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MIT Report Explores Leveraging Storage As Part Of Emissions Reduction Efforts

May 19, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 19, 2022

A new report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explores pathways for using variable energy resources (VREs), such as wind and solar power, and energy storage to remove carbon dioxide emissions from electricity systems efficiently by 2050.

“Our study finds that energy storage can help VRE-dominated electricity systems balance electricity supply and demand while maintaining reliability in a cost-effective manner — that in turn can support the electrification of many end-use activities beyond the electricity sector,” Robert Armstrong, MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) director, Chevron professor of chemical engineering and chair of the Future of Energy Storage study, said in a statement.

Because storage technologies will have the ability to substitute for or complement all aspects of a power system, including generation, transmission, and demand response, they will be critical to electricity system designers, operators, and regulators in the future, the report’s authors said, adding that the report is designed to help government, industry, and academia chart a path to developing and deploying electrical energy storage technologies as a way of encouraging electrification and decarbonization throughout the economy, while avoiding excessive or inequitable burdens.

The report focused on three regions of the United States – the Northeast, the Southeast, and Texas – using models to look out to 2050. The results indicated that the deployment of long-duration energy storage technologies would have the greatest impact on electricity system decarbonization when natural gas generation without carbon capture and storage technology is not an option. Generally, the authors said, long-duration energy storage when optimally deployed substitutes for natural gas capacity, increases the value of variable renewable generation, and produces moderate reductions in system average electricity cost.

The report identified four categories of long-duration energy storage, redox flow batteries, metal-air batteries, hydrogen storage, and thermal storage, and said the long-duration technologies win out in the long term over lithium-ion batteries because they have lower energy capacity costs and lower round-trip efficiencies.

The authors did, however, say that using hydrogen for energy storage would likely depend on the extent to which hydrogen is used in the overall economy and its broad use “will be driven by future costs of hydrogen production, transportation, and storage — and by the pace of innovation in hydrogen end-use applications.”

The study also predicted that the distribution of hourly wholesale prices or the hourly marginal value of energy will change in deeply decarbonized power systems with many more hours of very low prices and more hours of high prices compared with current wholesale market prices, which could increase challenges for financing future investments in grid assets, including storage. “This issue impacts all resources and underscores the need for thoughtful electricity market reforms and retail rate design to encourage efficient economy-wide decarbonization,” the authors said.

The authors recommended the adoption of retail pricing and retail load management options that reward all consumers for shifting electricity use away from times when high wholesale prices indicate scarcity, to times when low wholesale prices signal abundance.

The MITEI report also said that many existing power plants that are being shut down and otherwise might be abandoned could be converted to energy storage facilities by replacing fossil fuel boilers with thermal storage and new steam generators using commercially available technologies.

Department of Energy Seeks Feedback On Long Duration Energy Storage

May 16, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News  Director
May 16, 2022

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on May 12 issued a request for information (RFI) seeking input on the structure of a $505 million long duration energy storage initiative.

“The new Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere Initiative, created by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will advance energy storage systems toward widespread commercial deployment by lowering the costs and increasing the duration of energy storage resources,” DOE said.

The initiative, administered through DOE’s new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, will invest approximately $505 million over four years to validate grid-scale long duration energy storage technologies and enhance the capabilities of customers and communities to integrate grid storage more effectively.

DOE will implement three programs:

Under the overall Long Duration Energy Storage Initiative, DOE is also collaborating with the U.S. Department of Defense for long duration storage demonstrations at government facilities.

DOE’s Long Duration Storage Shot, launched in July 2021, sets a target of achieving a levelized cost of energy storage of $0.05/kWh, a 90% reduction from a 2020 baseline costs by 2030.

To meet this target, a wide range of energy storage technologies, including electrochemical, mechanical, thermal, flexible generation, flexible buildings, and power electronics, will need to be considered, well beyond the traditional lithium-ion batteries, DOE said.

