[Graeme]

Meet Solar Grid Storage, a startup mixing batteries and solar

The market for storing electricity is drawing not only startups building new technology but also new comers that want to build and install new projects. Meet Solar Grid Storage, a two-year-old, angel-funded startup which just completed a project that mixes batteries with solar panels and electric car charging stations in Maryland.

The Philadelphia-based company is one of a growing crop of storage project developers that has materialized in recent years to stake a claim in a young market that’s being shaped by public policies to promote clean energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Solar Grid’s CEO, Tom Leyden, compares his company to SunEdison and PowerLight, the two early players in designing and building solar power generation projects.

Solar Grid develops projects that pair an array of solar panels with energy storage equipment that could not only provide backup power but also sell energy delivery services to local utilities and grid operators. It buys all of the necessary components and hires others to create lithium-ion battery packs using cells from Panasonic or LG, the inverters and the rest of the gear. It then puts the equipment inside a steel container and ships it to a customer. The company’s intellectual property lies in the designs of its inverters and algorithms for managing the charging and discharging of batteries, Leyden said.

gigaom

AES Surpasses Milestone: 100 MW of Grid-Scale Energy Storage

With the recent christening of the 40-megawatt Tait energy storage array, AES Energy Storage has now installed more than 100 megawatts of energy storage in the U.S. It stands as a milestone for the vendor, as well as the grid-scale energy storage market as a whole.

The 40-megawatt project at Dayton Power and Light’s Tait generating station in Moraine, Ohio provides fast-response frequency regulation and grid stabilization services to the PJM Interconnection. The project "helps to meet the needs otherwise provided by power generation from inefficient or retiring power plants," according to a statement from the company.

AES is not in energy storage trials -- it's in the business of extracting value from energy storage, and it operates the biggest fleet of battery-based energy storage resources in North America. As this firm builds and scales, it's worth watching as it develops its project pipeline in this nascent market.

The Tait project is notable as one of the first big storage project to benefit financially from PJM’s new tariff for fast-response regulation designed to comply with FERC Order 755. Enacted in 2011, Order 755 increased the pay for “fast” responding sources like batteries or flywheels that are bidding into frequency regulation service markets.

AES Energy Storage's parent company, AES, had 2012 revenues of $18 billion and $42 billion in total assets. In addition to AES' obvious bankability and strong balance sheet, the power company is a built-in customer that knows how to maximize value in its generation assets with energy storage.

greentechmedia

[Graeme]

"Global Energy Storage Technologies (EST) Market to Be Worth $4,033m in 2013," Says visiongain Report

Energy storage technologies (EST) are becoming increasingly important for improving the efficiency of electricity grid systems. With an ever larger share of power generation coming from intermittent renewable energy sources, rising commodity prices and escalating energy peak demand in high-growth economies, EST are under the spotlight as potential game changers in the management of power transmission and distribution. At present, only some EST are commercially viable; yet, visiongain expects the market to see exponential growth in the next ten years, led by technological, economic and political factors already in action.

visiongain calculates that the 2013 global EST market will be worth $4,033m in sales value, project CAPEX and RD&D funds. This includes the market estimates for pumped hydro storage, grid-scale battery, compressed air energy storage (CAES), thermal storage, flywheel, ultracapacitor systems and other niche EST currently at their early development stage.

The Global Molten Salt Thermal Energy Storage Market to Grow At A CAGR Of 17.25 Percent over the Period 2012-2016

One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increase in positive attributes of molten salt. The Global Molten Salt Thermal Energy Storage market has also been witnessing the increase in R&D initiatives. However, the decline in solar subsidy rates could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.

The key vendors dominating this market space are Abengoa Solar S.A., Areva S.A.S., General Electric (GE) Energy LLC., and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne Inc.

The other vendors mentioned in the report are Siemens Energy Inc., Acciona Solar Power Inc., Applied Materials Inc., Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., Battelle Energy Alliance LLC, BrightSource Energy Inc., Corning Inc., Directed Vapor Technologies International Inc., DuPont E.I., Hitachi Ltd, and SCHOTT AG.

