assets first. This knowledge empowers and assists CISOs in making cybersecurity a priority and ultimately implementing a strong industrial cybersecurity program to manage cyber risk in the most cost-effective way.Don’t Fall Behind: The Cybersecurity CurveIt is no longer a question of if your plant will experience a cyber incident, but when. The next step for industrial companies is to proactively prevent operational disruptions that could impact critical infrastructure. As global markets transition toward more renewable energy sources, cyber hackers will look for ways to exploit those resources. This makes cybersecurity a business imperative.Hackers are aware of and will turn their attention to the increasing number of new generation and transmission projects being proposed. Don’t join the list of organizations that fall behind the curve and can’t address vulnerabilities until it’s too late.When it comes to mitigating cyber risk, what end of that spectrum do you find your facility on? If your organization needs to move beyond compliance, it’s best to start from the top to implement change and reduce the overall likelihood of cybersecurity gaps that could prove costly to an organization.Kyle Tobias is a senior cybersecurity assessor with ABS Group. He has over 18 years of OT cybersecurity experience in planning, operations, training and audits in the maritime, energy, banking, finance and telecommunications industries, and has successfully achieved client goals across the globe. Kyle holds a BA from Olgethorpe University and a MS in Cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology.The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

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The 45MW of solar and 88MWh of battery energy storage will operate under Massachusetts’ SMART and Low Income Community Shared Solar programs, providing electricity bill credits to low-income subscribers February 2, 2022 Tim Sylvia

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“Relatively minor” changes are needed in distribution planning and operations before owners of distributed solar and distributed storage may earn money from participating in wholesale markets through an aggregator, says a report from the Energy Systems Integration Group. February 2, 2022 William DriscollSunrun, Tesla, and Stem backed an early proposal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to require grid operators to open their wholesale markets to participation by distributed solar and distributed storage, as well as other distributed energy resources (DERs). That proposal, which called for an aggregator serving as intermediary between DERs and grid operators, became FERC Order 2222.As grid operators, known as RTOs and ISOs, comply with the order, one more step remains before distributed solar and storage can sell energy, capacity, and ancillary services into wholesale markets, says an Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) report.That step involves “relatively minor” near-term changes in distribution system planning and operations, and only minimal infrastructure investments. Those changes will require involvement of both state regulatory commissions and distribution utilities, the report says, many of which “are still in the early stages” of such work.“For those utilities that had not planned for DER coordination in operations and markets, FERC Order 2222 compliance can be challenging. This report provides a path forward,” said Debra Lew, associate director of ESIG.The report outlines minor, “no regrets” changes relating to DER interconnection processes, DER aggregation review, a way to communicate distribution system problems to aggregators, and a fair process for overriding RTO/ISO dispatch of DERs. To help with the last item, the report recommends adoption of the IEEE 1547-2018 standard for smart inverters, which “may reduce the need for overrides and distribution upgrades.”MotivationA possible motivator for action by states and distribution utilities would be the lower costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions that ESIG projects from DER participation in wholesale markets.The report explains the cost-saving efficiencies: “when the transmission system has excess supply, distribution systems can increase demand by shifting load, reducing generation, or charging storage. Conversely, when the transmission system is short of supply, distribution systems can reduce demand by shifting load, increasing distributed generation, or discharging storage.”Once the “no regrets” steps are taken, the report outlines further steps needed in “the transition to future distribution systems,” saying that as DER uptake continues, distribution and transmission systems will need to be “increasingly planned” as an integrated system, and their operation more closely coordinated.Alternate pathwaysESIG’s report says that direct participation by DER aggregators in wholesale markets, a path initiated by FERC Order 2222, is “one of several pathways”—or structural participation models—to integrating DERs into wholesale markets. The report notes that the California ISO’s Distributed Energy Resource Provider model, approved by FERC in 2016, and “in many ways a model for Order 2222,” has had no users to date.“Regardless of Order 2222’s direct impact,” the report says, “FERC has triggered a national conversation.” Many DER market and system integration issues that will arise in higher-DER futures “do not lend themselves to quick solutions, but it is important to begin exploring possible solutions now to lay the groundwork for longer-term change.”ESIG is developing a related report that envisions an “open network initiative” in the United States, akin to initiatives in Australia and the United Kingdom, that “could provide a forum for dialogue on the most critical of these issues.”ESIG is a professional association that charts the future of grid transformation and energy systems integration, particularly with respect to clean energy. The ESIG report, titled “DER Integration into Wholesale Markets and Operations,” is accompanied by a fact sheet and a slide show.The title of this article was changed on Feb. 2 to specify that it is about distributed solar and distributed storage, not solar-plus-storage as written previously.This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

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