From ESS-news.com

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the opening of the Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL), a new facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington.

The 93,000-square-foot or nearly hectare-sized research facility will house 30 laboratories and about 100 researchers. It is equipped to evaluate new battery materials and battery systems up to 100 kW operating under realistic grid conditions.

The DOE hopes that the ability to collaborate with scientists, engineers, industry, and agencies in one building will accelerate the development and roll-out of new grid-scale storage energy technologies and ideas.

Along with research initiatives, GSL will serve as an educational center, training technicians, grid operators, first responders, safety officials, and more.

Vince Sprenkle, energy storage expert and GSL’s first director said: “Energy storage will be a significant part of a resilient and reliable grid that’s fully decarbonized. And GSL will help us get there,” said “GSL is truly an integrated facility that incorporates everything from fundamental materials research to testing 100-kilowatt batteries.”

Read the rest of the article on ESS-news.com.

From ESS-news.com

Key battery manufacturing projects initiated in response to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are facing setbacks, according to a Financial Times (FT) investigation.

The IRA, signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, proposed a $369 billion injection into the US clean energy economy. The industrial policy focused on reshoring manufacturing for the renewable energy transition, and significant announcements have been made for U.S. manufacturing in batteries and materials, solar manufacturing, hydrogen, and more.

Yet the FT reports, when including semiconductor manufacturing as well, that of the projects worth more than $100m, “a total of $84bn have been delayed for between two months and several years, or paused indefinitely.” The FT notes some delays are public knowledge, while others have not been formally announced, citing interviews with more than 100 companies and state and local authorities to determine project statuses.

In terms of batteries and public announcements, LG Energy Solution’s $2.3 billion battery storage facility in Arizona is on a construction suspension after being quadrupled in March from its first announcement.

Read the complete article at ESS-news.

From ESS news

ION Storage Systems has reached the 800-cycle mark with its solid-state battery, which it plans to bring into commercial production. The battery previously exceeded 125 cycles with less than five percent capacity loss in March, 2024.

The milestone of 800 cycles was achieved without encountering the common issues that can complicate the market readiness of solid-state batteries. The battery, which uses a ceramic electrolyte separator was tested without compression and showed no signs of swelling or volume change.

It means the battery will not require compression, swell budget, an extensive cooling system, or heavy fire barriers when rolled out, according to ION.

Neil Ovadia, VP of Supply Chain at ION, spoke with ESS News about the company’s progress following previous coverage in 2022.

“The last two years have been transformational. We’ve grown from about 20 employees to over 75, expanded into two larger buildings, and broken ground on our pilot manufacturing facility,” said Ovadia.

“We’re focused on the defense and consumer products markets initially, with plans to transition into electric vehicles and grid storage as we reduce costs and increase energy density,” he added.

Technical milestones

The technical achievement of the battery itself was the real highlight, according to Ovadia.

“We’ve made big strides in our product’s cycle life. We went from proving 125 cycles in March to achieving 800 cycles by July. Importantly, these cycles were achieved at room temperature with no compression or additional aids, demonstrating the true potential of our solid-state technology,” he said.

Robert Whittlesey, Principal Technical Program Manager at ION, told ESS News the technical process behind the testing, and highlighted the significance.

“800 cycles is significant because that’s beyond most consumer electronics. That starts to get into EV and grid storage applications, and even space-based applications that require a high cycle life. So this is something that could be used for all applications.”

Ovadia added, “It’s a confluence of all the characteristics of that battery that got to 800 cycles. One thing that you find in solid-state batteries is this requirement for compression, this requirement for heat, this coddling of the battery to achieve those cycles. It’s meaningful when you look at it as a final product, it makes it more expensive, heavier, and takes away from the potential and promise of a solid-sate battery.

A chart supplied by ION of the C/3 testing (a charge-discharge rate of charging every three hours, discharging every three hours) shows low capacity loss:

Grid storage possibilities

ION’s advancements with its solid-state batteries are highly relevant for grid-scale applications, with the company recently awarded $20 million from the US government’s ARPA-E Scale-Up program, which aims to accelerate the development of larger format cells for grid storage.