In March, DOE’s Energy Storage for Social Equity Initiative selected 14 communities to receive technical assistance to leverage energy storage as a means of increasing resilience and long-term affordability.

The goal of the RFI is to solicit feedback from a wide range of stakeholders on DOE’s implementation strategy and eligibility requirements.

Comments must be received by 5:00 p.m. EDT on June 16, 2022, and can be submitted by emailing EnergyStorage41001RFI@ee.doe.gov.

A public webinar will be held to provide additional information.

New York Power Authority Eyes Bulk-Scale Battery Storage Projects

May 4, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 4, 2022

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) recently issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the potential use of peaker plant sites and related electric infrastructure for the development of bulk-scale battery storage projects.

NYPA said that the RFP release comes after the review of promising study results indicating that NYPA’s peaker plants located in New York City could begin the transition to low or zero carbon emission technologies well ahead of NYPA’s VISION2030 goal of decarbonization by 2035 and the state’s goal of a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040.

The NYPA Small Clean Power Plant Adaptation Study, prepared in consultation with the PEAK Coalition, a group of environmental justice and clean energy advocates, demonstrates that four-hour duration battery storage has the potential to replace the energy currently provided by NYPA’s individual plants, if certain key conditions are met, by 2030, NYPA said.

The study was commissioned by NYPA to analyze potential clean energy options to decarbonize NYPA’s peaker plants.

Study researchers examined energy forecasts of changes in the New York electric supply mix as well as changes in demand over the next two decades, showing that as early as 2030, with the advent of more renewable energy coming into New York City, and a resulting decrease in the expected frequency and duration of run times, four-hour energy storage could provide enough energy to fully replace the operations of each individual small clean power plant unit.

NYPA said that the implementation of these technologies has the potential to also help accelerate progress in attaining the clean energy goals outlined in New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, legislation that calls for zero-emission electricity in New York State by 2040 and are complimentary to Governor Hochul’s 2022 State of the State commitment to phase out New York City’s older, most-polluting fossil-fuel facilities by exploring ways to repurpose and redevelop fossil-based electric infrastructure by 2030. 

Further study will be needed to assess resiliency and reliability impacts at the plant level, as well as capacity requirements required by the New York Independent System Operator and Con Edison, the investor-owned utility that provides direct energy services to New York City residents.

Additional analysis will also be needed to ensure that any envisioned retrofit, replacement or retirement does not result in an increase in carbon emissions or other criteria pollutants from less efficient fossil-fired power plants in New York City, NYPA noted.

In 2001, NYPA installed natural gas-fired peaker plants at six locations in New York City and one on Long Island. They operate infrequently — roughly 10 percent of the time, in recent years, when directed to do so to meet energy demands — providing local reliability and resiliency.

The study’s analysis is focused solely on NYPA’s in-city peaker plants.

 The following is a summary of the study’s key findings:

The findings of the study are dependent on production cost modelling assumptions, such as the future build-out and integration of more renewable resources and future transmission and distribution development and modernization.

While the study results indicate the potential of energy storage, the same results, also indicate that beyond 2030, as more electrification drives an increase in electricity demand, the system-wide energy need during periods of low renewable output will require perfect capacity (on-demand, reliable, and without duration constraints) energy resources or longer duration storage technologies to fill the gap and avoid reliability issues.

NYPA said it will be moving forward towards decarbonization through the implementation of several actions including the RFP’s issuance for the development of bulk-scale battery storage projects. Bids are due May 24, 2022, with potential awards announced July 1, 2022.  For more information on the RFP go to  NYPA’s Procurement website. 

In addition, NYPA will:

The study, conducted by Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3) and General Electric Energy Consulting, was commissioned by NYPA in consultation with the PEAK Coalition, and was supported by Strategen Consulting, as part of an agreement signed in 2020 between the two groups to assess how NYPA could transition its natural gas fired small clean power plants to use clean energy technologies, such as battery storage and low to zero carbon emission resources and technologies, while continuing to meet the unique electricity reliability and resiliency requirements of New York City.