Global Cleantech 100 list: energy storage

Research: 5 Companies Positioned to Succeed in Grid-Scale Energy Storage

The energy storage industry is in the early stages of what will become a giant global market.

Energy storage will support and compete with conventional generation, transmission and distribution resources. As the industry evolves, new business models will emerge where companies make, apply and operate storage assets to allow the grid to work more reliably and cost-effectively while decreasing negative impacts.

For the past eight months I’ve been studying the grid-scale energy storage market in North America. GTM Research has published the results of my research in a special report, Grid-Scale Energy Storage Opportunities in North America. Based on my research, the following five companies seem especially well positioned to succeed in the emerging grid-scale energy storage market in North America.

[Graeme]

California poised to adopt first-in-nation energy storage mandate

A California law that requires utilities to get 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind is widely credited with accelerating the state's cleantech economy. Now state regulators are poised to compel utilities to invest in "energy storage," which could jump-start technology long considered the holy grail of the electricity industry.

On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to vote on a groundbreaking proposal that would require PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to collectively buy more than 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage by 2020 -- roughly enough electricity to supply nearly 994,000 homes.

The first-in-the-nation mandate is expected to spur innovation in emerging storage technologies, from batteries to flywheels. Once large quantities of energy can be stored, the electric grid can make better use of solar, wind and other technologies that generate energy sporadically rather than in a steady flow, and can better manage disruptions from unpredictable events such as storms and wildfires.

"There's plenty of sun out there, and it's going to take storage," Gov. Jerry Brown said in a speech at a solar industry conference in San Francisco this summer. "We need to bottle sunlight."

mercurynews

[Graeme]

Nano Energy Storage Could Make Conventional Batteries Obsolete

A European Union-funded research project on improving energy storage involving eight major participants including Volvo has developed “revolutionary” lightweight structural energy storage components that could be used in future electrified vehicles.

Components are molded from a material consisting of carbon fiber in a polymer resin, nano-structured batteries and super capacitors. The result, says Volvo, is an eco-friendly and cost-effective structure that stands to substantially cut vehicle weight and volume.

Volvo is already at work with an S80 that uses components made form the material that serve structural functions and replace a conventional battery at the same time. The company says that by completely substituting an electric car’s existing components with the new material, overall vehicle weight could be reduced by more than 15 percent.

“The way it works is reinforced carbon fibers sandwich the new battery and are molded and formed to fit around the car’s frame such as door panels, the trunk lid and wheel bowl,” said the company in a statement.

hybridcars

[Graeme]

420 Energy Storage Projects Worldwide for 123GW of Installed Capacity

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that its international energy storage database (www.energystorageexchange.org) has surpassed 420 documented energy storage projects from around the world. The database, the first of its kind, provides free, up-to-date information on grid-connected energy storage projects and relevant state and federal policies. It is funded through DOE's Sandia National Laboratories, and has been operating since January 2012.

"This database shows the impressive diversity of energy storage projects across the globe, as well as the broad services they provide," said Dr. Imre Gyuk, DOE's Energy Storage Program Manager. Dr. Gyuk and Georgianne Huff of Sandia National Laboratories are the project managers of the database. Ms. Huff expects the policy section to grow moving forward. "Policies are being developed and implemented every year," she said, "and as governments worldwide realize the benefits of energy storage, we expect even more."

The Energy Storage Database lists 420 energy storage projects from 34 countries with a combined 123GW of installed capacity. More than 50 energy storage technologies are represented worldwide, including multiple battery technologies, compressed air energy storage, flywheels, gravel energy storage, hydrogen energy storage, pumped hydroelectric, superconducting magnetic energy storage, and thermal energy storage. The policy section of the database shows 18 federal and state policies addressing grid connected energy storage, from rules and regulations to tariffs and other financial incentives.

prnewswire

[Graeme]

U.S. support of grid energy storage charges up

Heads up, renewable energy doubters. Yes, we all know the electrical grid will need storage capacity to accommodate a larger share of power from variable wind and solar generators. But the date for this development is no longer in some distant, hand-wavy future. It’s coming, and it’s coming fast.

