Report Offers Ways to Expand Mass. Battery Storage Innovation

A new report from UMass Amherst’s Clean Energy Extension, released on July 5, 2019, sees significant potential to accelerate Massachusetts’s emerging energy and battery energy storage (BES) innovation ecosystem. The report, Creating Opportunity: Building a Massachusetts Battery Energy Storage Innovation Ecosystem” attributes much of the potential to the connections between the Commonwealth’s academic and private sectors.

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Capacity Value of Energy Storage in PJM

Astrapé Consulting performed a capacity valuation of energy-limited resources (ELRs) using the Strategic Energy and Risk Valuation Model (SERVM) for the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. The intent of this analysis was to determine the duration requirements for ELRs based on their ability to provide the same reliability benefits as conventional fully-dispatchable resources.

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New study By Astrapé, Energy Storage Association, and National Resources Defense Council refutes PJM arguments in FERC 841 Order

A new study released by Astrapé Consulting, funded by the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA) and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), concludes that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) efforts to encourage more energy storage deployment is supported by sound data. The findings, which are specific to the PJM market, show that PJM’s proposal requiring a storage asset to run for 10 continuous hours in order to qualify its full output for the capacity market is unnecessary and unduly restrictive. The Astrapé study concludes that a shorter storage duration requirement correctly reflects its capacity value for the foreseeable future.

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CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman's Statement on Georgia Public Service Commission's Long-Term Energy Plan

“We commend the Georgia Public Service Commission for its approval this week of an ambitious, long-term energy plan that includes includes 80 MW of battery storage for the state,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the U.S. Energy Storage Association. The commission’s strategy also calls for pilot programs to re-purpose used batteries to enable fast-charging of electric vehicles.

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Canada Launches New Challenge to Accelerate Battery Innovation

Canada is building a clean energy future that creates jobs, reduces costs for families and ensures that we remain a destination of choice for international investment. Central to this goal is the growing global battery market that has the potential to change the way we use and store power, providing a major economic opportunity for Canada while directly supporting efforts to mitigate climate change.

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GE and BlackRock Launch Distributed Solar and Storage Business

GE has announced it’s taking its distributed solar and solar-plus-storage business to a new stage, via a partnership and majority investment by asset management firm and heavyweight renewables investor BlackRock Real Assets. The new company, named Distributed Solar Development, will be 20 percent owned by GE Renewable Energy and 80 percent owned by a fund managed by BlackRock. The business, which has been incubated within GE since 2012, will focus on commercial, industrial and public-sector customers.

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NantEnergy Shows how Solar + Storage Is a No-Brainer for Businesses in California, New Mexico Right Now

The solar + storage value proposition is increasingly a no-brainer for commercial buildings in states out West. Demand charges in California have increased by as much as 64% since 2014, and these charges can represent more than 50% of a company’s monthly energy bill. What’s more, California experienced more outages in 2017 than any other state (430+), with outages lasting an average of 117 minutes.

As these charges have increased, however, so too have grid outages, in both frequency and duration; these downtimes cost U.S. businesses billions each year. Much of the increase is due to the higher frequency of damaging severe weather events driven by climate change, making backup power vital for business customers.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE (Solar Builder)

NYS Awards $55M for Energy Storage on Long Island

New York state is providing $55 million in funding for energy storage including commercial and residential storage projects on Long Island. Announcing the funding Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said there would be an initial rollout of about $15 million in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Energy storage projects supported by this initiative would help to advance the state’s goal of achieving New York’s target of 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030.

Read the source article at libn.com

When the Battery Is a Building

AES has broken ground on a 100 MW / 400 MWh battery storage system in Long Beach, California that will feed the Southern California Edison (SCE) region in a 20 year power purchase agreement. The facility was specifically procured to provide power at peak times of the day, offer local capacity and ramping/ancillary services. Construction is expected to complete by the end of 2020, and will complement a new air cooled 1 GW gas facility that is replacing an older ocean cooled system.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE (PV Magazine)

Lithium Batteries: Far More Widely Recycled than Second-Hand Statistics Imply

Lithium-ion batteries are far more widely recycled than many people think, while China and South Korea are already leaders of the emerging circular economy of lithium, a report commissioned by the Swedish Energy Agency has found. The report has been republished in English after a launch in Spring in Swedish. The author stated that many misconceptions and poor observations are made and repeated around lithium recycling and that more than 70% of lithium-ion batteries recycled today are processed in China and South Korea, with “high” recovery rates of materials.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE (Energy Storage News)