The study is available here.  

The American Public Power Association’s Public Power Energy Tracker is a resource for association members that summarizes public power energy storage projects that are currently online. The tracker is available here.

Berkeley Lab Report Examines Growth Of Hybrid Power Plants

May 3, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 3, 2022

Generation projects that combine solar or wind generation with energy storage are poised to grow exponentially, but the success of those projects will require careful attention to factors such as project configuration and operational strategy, according to a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

At the end of 2021, there were more than 8,000 megawatts (MW) of wind or solar generation connected to storage in the United States, but a much larger number of hybrid projects — 280,000 MW of solar and 208,000 MW of storage – have applied for grid connections, the report, Batteries Included: Top 10 Findings from Berkeley Lab Research on the Growth of Hybrid Power Plants in the United States, said. The report noted that most of the proposals pair energy storage with solar photovoltaic projects.

Even if only a quarter of those projects are able to progress to commercial operation, “they will have big impacts on grid operations,” the authors of the report said in a statement. “While hybridization helps to ease the challenge of balancing variable supply and demand, its relative novelty means that research is needed to facilitate integration and promote innovation.”

In the new report, LBNL summarizes articles it published over the past two years in support of private- and public-sector decision-making about hybrid plants and presents its top ten findings.

Among the findings, LBNL noted that the growth in hybrid projects is being driven by a combination of factors, most notably falling prices and the incentives and synergies of co-locating energy storage with variable generation projects.

The report noted that power purchase agreement prices have fallen from $40-$95 per megawatt hour-photovoltaic (MWh-PV) in 2017 to $30-$75 per MWh-PV in 2021, and while the cost of adding storage to a solar project is around $10/MWh-PV for a battery sized to 50 percent of a project’s solar power capacity, the combination yields gains between $8/MWh-PV and $21/MWh-PV, depending on region and dispatch assumptions.

The authors also noted that hybrid projects can benefit from tax credits, construction cost savings, and more flexible generator dispatch, but suffer from siting constraints that make them “sensitive to local market conditions and configuration choices.”

For instance, LBNL found that, in some instances, the capacity contribution of hybrid plant is “less than the sum of its parts,” as the shared infrastructure of a hybrid project can reduce its capacity value.

Likewise, while hybrid plants can gain value from participation in ancillary service markets, at least in some markets, that value can be “fleeting” because those markets are thin and could become saturated by energy storage projects already in the interconnection queue. Expecting additional ancillary service revenues to offset declining energy and capacity value “may be a risky strategy for wind and solar hybrid project owners,” the report said.

Overall, “while hybridization of power plants provides opportunities to ease the challenge of balancing intermittent renewable resources, its relative novelty means that research is needed to facilitate integration and promote innovation,” the report’s authors said.

LBNL has scheduled a free webinar on May 5 for a closer look at its findings.

Pacific Northwest Lab Scientists Develop Prototype ‘Seasonal’ Battery

April 26, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 26, 2022

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory say they have developed a “freeze-thaw” battery that could potentially provide long-term “seasonal” energy storage.

The prototype battery, about the size of a hockey puck, uses molten salt technology to trap and store energy.

The work by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) scientists was published online March 23 in Cell Reports Physical Science.

“Longer-duration energy storage technologies are important for increasing the resilience of the grid when incorporating a large amount of renewable energy,” Imre Gyuk, director of energy storage at the Department of Energy Office of Electricity, said in a statement. “This research marks an important step toward a seasonal battery storage solution that overcomes the self-discharge limitations of today’s battery technologies.”

A seasonal battery could be used to capture the hydroelectric energy of spring water runoff and store it for use when summer electricity demand is high, or it could be used to enhance a utility’s ability to weather a power outage, the PNNL scientists said.

“It’s a lot like growing food in your garden in the spring, putting the extra in a container in your freezer, and then thawing it out for dinner in the winter,” Minyuan “Miller” Li, a postdoctoral researcher at PNNL and first author of the report, said in a statement.