Ovadia said, “We are focused on scaling up our technology to produce larger, more cost-effective batteries. This involves collaborating with manufacturing partners and leveraging our university research partnerships to enhance both the mechanical and electrochemical aspects of our technology.”

He further emphasized the robustness and safety of their technology, stating, “Our batteries are inherently safer, eliminating the risk of fires associated with lithium-ion batteries. This makes them ideal for large-scale energy storage deployments where safety is paramount.”

Whittlesey added, “Our technology is not only safer but also more efficient in various temperature conditions. Traditional lithium-ion batteries require significant infrastructure to maintain optimal temperatures, which incurs additional costs. Our batteries can operate effectively across a broader temperature range, reducing the need for such infrastructure.”

Ovadia said that the current BESS grid infrastructure generally consumes energy as a parasitic draw for cooling, something that can be eliminated with the ability to operate at higher temperatures without the dangers of lithium-ion batteries.

Furthermore, Whittelsey pointed out the recyclability of the solution over traditional battery products with graphite anodes.

More to come

ION recently secured a supply agreement and investment from Saint-Gobain in late 2023, one of the world’s largest ceramics, glass and material suppliers to boost its manufacturing capabilities.

“We are working with several other large multinational partners to produce significant quantities at gigawatt-hour scales and achieve global reach in manufacturing,” Neil said, adding that further “significant announcements” from the company are due in the coming quarters.

The relatively early-stage company previously raised $8 million in 2019, and $31 million Series A funding in 2022.

From pv magazine Global

Data centers come in many sizes. The largest, China Telecom’s Inner Mongolia Information Park, spans 100 hectares and consumes up to 150 MW per hour. North Virginia, in the United States, houses around 300 facilities in a grouping known as Data Center Alley, with each consuming about 10 to 50 times the energy per square meter of a typical commercial office.

Utility Dominion Energy was forced to pause grid connections for new members of Data Center Alley in 2022 and is now constructing new transmission lines to meet demand.

The United States has more than 5,000 data centers and consultant McKinsey & Company expects their power consumption to rise from a peak 17 GW/hour, in 2022, to 35 GW/hour in 2030.

Scaling up

Data centers are becoming more high density and power intensive but also more efficient.

“The hyperscale cloud providers all seem to be locked in an arms race to build out as much infrastructure as quickly as they can,” said Dan Thompson, principal research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Some of this is high-density, high-performance, compute-type deployments, but a lot of it is also the cloud providers building out at scale. Densities in watts per square foot are rising, but I think what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Data centers have a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio, which dictates how much energy is needed for computing versus other activity, such as cooling, lighting, and power losses. A PUE of 1.5 would indicate a data center requiring 500 kW of extra power for 1 MW needed for computing purposes.

S&P’s Thompson said power densities have fallen from an average 1.58 in 2020, as power density and cooling efficiency have risen. The lowest values, however, involve some trade-offs.

What’s in a data center?

Data centers house dense racks of servers containing processing, storage, and network equipment plus supporting infrastructure and cabling for power supply and power-intensive cooling, via air, water, refrigerants, or non-conductive liquids. The rise of artificial intelligence is changing data centers, which now include more specialized hardware accelerators for intensive tasks, high-performance computing infrastructure, and increased power consumption. Dedicated AI buildouts can require as much as five times more fiber optic cabling.

“The data centers we’re seeing built now are designed for PUEs of 1.3 to 1.4, so you can see some improvement there,” said Thompson. “That said, while they are designed for those PUEs, many factors could cause the building to never actually realize that PUE, depending on climate and operations. We have seen some constructions with a designed PUE of 1.15 to 1.2, however these facilities require the consumption of large volumes of clean water to reach those numbers. Given the issues around access to clean water, hyperscalers and the companies building data centers for them have tended to build slightly less efficient data centers for the sake of using very little or no water.”

The world’s technology giants are the biggest corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) buyers of renewable energy. On March 1, 2024, Microsoft and asset manager Brookfield signed a record 10.5 GW deal to deliver solar, wind, and “new or impactful carbon-free energy generation technologies” to Microsoft from 2026 to 2030.

Microsoft says its CO₂ emissions are now up 30% from when it set its 2030 net-zero target, in 2020, and mainly because of data centers.