A wide array of power storage technologies is waiting for that moment: from traditional batteries and old-school pumped hydropower (in which water can be pumped up to a reservoir and then allowed to run through turbine generators on demand) to newer systems using compressed air, flywheels, new types of batteries, and thermal approaches like molten salts or even ice. (For an overview of some of these technologies and their relative costs, see my article from last year.) The new $2 billion, 280-megawatt (MW) utility-scale Solana solar project in Arizona, for example, will use molten salts to keep the plant running for up to six hours after the sun sets.

Consider the following developments, all of which happened in just the past two months.

California’s energy storage mandate

Microgrids and grid support

Storage as a service

Storage as capacity

smartplanet

[Graeme]

Solar Storage: The New Resilient Clean Energy Technology

Clean Energy Group's new Resilient Power Project is helping states figure out how to provide resilient power to critical infrastructure, so that needed services can be provided during a natural disaster that knocks out portions of the electric grid. These critical services include food, water, shelter, heating and cooling, medical and emergency services, communications, and fueling. Facilities that can provide these services include community buildings, schools, supermarkets, gas stations, cell towers, and hospitals, among others.

There are many technologies, and combinations of technologies, that can be used to provide resilient power to critical facilities. One method is to add solar PV to the facility, with a battery storage backup system. Because there is a lot of interest in solar and energy storage systems, and questions about how they operate and interact with the grid, we decided to provide the following primer. We also describe new business models and companies that are beginning to move into this solar storage space, taking advantage of new revenue streams that could change the game for how energy storage is financed.

huffingtonpost

[Graeme]

Terrajoule Scores $11.5M for Solar Energy Storage and Waste Heat Tech

When we last spoke with Terrajoule CEO Steve Bisset in 2011, he was on the hunt for $7 million in round A venture capital funding.

It's taken a while, but he got his funding (actually landing more than his original target), along with the help of an important strategic investor: Air Liquide. (He ended up proving out one of the themes of the next wave of greentech investing -- namely, that corporates are playing a very important role in the cleantech investment chain.)

Terrajoule, an energy storage and solar and waste-heat harvest startup, closed an $11.5 million funding round from strategic investor Air Liquide, along with NEA and individual investors Jim Bochnowski, Craig Winkler and others. NEA's Forest Baskett and Arno Penzias helped seed-fund the company in 2009. The Redwood City, California-based company unstealthed in these pages in 2011.

The twelve-employee startup called itself "a flexible technology platform for distributed energy generation, storage and efficiency" that "leverages a breakthrough in energy storage technology yielding 5X lower cost than batteries, with no degradation or cycle limitations over a 25-year system life" in a release.

That's some pretty salty language for the resurrection of a vintage World War II steam engine design called the Skinner Universal Unaflow. This positive displacement reciprocating engine was used in U.S. Navy ships. A car ferry, the SS Badger, is powered by such engines and plies the waters of Lake Michigan to this day. Bisset described it as "a very-well refined thread of steam engine technology" that has "little change in efficiency despite changes in output power" in an earlier interview.

The intention is to combine cheap energy storage with cheap solar power. The pre-revenue startup's initial focus is on powering industrial and agricultural customers that are now using diesel generators. Terrajoule has a test site that puts out 100 kilowatts up to 24 hours a day on an irrigated almond farm in California's Central Valley.

The firm generates steam with allegedly cheap parabolic trough solar concentrators, as used on a larger scale in CSP plants. The steam drives a steam engine, which turns a shaft and spins a generator. To hold on to the steam energy for later “dispatchable” use, the steam is condensed in a 30,000-gallon tank of pressurized hot water. When there is demand, the water flashes back to steam to supply the engine. The customer gets distributed, dispatchable renewable energy with no diesel and no pollution. And Terrajoule gets potential access to the worldwide distributed electricity markets that are powered by diesel, including islands, mines, factories, pipelines, townships, irrigation, and military bases.

greentechmedia

[Graeme]

US Solar Technology Could Lead Global Energy Storage Race

Companies and engineers worldwide are pursuing grid-scale energy storage technology that would allow distributed renewable energy sources to easily and efficiently feed electricity into centralized power grids. Once economically commercialized, such technology would find a gargantuan market. And a U.S.-based company will likely jump ahead of the competition next year with its molten salt storage technique.