The freeze-thaw battery is charged by heating it to 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing ions to flow through the liquid electrolyte to create chemical energy, and then colling the battery to room temperature, which causes the electrolyte to solidify. When the energy is needed, the battery is reheated and the energy flows.

The battery’s electrolyte is molten salt, which is liquid at higher temperatures but solid at room temperature. In tests, the PNNL freeze-thaw battery has retained 92 percent of its capacity over 12 weeks.

The prototype battery was designed to avoid the use of rate and highly reactive materials and, instead, uses an anode and cathode that are aluminum and nickel, respectively, in a molten salt electrolyte with the addition of sulfur to enhance the battery’s energy capacity. And the separator between the anode and the cathode is made of fiberglass instead of ceramic, which can be susceptible to breakage during the freeze-thaw cycle.

The prototype battery’s energy is stored at a materials cost of about $23 per kilowatt hour (kWh), which was measured before a recent jump in the cost of nickel, PNNL said.

The PNNL team said it is exploring the use of iron, which is less expensive, in hopes of bringing the materials cost down to around $6 per kWh, roughly 15 times less than the materials cost of today’s lithium-ion batteries.

The prototype battery’s theoretical energy density is 260 watt-hours per kilogram, which is higher than current lead-acid and flow batteries.

Energy Storage Will Grow Quickly, NREL Report Says

April 25, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 25, 2022

Energy storage deployments could grow rapidly in the coming decades, reaching between 130 gigawatts (GW) and 680 GW by 2050, enough to support renewable generation of 80 percent or higher, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).  

The report, Storage Futures Study: Key Learnings for the Coming Decades, which is the seventh and final of NREL’s Storage Futures Study (SFS) series launched in 2020, argues that energy storage will likely play a critical role in a low-carbon, flexible, and resilient future grid.

“Each phase of the study has indicated a potential coming wave of energy storage, with U.S. installed storage capacity increasing by at least five times by 2050,” Nate Blair, principal investigator of the study, said in a statement. “Overall, we find energy storage offers significant value, from easier grid operations to fewer costly thermal start-ups to reduced emissions.”

Among the key findings, the report found that diurnal storage is economically competitive across a variety of scenarios that include a range of cost and performance assumptions for storage, as well as power generated from wind, solar, or natural gas. “Even the most conservative case represents a fivefold increase compared to the installed storage capacity of 23 GW in 2020,” the majority of which is pumped storage hydropower, the report’s authors said.

NREL’s modelling indicated that “significant deployments” of both renewable energy and energy storage could be deployed even without additional carbon policies, which, the authors said, demonstrates their increasing cost-competitiveness as resources for provision of energy and capacity services.”

And while “stacking” the functions that energy storage devices can perform, which runs from time shifting peak demand to avoiding new transmission investments, the ability of storage to provide firm capacity to offset the need for conventional generation to meet peak demand is “critical to realizing its full potential,” the authors found.

NREL’s models also showed that increased levels of energy storage deployment flatten the peak load curve and thus increases the amount of stored energy required to provide firm capacity and to continue reducing net peak demand. That could present opportunities for emerging technologies capable of longer durations, or even for the next generation of existing long-duration technologies such as pumped storage hydropower, the report’s authors said.

However, the report’s authors also noted that widescale electrification of heating could shift the peak load to the winter for much of the United States, which would create longer peaks that are more difficult to meet with storage and solar power. If that occurs, it could increase the value of wind generation and longer-duration storage, the report said.

And even though energy storage is highly competitive as a new source of peaking capacity without carbon dioxide mitigation policies in place, “it is important to recognize that technology or policy changes could affect the growth prospects of energy storage,” the report noted.

“Despite important modifications to regulatory frameworks over the past decade, storage remains a challenging technology to appropriately value and compensate, particularly in restructured markets,” the authors wrote. “If storage is not compensated fairly, it could result in nonoptimal storage deployment.”