“The rise in our scope 3 emissions [from third-party, supply chain companies] primarily comes from the construction of more data centers and the associated embodied carbon in building materials as well as hardware components such as semiconductors, servers, and racks,” said Microsoft, adding that the 10.5 GW renewables PPA is on top of a 19.8 GW clean power portfolio.

Simon Maine, managing director for communications, renewable power, and transition at Brookfield, told pv magazine that the deal was eight times bigger than any previous PPA.

“We have a very large renewable power and transition business, with over $100 billion of assets in that division alone, and 30-plus-years’ experience in the sector,” said Maine. “We look to either buy assets or, more recently and more likely, buy companies. The companies will have high-quality management teams that have a full spectrum of capabilities. We have projections to install somewhere between 5 GW and 7 GW per year [to 2030]. The deal with Microsoft probably covers about 30% of that growth and that’s without factoring in further acquisitions.”

Brookfield is reported to have acquired a majority stake in India’s Leap Green Energy for $500 million, and is also said to be preparing to acquire Australian renewable energy developer WindLab, which has around 24 GW of projects in development or under construction.

Anas Papazachariou, senior PPA manager at renewables developer Cero Generation, explained how colocation can meet data center energy demand.

“A single solution where solar meets the full increase from the growing number and size of data centers is probably not optimal and I have to be honest about that,” he said. “So a lot of the offtakers are looking to create virtual portfolios whereas wind and solar, and combined batteries, are part of their portfolio because they’re actually optimizing their profiles through that basis.”

Solar-plus-storage means more expensive energy offtake agreements, but reduced risk, said Papazachariou.

Efficient clusters

“Hyperscale” data centers are clustered for efficiency. Where latency is concerned, however, many other data centers, especially those serving internet and network services, are distributed closer to population centers. These are smaller and experience more variation in demand.

Mike Bates, general manager for the Intel Energy Center of Excellence, said data centers are using workload management software that can respond to real-time energy conditions. Intel is deploying software inside data centers to manage workflows and loads, while also tracking carbon footprints of workloads for audits by companies claiming low carbon or net-zero workflows.

“One of my customers is the [internal] Intel Data Center group and we work to deploy these same solutions we’re taking outside of the market, making sure that we’ve hardened data centers for climate impacts while opening up new opportunities as well,” said Bates. “For example, our software is also able to adapt workloads for certain conditions. If I can push a workload inside the data center to the times when energy is in surplus, I can actually get paid to consume that energy.” He added that energy resiliency also includes interruptions to supply, when considering climate impacts.

Ben Levitt – associate director for the gas, power, and climate solutions North American power and renewables research team at S&P Global Commodity Insights – highlighted the cost benefits of operating data centers with flexibility.

“Data centers with flexible operations – that is, interruptible, price-responsive – cost less to supply than ones that are less flexible,” said Levitt. “Data centers that are interruptible might even be able to get a faster grid connection. In addition, and separately, it is possible that big tech may drive investment in developing and scaling the new, ‘clean firm’ technologies needed for around-the-clock clean energy for their data centers.”

Levitt said new loads will lead to new renewables investment but fossil fuel generation, and increasingly batteries, will also pick up extra demand. Ultimately, a lot will depend on local bureaucracy and permitting.

Levitt added that it is possible big technology companies will play a role in scaling new clean technology. “These efforts could accelerate the development of newer technologies that could reshape energy supply mix at a faster pace than previously considered,” he said.

From pv magazine 6/24

Data centers come in many sizes. The largest, China Telecom’s Inner Mongolia Information Park, spans 100 hectares and consumes up to 150 MW per hour. North Virginia, in the United States, houses around 300 facilities in a grouping known as Data Center Alley, with each consuming about 10 to 50 times the energy per square meter of a typical commercial office.

Utility Dominion Energy was forced to pause grid connections for new members of Data Center Alley in 2022 and is now constructing new transmission lines to meet demand.

The United States has more than 5,000 data centers and consultant McKinsey & Company expects their power consumption to rise from a peak 17 GW/hour, in 2022, to 35 GW/hour in 2030.

Scaling up

Data centers are becoming more high density and power intensive but also more efficient.