“This technology at this size would leap-frog us into [being energy] storage leaders,” said SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith.

The California-based, private-equity-backed startup launches its flagship 110-megawatt concentrated solar power (CSP) project known as Crescent Dunes next year in the Nevada desert. The technology uses a tower-based approach in which thousands of mirrors focus sunlight onto a single point to create heat that generates steam used to spin an electricity-producing turbine. The first power to the grid is expected in mid-2014.

SolarReserve has a 25-year power purchase agreement with Nevada Energy, a utility. The power will most likely be used during off-peak hours, said Smith. “This will be the first commercial-scale CSP project with storage,” he added.

SolarReserve licensed the technology from aerospace firm Rocketdyne, which was recently sold by Pratt & Whitney to GenCorp subsidiary Aerojet.

SolarReserve competitor BrightSource also uses a tower-based design for its Ivanpah CSP project in California, but energy storage is not a major component of that technology. When fully on-line, Ivanpah will be the world’s largest CSP plant, taking a title briefly held by the Shams 1 CSP plant in Abu Dhabi.

SolarReserve has another licensed and permitted project in California, known as the Rice project, that will use molten salt storage with 150 megawatts of solar power generation capacity. “We are trying to arrange financing and the tax equity investment portion now,” said Smith.

The U.S. regulatory environment is somewhat uncertain with regard to the longevity of tax-based renewable energy project incentives. As a result, Smith said SolarReserve is very active in both CSP and photovoltaic technology internationally, where the growth potential is “tremendous.”

“We’re looking at projects in Chile, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and have offices in Perth, Dubai, Santiago, Johannesburg, Madrid and Turkey,” Smith said.

greentechmedia

[Graeme]

How power storage affects the return on energy investment ratios of wind and solar resources

The authors present a theoretical framework to calculate how storage affects the energy return on energy investment (EROI) ratios of wind and solar resources. Our methods identify conditions under which it is more energetically favorable to store energy than it is to simply curtail electricity production. Electrochemically based storage technologies result in much smaller EROI ratios than large-scale geologically based storage technologies like compressed air energy storage (CAES) and pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS). All storage technologies paired with solar photovoltaic (PV) generation yield EROI ratios that are greater than curtailment. Due to their low energy stored on electrical energy invested (ESOIe) ratios, conventional battery technologies reduce the EROI ratios of wind generation below curtailment EROI ratios. To yield a greater net energy return than curtailment, battery storage technologies paired with wind generation need an ESOIe > 80.

We identify improvements in cycle life as the most feasible way to increase battery ESOIe. Depending upon the battery’s embodied energy requirement, an increase of cycle life to 10 000 to 18 000 (2 to 20 times present values) is required for pairing with wind (assuming liberal round-trip efficiency [90%] and liberal depth-of-discharge [80%] values). Reducing embodied energy costs, increasing efficiency and increasing depth of discharge will also further improve the energetic performance of batteries. While this paper focuses on only one benefit of energy storage, the value of not curtailing electricity generation during periods of excess production, similar analyses could be used to draw conclusions about other benefits as well.

windpowerengineering

[Graeme]

Energy Department Releases Grid Energy Storage Report

As part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to a cleaner, more secure energy future, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz today released the Energy Department’s Grid Energy Storage report to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The report was commissioned at the request of Senator Ron Wyden, Committee Chairman. The report identifies the benefits of grid energy storage, the challenges that must be addressed to enable broader use, and the efforts of the Energy Department, in conjunction with industry and other government organizations, to meet those challenges.

“Energy storage is a vital component of a more resilient, reliable and efficient electric grid,” said Secretary Moniz. “We must continue developing innovative energy storage technologies and finding new ways to ensure wider adoption to help move the nation closer to the grid of the future.”