The report also noted that flexibility will be key to decarbonizing the power sector at least cost and that will likely require a variety of resources, some of which may cost less than energy storage. “Establishing better characterization of demand response, flexible loads’ realistic contribution potential, and cost is critical to better understanding the opportunities for energy storage,” the authors said.

The Key Learnings report modeled hundreds of future scenarios and added new capabilities to NREL’s publicly available Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) capacity expansion model to represent the value of diurnal battery energy storage. To simulate grid operations in the ReEDS scenarios, NREL used the commercially available PLEXOS production cost model. On the distribution side, NREL added new storage capabilities to its open-source Distributed Generation Market Demand (dGen) model to simulate customer adoption of solar-plus-storage systems under different battery and backup-power value assumptions.

Reading Municipal Light Department Details New 5-MW Battery Storage Project

April 19, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 19, 2022

Reading Municipal Light Department’s (RMLD) Citizens’ Advisory Board and Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the RMLD to enter into a purchase power energy agreement with Kearsarge Energy for a battery storage system in Wilmington that will be capable of discharging five megawatts over two hours.

The system will be used to reduce costs related to peak demand and is projected to average $200,000 in annual savings for the RMLD during the 20-year project lifetime.  The system is expected to be installed in 2023.

The battery project will be collocated with the existing 2.1-megawatt RMLD Community Solar array that is also owned and operated by Kearsage Energy.  

This project adds to RMLD’s existing battery storage capability, including the Minuteman system, also a 5-megawatt, 2 hours system located in North Reading.

RMLD plans to add a total 30-megawatts/90 megawatt-hours of battery storage to RMLD’s service area over the next three years to further reduce costs and increase the resiliency of our distribution network.

The American Public Power Association’s Public Power Energy Tracker is a resource for association members that summarizes public power energy storage projects that are currently online. The tracker is available here.

Report Says New York Is On Track To Meet Its Energy Storage Targets

April 13, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 13, 2022

New York is on track to reach the energy storage goals the state set in 2018, according to an updated report released by the Department of Public Service (DPS) .

DPS’ third annual State of Storage report recorded that energy storage projects totaling 1,230 megawatts (MW) were either awarded or contracted in 2021. That total equals about 82 percent of the state’s target of having 1,500 MW of energy storage installed by 2025 and 41 percent of the state’s target of having 3,000 MW of storage in place by 2030.

With over 12,000 MW of energy storage projects in New York utility interconnection queues and the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) interconnection queue, the energy storage industry in the state is “robust,” the report said.

Common energy storage use-cases in New York include co-location with solar photovoltaic developments and other renewable energy resources.

Energy storage systems up to 5 MW are eligible for the state’s Value of Distributed Energy Resource (VDER) compensation, which is the most common compensation mechanism chosen by developers, the report said. Coupling energy storage with solar allows developers to maximize VDER compensation under many scenarios, according to the report.

The report noted, however, that not all projects in interconnection queues will come to fruition because of unfavorable project specific economics or other reasons. The report also noted that supply chain issues and increased competition for battery cells have resulted in price increases in 2021 that have persisted into 2022.

The average total installed costs for non-residential, retail projects that were awarded incentives averaged $567 per kWh for installations in 2022 and 2023, up from $464 per kWh for installations in 2020 and 2021, the report said. For projects above 5 MW that received an incentive and will provide wholesale market services, the total projected installed costs should average $370 per kWh for installations in 2020 and 2021, the report said.

The average total installed costs for behind-the-meter customer sited projects used for peak load reduction remain “relatively high” at $1,117 per kWh in 2021, up from $970 per kWh in 2020, the report said, adding that the cost increases were driven by supply chain issues and increased competition for battery cells.

However, the costs for large scale energy storage projects are expected to decrease into the $150 to $200 per kilowatt hour (kWh) range by 2030, the report said, citing recent industry analyst reports.