“The hyperscale cloud providers all seem to be locked in an arms race to build out as much infrastructure as quickly as they can,” said Dan Thompson, principal research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Some of this is high-density, high-performance, compute-type deployments, but a lot of it is also the cloud providers building out at scale. Densities in watts per square foot are rising, but I think what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Data centers have a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio, which dictates how much energy is needed for computing versus other activity, such as cooling, lighting, and power losses. A PUE of 1.5 would indicate a data center requiring 500 kW of extra power for 1 MW needed for computing purposes.

S&P’s Thompson said power densities have fallen from an average 1.58 in 2020, as power density and cooling efficiency have risen. The lowest values, however, involve some trade-offs.

“The data centers we’re seeing built now are designed for PUEs of 1.3 to 1.4, so you can see some improvement there,” said Thompson. “That said, while they are designed for those PUEs, many factors could cause the building to never actually realize that PUE, depending on climate and operations. We have seen some constructions with a designed PUE of 1.15 to 1.2, however these facilities require the consumption of large volumes of clean water to reach those numbers. Given the issues around access to clean water, hyperscalers and the companies building data centers for them have tended to build slightly less efficient data centers for the sake of using very little or no water.”

Greener computing

The world’s technology giants are the biggest corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) buyers of renewable energy. On March 1, 2024, Microsoft and asset manager Brookfield signed a record 10.5 GW deal to deliver solar, wind, and “new or impactful carbon-free energy generation technologies” to Microsoft from 2026 to 2030.

Microsoft says its CO₂ emissions are now up 30% from when it set its 2030 net-zero target, in 2020, and mainly because of data centers.

“The rise in our scope 3 emissions [from third-party, supply chain companies] primarily comes from the construction of more data centers and the associated embodied carbon in building materials as well as hardware components such as semiconductors, servers, and racks,” said Microsoft, adding that the 10.5 GW renewables PPA is on top of a 19.8 GW clean power portfolio.

Simon Maine, managing director for communications, renewable power, and transition at Brookfield, told pv magazine that the deal was eight times bigger than any previous PPA.

“We have a very large renewable power and transition business, with over $100 billion of assets in that division alone, and 30-plus-years’ experience in the sector,” said Maine. “We look to either buy assets or, more recently and more likely, buy companies. The companies will have high-quality management teams that have a full spectrum of capabilities. We have projections to install somewhere between 5 GW and 7 GW per year [to 2030]. The deal with Microsoft probably covers about 30% of that growth and that’s without factoring in further acquisitions.”

Brookfield is reported to have acquired a majority stake in India’s Leap Green Energy for $500 million, and is also said to be preparing to acquire Australian renewable energy developer WindLab, which has around 24 GW of projects in development or under construction.

Anas Papazachariou, senior PPA manager at renewables developer Cero Generation, explained how colocation can meet data center energy demand.

“A single solution where solar meets the full increase from the growing number and size of data centers is probably not optimal and I have to be honest about that,” he said. “So a lot of the offtakers are looking to create virtual portfolios whereas wind and solar, and combined batteries, are part of their portfolio because they’re actually optimizing their profiles through that basis.”

Solar-plus-storage means more expensive energy offtake agreements, but reduced risk, said Papazachariou.

Efficient clusters

“Hyperscale” data centers are clustered for efficiency. Where latency is concerned, however, many other data centers, especially those serving internet and network services, are distributed closer to population centers. These are smaller and experience more variation in demand.

Mike Bates, general manager for the Intel Energy Center of Excellence, said data centers are using workload management software that can respond to real-time energy conditions. Intel is deploying software inside data centers to manage workflows and loads, while also tracking carbon footprints of workloads for audits by companies claiming low carbon or net-zero workflows.

“One of my customers is the [internal] Intel Data Center group and we work to deploy these same solutions we’re taking outside of the market, making sure that we’ve hardened data centers for climate impacts while opening up new opportunities as well,” said Bates. “For example, our software is also able to adapt workloads for certain conditions. If I can push a workload inside the data center to the times when energy is in surplus, I can actually get paid to consume that energy.” He added that energy resiliency also includes interruptions to supply, when considering climate impacts.

Ben Levitt – associate director for the gas, power, and climate solutions North American power and renewables research team at S&P Global Commodity Insights – highlighted the cost benefits of operating data centers with flexibility.