The report identifies four challenges that must be addressed to enable energy storage: the development of cost-effective energy storage technologies, validated reliability and safety, an equitable regulatory environment, and industry acceptance. The need for energy storage in the electric grid is increasing as a result of the growing use of renewable power generation, which varies with wind and solar conditions, and increasing frequency of severe weather caused by climate change. The grid’s evolution toward more distributed energy systems and the incorporation of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids also contributes to the growing interest in grid storage.

energy.gov

[Graeme]

DoE Energy Storage Report Praised By ESA

The US Department of Energy has released their Grid Energy Storage report to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, identifying the benefits of grid energy storage, the challenges to be addressed, and the current efforts being made to meet those selfsame challenges.

In response, the Electricity Storage Association has publicly praised the report, “nothing that it affirms that wide-scale deployment of storage technologies in the U.S. and around the world is critical to maintaining a resilient, cost-effective electric grid.”

“The ESA is pleased that the Department of Energy will be providing analysis, tools, and opportunities for public-private partnerships–playing to the strengths of the agency while enhancing the ability of the energy storage industry to move forward with commercialization,” said Darrell Hayslip, Chairman of the Electricity Storage Association. ”The report certainly reinforces our view that storage is an essential component to a more resilient, reliable, and balanced energy grid. ESA believes that it is not a matter of whether storage will be deployed; it is a matter of how fast that occurs. Given the focus indicated in this report, DOE is poised to assist in those efforts.”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Sand may be the answer to storing solar energy

Solar energy is everywhere. From dawn until dusk, the sun’s rays beat down on Earth, providing warmth and light.

The solar energy hitting Earth each year exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by more than 20,000 times.

But once the sun sets, or clouds fill the sky, our supply of solar energy is cut off.

So how do we store solar energy to provide electricity at night?

The obvious solution of storing the energy in batteries is presently not economical at the massive solar power plant scale.

Other options, of compressing and uncompressing air, or pumping water up a slope to use the energy it generates when it flows downhill, are all energy intensive themselves and require large storage areas or riverbeds.

The best answer today lies in thermal energy storage (TES) and heat transfer – using the sun’s energy to heat a material up and then using that heat to create steam on demand that can power a turbine and so generate electricity.

In concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, molten salts have been the material of choice to store solar energy since the 1980s.

The molten salt system uses concentrated solar energy to heat up nitrate salts and then, when solar energy is not available, using that heat to create steam to generate electricity from a turbine.

Our collaborating partner, Masdar, was involved in the development of the Gemasolar plant in Spain, the world’s first CSP plant to produce electricity for 24 hours a day.

But scientists at the Masdar Institute believe they may have an alternative to molten salts for the next generation of CSP plants.

It builds on a similar two-tank concept but is cheaper, better for the environment and even more efficient because it operates at higher operating temperatures.

The material they are looking at to store this thermal energy is one that is in plentiful supply in the UAE – sand.

Sand has many promising properties – it is cheap and it can store thermal energy at a higher temperature of 1000°C against molten salts’ 600°C. That means hotter steam for the turbine and more efficient electricity production.

The sand-based energy storage system the Masdar Institute is developing will do away with heat transfer fluids, pumps and pipes, resulting in a significant reduction in operation cost.

thenational

[Graeme]

Hydrogen Storage For Large-Scale Renewable Energy Deployment — EU Demonstration Projects

To reach a 100% renewable energy world, some solar and wind energy will need to be stored so that they will be available for later use when electricity demand is surpassing electricity generation. Today, if you read journals or blogs on renewable energy, you are very likely to find dozens of articles and reports confirming the key role of energy storage in the future transformation of the global energy landscape. At the same time, in spite of rapt attention to large-scale energy storage in recent years, it is still an essential unresolved problem on the way towards renewable energy domination.

Today, pumped hydropower storage is the only mature technology, and it accounts for more than 99% of energy storage capacity worldwide. This technology consists of pumping water uphill into large reservoirs when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing (or some other power source is able to generate electricity), and then letting it flow down again to generate power.