The New York Public Service Commission established the statewide energy storage goal of 3,000 MW by 2030 in December 2018 and subsequently adopted a suite of energy storage deployment policies and actions to achieve those goals.

In January 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans to double the state’s energy storage target to at least 6,000 MW by 2030.

The DPS and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) are in the process of updating the state’s Energy Storage Roadmap to reflect the expanded goal. The roadmap would then go to the state’s Public Service Commission for further action.

Biden Moves To Support Production Of Minerals, Materials For Large Capacity Batteries

April 1, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 1, 2022

The White House on March 31 said that President Biden would issue a directive authorizing the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to support the production and processing of minerals and materials used for large capacity batteries such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese.

The sectors supported by these large capacity batteries — transportation and the power sector — account for more than half of our nation’s carbon emissions, the White House said in a fact sheet. 

“The President is also reviewing potential further uses of DPA — in addition to minerals and materials — to secure safer, cleaner, and more resilient energy for America,” the White House said.

On March 11, a group of Senators sent a letter to President Biden that urged him to invoke the DPA to rebuild the capacity of key sectors and value-chains by domestically producing and processing critical minerals, such as battery metals like lithium and graphite.

The letter was sent by Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Jim Risch (R-ID) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

“We appreciate your issuance of Executive Order 14017 and the associated 100-day review that recognizes America’s ongoing supply chain crisis,” the Senators said in the letter.

“We are committed to maintaining and strengthening our nation’s leadership and rebuilding our productive capacity in key sectors and value-chains. To do so, however, we must address our most vulnerable positions, and in no place are our supply chains more vulnerable than our lack of home-grown production and processing of rare earth and critical minerals,” they wrote.

Energy Storage Installations Hit Record In Fourth Quarter

March 29, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
March 29, 2022

The U.S. energy storage market set a record in the fourth quarter with new system installations totaling 4,727 megawatt hours (MWh), according to Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association’s latest U.S. Energy Storage Monitor report.

Even with project delays, there was more energy storage capacity installed in fourth-quarter 2021 than there was in the first three quarters of the year combined, the report said. And, on an annual basis, deployments of grid-scale energy storage nearly tripled year-over-year to 3 gigawatts (GW), 9.2 gigawatt hours (GWh).

Despite a record year, the grid-scale energy storage market did not meet expectations in 2021, the report said. Supply chain challenges delayed more than 2 GW of capacity into 2022 and 2023. Supply chain pressures and delays within interconnection queue processing will persist through 2024, Wood Mackenzie forecast.

“2021 was yet another record for the U.S. energy storage market, with annual installations of multiple gigawatts for the first time,” Jason Burwen, vice president for energy storage at American Clean Power, said in a statement. “Even in the face of continued macro-economic headwinds, interconnection delays, and lack of proactive federal policy, increasing demand for resilient clean energy and volatility in the price of fuel-based generation will drive energy storage deployment forward,” he said, adding, “despite supply tightness leading to some project delays, the grid-scale market is still on track for exponential growth.”

In the non-residential market sector, there were 131 MWh of non-residential energy storage installations in the fourth quarter which brought total annual deployments in 2021 to 162 megawatts (MW), 350 MWh.

Increased storage attachment rates in community solar markets of New York and Massachusetts were the main driver of demand for storage in the non-residential market, the report said.

The residential energy storage market had its strongest quarter to date with 123 MW installed, beating the previous quarterly record of 110 MW in the first quarter of 2021, the report said.

Increasingly effective solar-plus-storage sales in markets outside of California helped establish the new quarterly benchmark and resulted in a national annual total of 436 MW, according to the report.

By 2026, annual installations in the residential market segment are expected to hit 2 GW, 5.4 GWh, with California, Puerto Rico, Texas, and Florida leading the residential market, the report said.

California will continue to be the largest residential energy storage market with three-and-a-half times more storage installed annually in 2027 compared with 2021, the report found.