“Data centers with flexible operations – that is, interruptible, price-responsive – cost less to supply than ones that are less flexible,” said Levitt. “Data centers that are interruptible might even be able to get a faster grid connection. In addition, and separately, it is possible that big tech may drive investment in developing and scaling the new, ‘clean firm’ technologies needed for around-the-clock clean energy for their data centers.”

Levitt said new loads will lead to new renewables investment but fossil fuel generation, and increasingly batteries, will also pick up extra demand. Ultimately, a lot will depend on local bureaucracy and permitting.

Levitt added that it is possible big technology companies will play a role in scaling new clean technology. “These efforts could accelerate the development of newer technologies that could reshape energy supply mix at a faster pace than previously considered,” he said.

From pv magazine 3/24

In California, which represents half of the United States residential solar market, the third iteration of net energy metering (NEM) rules has reduced the payments made for electricity fed into the grid from new residential solar arrays by 75%, drastically changing return-on-investment calculations. The “NEM 3.0” rules took effect on April 15, 2023, for new solar customers, with existing solar arrays grandfathered into previous regimes.

While NEM 3.0 boosted the proposition for pairing batteries with solar, entry-level capital costs remain high. With interest rates rising over the past year, due to the U.S. Federal Reserve raising its target range for the federal funds rate, loans to help purchase and install solar panels have risen from historic lows to more than 5.5% in official rates – and to 8% and beyond from finance companies.

With loans expensive and incentives removed, Californian residential PV has been devastated. By late 2023, rooftop solar installations had fallen 80%, driving more than 17,000 layoffs – 22% of the industry. In February 2024, publicly traded installer Sunworks filed for bankruptcy following a 29.5% decline in quarterly revenues, year over year, for the third quarter of 2023, led by a 44.5% decline in residential PV. Sunrun posted a loss of more than $1 billion in its most recent quarter.

Deep Patel, founder and chief executive officer of California-based Go Green Solar, is chapter leader for the California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) in Los Angeles. He said NEM 3.0’s overnight change hasn’t just hurt solar uptake, it has damaged wider interest in PV, with online forums such as social media platform Reddit’s solar subreddit seeing plenty of complaints and questions.

“First of all, just on Reddit, a lot of people are confused [about whether solar] now makes sense or not,” said Patel. “There’s a whole consumer perception thing going on. Those people say, ‘If I didn’t get NEM 2.0, I’m not even going to look at NEM 3.0 rules.’ Or they say, ‘Hey, a battery can help me,’ but then they get sticker shock: A typical system runs you $20,000, but adding a battery on top runs you $40,000.”

“The American consumer finances everything and they just don’t have the capital to make big purchases. So even when those battery systems make sense, it might’ve been fine if interest rates were still at 2% but borrowing costs have risen. So they’re punting the decision down to when financing rates are lower. That’s causing stress with distributors and installers and so on.”

While the solar industry can somewhat cheerfully dub the dizzying highs and terrifying lows of the cyclical industry as all part of the “solar coaster,” the reality is grim when it comes to establishing a straightforward industry where people can rely on long-term warranties and support after a five-figure outlay that affects the value and appearance of their home.

Silver lining

The NEM 3.0 rules may eventually benefit key suppliers of residential power electronics – and also module-level power electronics (MLPE). The new rules in California incentivize both home storage and more advanced systems beyond earning feed-in tariffs, including solar self-consumption, energy storage, electric vehicle charging, and more. Achieving those features requires more advanced MLPE products from makers such as Enphase, SolarEdge, and others. The short-term downturn is particularly tough, though, given the state’s oversized contribution to the United States residential market.

Liam Coman, solar analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told pv magazine that the situation is tough but not a disaster. “S&P Global predicts MLPE shipments to be down by 4% in 2024 but to grow long-term, out to 2030,” he said.

Data from the company show that global microinverter and power optimizer shipments grew 19% in 2023, to a record high of 26 GW, as non-United States geographies held up well.

While a drop from record highs isn’t inherently disastrous, the industry’s growth-dependent model is the problem for companies heavily invested in United States residential solar. Companies rely on increasing quarterly sales, leaving them vulnerable to overstaffing and excess inventory during downturns.