However, pumped hydro technology is, for the most part, limited geographically to mountainous areas. It also requires very large reservoirs and water sources, which can cause serious environmental harm to surrounding areas.

At the same time, other promising forms of large bulk storage, such as batteries, compressed air storage, and hydrogen storage are currently at a very early stage of development. There will be many technological challenges before one of these technologies reaches a large scale. (I will not here go into description and comparison of storage technologies. Many organizations — for example, EASE/EERA, and DTU – have already published their exhaustive reports on the pros and cons of different storage options. A recent energy storage video published on CleanTechnica also covers those.)

Compared with the small-scale storage market (where we can see a growing number of competing startups that dramatically improve batteries solutions, for example), there are currently not enough companies involved in large-scale energy storage development. One of the main reasons for this situation is an extremely high cost of R&D related to large-scale energy storage. No startup or research lab can afford to build and sustain a large-scale energy storage pilot project. Private investors, in turn, are not very enthusiastic about investing in high-potential but not yet proven concepts. That’s why today there is a vital need of subsidized field trials and demonstration projects that could validate new technologies and concepts, as well as different business models related to specific energy storage solutions.

We can quote four current European projects (HyUnder, INGRID, MYRTE, GRHYD) as examples of such demonstration projects for hydrogen-based storage systems. The hydrogen solution is basically based on the electrolysis of water using energy generated from wind or sun, through which hydrogen can be produced and compressed, or left in liquid form, as long as necessary. Then hydrogen can be either used in fuel cells to create electricity directly, or converted to methane and used to power conventional gas turbine generators. The main advantage of hydrogen technology is its high storage energy density per mass, while its actual disadvantages are high cost and low efficiency. The demonstration projects aim to answer the question: “Is hydrogen a viable solution for energy storage?”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Electric cars may hold solution for power storage

The thick blue cables and white boxes alongside an industrial garage here look like those in any electric-car charging station. But they work in a way that could upend the relationship Americans have with energy.

The retrofitted Mini Coopers and other vehicles plugged into sockets where a Chrysler plant once stood do more than suck energy out of the multi-state electricity grid. They also send power back into it.

With every zap of juice into or out of the region's fragile power network, the car owner gets paid.

The pilot project here at the University of Delaware has had enough success to set off a frenzy of activity in the auto and electricity industries, particularly in California, where Gov. Jerry Brown's transportation plan this year promoted "vehicle-to-grid" technology.

Entrepreneurs and government agencies see the technology as a possible solution to a vexing dilemma: how to affordably store renewable energy so it can be available when it is needed, not only when the wind blows or the sun shines.

"This is a fascinating option," said Robert Weisenmiller, chair of the California Energy Commission. "The technology works. You can do this. The question is … what do we need to do to make it happen?"

latimes

[yellowcanoe]

Germany has a number of pumped storage facilities that were constructed to generate power during the peak daytime demand period when power was expensive and pumping water back into the reservoir at night when power was cheaper. However, this business model has been disrupted by the addition of large amounts of renewable energy, especially solar power, which has significantly reduced the market price for power during the daytime. From the perspective of the energy companies, the pumped storage facilities are no longer profitable.

As in all countries I am aware of, German renewable energy producers are exempt from supply/demand considerations as they are always paid the feed in tarif rate regardless of the actual supply and demand for energy. There is never any cheap renewable energy so energy storage facilities cannot be financed on the basis of power price differences. We can talk about the advantages of different types of large-scale energy storage but we also need to figure out how we are going to pass the costs of energy storage to consumers.

[Graeme]

Grid-Connected Energy Storage Is Set To 'Explode'

Market research firm IHS estimates that only 340 MW of commercial grid-connected energy storage systems (ESS) were installed across 2012 and 2013, with these installations generally demonstration projects. However, the firm forecasts annual installations will reach over 6 GW in 2017.

