Storage & Smart Power

The growth potential of energy storage has drawn interest from some of the biggest names in the power business and beyond. With the trend set to continue, Andy Colthorpe explores how three of the recent targets are faring under new ownership.

As the building blocks of energy storage systems, batteries have a key role in influencing system design and economics. Davion Hill of DNV GL explores the importance of testing the performance of individual battery cells in minimising the exposure of battery buyers to technical risks.

A key missing piece in the clean energy puzzle is the question of how to provide baseload power in an electricity system dominated by intermittent renewables. Javier Cavada of Highview Power examines cryogenic long-duration storage as a possible solution.

In the hierarchy of grid needs, peaking power is often a priority in terms of providing resiliency and balance to the network. This is usually provided by natural gas turbines, which come at a high environmental and economic cost. Andy Colthorpe charts the rise of the solar-plusstorage peaker plant.

This year’s Solar Power International trade show dedicated what seemed like almost as much space to energy storage as solar. As Andy Colthorpe reports, this is likely a strong indication of the way the world is adopting renewable energy, particularly California, where storage looks set to play a key role in helping the Golden State realise its green ambitions

Andy Colthorpe speaks to Janice Lin of the California Energy Storage Alliance on what sort of role energy storage will play in reaching the ‘100% carbon-free retail electricity’ goal of the state’s SB100 legislation

Energy storage projects often fail to deliver value because of economic miscalculations. These computational issues, however, can now be mitigated by applying software, analytics and machine learning, write Enrico Ladendorf and Bryce Evans

Smoothing and firming are often discussed to make renewables appear more like conventional generation to the grid operator, but how smooth and how firm does that generation need to be? How can the attributes and operations of energy storage be appropriately measured relative to cost? Andres Cortes and Ben Kaun of the Electric Power Research Institute discuss recent work addressing these issues

Cloud-aggregated virtual power plants using residential or C&I battery storage as part of a smart energy management system can benefit the grid, integrate renewables and EVs and hopefully add a powerful long-term value proposition for home storage. Andy Colthorpe and David Pratt report on how some of the UK’s first VPP projects are proving the concept

First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the second of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe dives deeper into questions of bankability, market segmentation and manufacturing strategies