“High inventory levels and a slowdown in residential demand, particularly in California following the introduction of NEM 3.0, has had a twin negative impact on MLPE suppliers in the US since the second half of 2023,” said Coman.

MLPE woes 

Two of the United States’ largest solar MLPE suppliers, Enphase Energy – based in Fremont, California, and SolarEdge, headquartered in Herzliya, Israel – heavily target the residential market with advanced inverter and optimizer solutions. Both supply installers and companies, including Sunrun, leaving them exposed to the current United States residential downturn. 

Although other markets show better results, SolarEdge said it would cut 900 jobs – 16% of its workforce – while Enphase cut 350 roles, or 10% of its staff and said it would cease operations at its contract manufacturing locations in Timisoara, Romania, and in Wisconsin, in a blow to manufacturing. 

Sophie Karp, senior analyst for electric utilities, power, and renewable energy at KeyBanc Capital Markets, agreed with that assessment. “We believe that once channel inventory levels normalize, Enphase and SolarEdge should both grow at a rate similar to the overall growth rate in mature markets,” Karp said. “However, we do not expect this normalization to become apparent until mid-2024 at the earliest.”  

Karp also pointed out that the issues being experienced by the segment are not indicative of wider problems in solar.  

“I don’t believe the issue with Enphase and SolarEdge is indicative of the performance of the solar industry as a whole,” she said. “Both cater heavily to the residential solar market, a niche subset of the solar industry which experienced a “perfect storm” of adverse regulatory outcome and rapidly rising interest rates in a relatively short period of time. I believe that in the medium- to long-run, residential solar with storage will continue to present an attractive value proposition for homeowners in the US.”  

Biju Perincheril, an analyst at trading firm Susquehanna, agreed, noting that issues are improving outside California to an extent.  

“Recent permit data appear to show non-California markets are stabilizing,” said Perincheril. “This is consistent with recent commentary from Enphase. Of course, the California recovery is still a wildcard.” The analyst said the latter half of 2024 should see a recovery but it may not be equally weighted. “We think the recovery for SolarEdge could be slightly behind Enphase and, therefore, [we are] modelling a larger year-on-year revenue decline for SolarEdge this year.”  

Supplies squeezed  

SolarEdge appears to be facing more consistent pressure than Enphase, from analysts such as Perincheril and on the stock market itself.  

A November 2023 industry note from Phil Shen, managing director of Roth Capital Partners, said that an installer in the United States was shifting from serving 50% Enphase inverters and 50% SolarEdge inverters, to an 80% Enphase, 10% SolarEdge, 10% Tesla split. The quoted reason: “When we asked about why the move away from SEDG [SolarEdge], he shared that the higher failure rates have been a challenge.”  

Those reliability concerns continue to pop up in reports and online. On forums including Reddit, Go Green Solar’s Patel is one of many active participants, with the company founder freely providing advice for interested people and answering questions on topics such as “Need advice on batteries?” or “Best value inverter?” as well as about panel and inverter makers, including SolarEdge.  

Patel, when asked about his experience with the Israeli company, said his business, which has been active in the industry since 2006, had gradually transitioned away from SolarEdge, starting around four to five years ago.  

“We used to sell a lot of SolarEdge … but SolarEdge for us started slipping in terms of customer support, quality, and turnaround times,” said Patel. “Lead times got very long at one point during the pandemic. The downside with SolarEdge is that when the inverter doesn’t work, the whole system is down, so that wasn’t good for customers and we haven’t really been back to SolarEdge again.  

“The value proposition SolarEdge offers [via attractive pricing] isn’t there for us. You also have other inverter guys nipping at the heels – you have Sol-Ark now, and GoodWe now has a residential string inverter with four MPPT [maximum power point tracking] trackers in the US, which is great. Even Tesla is coming on strong, no longer just going direct to customers but letting installers sell it for them.” 

From pv magazine Global 02/24

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, in January 2024, the likes of Amazon, Samsung, Google, and LG were busily launching TVs, smart home devices, robots of all kinds, and talking up artificial intelligence developments. A relatively new player was also taking up considerable showfloor space: Portable power stations, also known as solar generators, were holding prime locations and hosting major launches for new products.