The U.S. will be the largest region for grid-connected ESS installations between 2012 and 2017, IHS says, accounting for 43% of MW capacity installed during that period. Other regions that will see significant deployment of grid-connected ESS will be Germany and Japan, where the installation of energy storage will be promoted by increasing renewable penetration, growing peak demand and the increasing financial attractiveness of self-consumption of renewable energy.

IHS reports that lithium-ion batteries will account for 64% of energy storage installations between 2012 and 2017. However, opportunities also exist for other storage technologies, including sodium sulfur, sodium nickel chloride, flywheels, flow batteries and alternative compressed air ESS, in the long term.

renewgridmag

[Graeme]

Grid-Scale Energy Storage Photos and Milestones

While some investors and entrepreneurs argue that the energy storage market needs a savior technology, AES has already deployed a significant amount of economically viable utility-scale storage resources.

AES Storage Solutions took some time out of its busy energy-storage deployment activity to blow its own horn, announce a milestone, and speak a bit about grid-scale storage.

The battery-based energy storage developer has a fleet of 174 megawatts of controllable resources with six years of service data and has just surpassed 1.5 million megawatt-hours of delivered service in the U.S. and Chile.

Chris Shelton, the president of AES Energy Storage, defended his firm's uncharacteristic burst of braggadocio: "It's important to mark these milestones, because utility customers and stakeholders are interested in technologies and the scale of these services. They want to hear about reliability and time in the ground."

greentechmedia

What's Ahead for Storage in 2014? Trends and Implications for the Energy Industry

In 2013, we witnessed major movements on electricity storage: California mandated the adoption of 1.325 GW, continually increasing amounts of PV on the grid propelled interest in solar-storage applications, more sophisticated evaluation tools were introduced to accurately assess the benefits of storage on the grid, and trends in locating more resources to the edge of the grid have led to increasing interest in including storage into a variety of distributed energy resource applications.

Our experts will examine the key events of 2013; delve into the lessons learned from applications, and offer insights into the trends you should expect to see from storage in 2014. During this webinar, you will:

Hear about the lessons learned from a recent survey of over 40 US utilities, storage vendors and consultants for the most desirable energy storage projects at distribution level

Explore the valuation tools now available, key applications that valuation tools are targeting in order to meet the expected trends for 2014
Gain insights from the field into safety and risk issues and solutions from recent storage installations

renewablesbiz

[Graeme]

Energy Storage Market Set To Explode

Energy storage is often heralded as the “holy grail” of the energy market. It seems that a number of researchers and companies have worked hard and long enough that this holy grail is ready to see the light. According to market research firm IHS, the energy storage market is set to “explode” to an annual installation size of 6 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 and over 40 GW by 2022 — from an initial base of only 0.34 GW installed in 2012 and 2013.

The IHS report pits the US as the largest market for grid-connected energy storage installations through 2017. It projects that the US will install 43% of the capacity additions from 2012–2017. Germany and Japan are projected to be other top markets, as any regular reader, long-time of CleanTechnica would surely assume.

What will rule the day in the energy storage market in the coming few years? Zinc-air batteries? Zinc-iron redox flow batteries? Liquid-metal batteries? Not according to IHS. IHS projects that 64% of energy storage installations will come from lithium-ion batteries. That’s more or less what a recent panel of battery experts told me in Abu Dhabi as well — a story for a coming day.

In the longer term, it’s much harder to predict what will rule the day, or how much growth we’ll see. But, for now, I’ll let Sam Wilkinson, solar research manager at IHS, have the last word:

“The grid-connected energy storage market is set to explode, reaching a total of over 40 GW of installations by 2022.”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Commercial Energy Storage Market to Surpass 720MW by 2020

The next six years will mark the beginning of a long-term, viable growth opportunity for commercial energy storage, according to GTM Research’s newest report, Distributed Energy Storage 2014: Applications and Opportunities for Commercial Energy. Driven in part by the growth of solar photovoltaics, over 720 megawatts of distributed energy storage will be deployed in the U.S. between 2014 and 2020. This represents a 34 percent cumulative annual growth rate.

greentechmedia