The rise in batteries and hybrid energy solutions comes alongside the rise in solar installations and popularity. But solar has enjoyed the remarkable combination of both improved efficiency and falling prices. For large scale solar generators, there is a different pitch: The shift to lithium batteries has enabled new and attractive designs and the focus is on mixing solar charging and energy savings with energy security, for off-grid power and back-up systems.

History lesson

The sector was pioneered through the early 2010s, with companies such as GoalZero offering portable solar generators via sealed lead-acid batteries. The specs explain the lack of success: a 400 Wh option weighed 13.2 kg and was more cumbersome than useful. Aspect Solar was an early innovator with lithium-ion batteries, offering an LFP battery solution in its Sunsocket Sun-Tracking Solar Generator, with built-in solar modules. Aspect Solar went out of business before the idea really took hold, however.

Instead, the first large success came from Jackery, a company initially known as a powerbank maker for phones. In 2016, the company took to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and raised nearly $100,000 to commercialize its Power Pro, a 578 Wh LFP battery featuring Panasonic battery cells and offering solar charging plus DC and 110V AC outputs. The design came in at just under 5.5 kg, much lighter than lead-acid solutions.

That success, and some marketing savvy, saw Jackery become an established player, with outdoor-focused options of all sizes and capacities. Competitors such as EcoFlow quickly followed, offering similar designs. EcoFlow also started via crowdfunding, in 2017, with Zendure following in 2017, Bluetti in 2019, and more. Gas and diesel generator companies were soon being offered lithium-based power stations and solar generators as emissions-free indoor power back-ups became more desirable. From the PV industry, solar inverter makers including Growatt have moved to offer portable solar generators too.

While such products were being pioneered, though, who exactly was buying, and what was the tipping point into mainstream success? The answer comes, in part, with a tinfoil hat.

Doomsday preppers

Buck Buchanan is marketing director at Geneverse, a sister company of Jackery under parent Hello Tech. Geneverse is focused on indoor use, versus outdoor solutions, and was founded after a surge of interest from outdoor enthusiasts.

“There’s definitely the outdoor community that really loves this product but the people that embrace this more than anybody else, and kind of help promote the portable solar generator, are the doomsday preppers,” said Buchanan. “I mean, they are the ones that went on YouTube and detailed how to power your bunker, how to power everything off-grid, and those were really popular. That’s where things started and it started with a slightly older demographic and it’s moved towards young people, even those living in apartments now.”

Kevin Benedict, product and solution manager at EcoFlow, echoed those thoughts, adding in a few more categories of interested consumer for its portable power stations. “We first saw uptake from outdoor enthusiasts, from those who want to enjoy nature and the outdoors but don’t want to leave conveniences behind, from those like auto enthusiasts, campers, and so on,” said Benedict. “And then came homeowners who wanted to be prepared for emergency situations.”

Both pointed to times of natural disaster and grid crises – as unfortunate as they are – as being big drivers of sales, especially in more exposed parts of the United States. “It’s states like Florida, Texas, and California,” said Buchanan. “Florida because we have natural disasters, hurricanes. Texas has a horrible grid. And, honestly, we have incredibly reactive customers because once you’ve had no power for three days, that’s when they come to us to buy the product. Or once you’ve relied on a neighbor who has one of these products, and you don’t have one and see how useful it is, how it can save your refrigerator full of food and medicines, you just don’t risk it the next time.”

Benedict confirmed something similar, pointing to regions which have suffered natural disaster as having very high penetration for battery products, including Puerto Rico, which was battered by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, and Hurricane Fiona in 2022, entirely collapsing the grid for as much as a year in 2017.

Disaster preparation is not the only sales driver, however. In Germany, not a country known for extensive blackouts, and where Benedict is based, EcoFlow holds 83% of the portable power station market, which is taken up by both outdoor enthusiasts and the green-minded and those looking to save on high utility bills.

Boosting solar awareness

Solar generators are increasingly being sold with solar panels of all types, though portable panels are those most often bundled together with such products. EcoFlow data suggest around half of new purchasers buy a bundle including a portable power station and solar panels as they look to charge off-grid. Geneverse suggests an even higher figure, with some 70% buying at least one set of panels in a bundle.

“We have seen people embracing the move to balcony solar to save on utility bills and charging our products with their solar panels … in addition, they can then use these alongside their outdoor activity,” said Benedict.

Buchanan said the introduction to clean energy provided by portable solar generators alongside portable panels, is helping to improve understanding of both solar and batteries.

“Especially here in the United States, there’s still a little stigma about solar, like – does it work? How well does it work?” said Buchanan. “And especially with our portable solar generators, we harp on the fact that our machines are quiet. There’s no emissions. People are so not used to that, they’re used to gas generators. And now, you see our products and competitor products all being sold with panels and that’s helping with wider adoption and understanding.”

Buchanan added that the industry has a way to go, though, to educate folks who aren’t up to speed with energy technology. “It’s the funniest thing, we get a lot of calls from people wondering if their panels can just be plugged into appliances and how that works,” he said. “They just don’t understand the need for inverters, or that our solar generators store energy and output it. The most common question is: ‘Can my panels power my refrigerator?’ Obviously, education can go further.”

From pv magazine 02/23

As the penetration of renewables into the grid increases, storing intermittently supplied energy becomes increasingly valuable. The benefits of long-duration energy storage (LDES) are evident: storing intermittent clean energy and pouring said solar and wind electricity back into the grid at periods of peak demand, ideally cheaper than conventional fossil fuel power.

The trick remains storing energy at scale. Yet where the green shoots of ideas and promise for LDES technology sprout, the roots are tangled among a graveyard of failed concepts.

Duration or application?

LDES is roughly defined as systems capable of delivering eight or more hours of storage capacity, though some place the cutoff point at 10 hours. A report by U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently tried to shift the focus of the definition from duration to application, arguing storage duration “does not indicate how the stored energy is used or the value it provides to the grid.” That said, it settled on a definition of “greater than 10 hours,” offered up by fellow government body the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). That description does fit most purposes and covers technologies that are new to the grid and those that have been in use for generations, such as hydropower.

Battery power

Lithium-ion batteries have capacity and power coupling issues that make them vastly expensive for long-duration storage. Cyril Yee – director at Massachusetts-based clean energy body the Grantham Foundation, and former chief innovation officer at climate technology entity Third Derivative – told pv magazine lithium-ion batteries have significant problems of scale and lifetime.

“Something I’m not crazy about for lithium is the cycle-life, which isn’t very long – we’re talking around 3,000 cycles,” says Yee. “Grid assets are usually 20-year assets, that’s what utilities are used to dealing with. There’s no way a lithium battery will last 20 years and, for the most part, other battery technologies and chemistries are just as high-risk. In general, we’re bullish on the [LDES] space.”

Sam Lefloch focuses on industrial decarbonization as industry sector lead at Third Derivative, and emphasizes the point further. “If you go to tens or hundreds of hours of storage, you have to linearly increase the cost of the equipment that is used to charge and discharge.”

Funding issues

While LDES appears to be essential, and with investment more readily available from innovation and climate funds – both Yee and Lefloch say startups finding access to capital wasn’t an issue – the sector has struggled to go from promising ideas to promising businesses, with monetization a key issue.

“One concern we have is [LDES] near-term monetization, because the grid doesn’t necessarily need it until you get to very high penetration rates for renewables – 50-plus per cent,” says Yee.

Wood Mackenzie Senior Research Analyst Kevin Shang says utilities are particularly cautious. “The LDES ecosystem and novel technologies have been in labs and research institutes, but they are relatively new for utilities and still at a very early stage,” says Shang. “For utilities, their priority is to ensure resilience, stability, and safety of the power system. So it’s understandable that they have been slow, but things are improving.”

Lukewarm heat

One particularly tough field is thermal energy storage (TES), a technology which has attracted funding and early commercialized installations but has largely faltered to scale well. Wind engineering and power conversion supplier Siemens Gamesa has now ended its large scale and award-winning demonstrator project in Hamburg, Germany. The demonstrator site stored up to 130 MWh of energy as heat for as long as a week, using volcanic rock. Gamesa’s Verónica Díaz López was able to confirm to pv magazine that the project had ended despite proving technically feasible.

“Siemens Gamesa decided in the beginning of May 2022 to discontinue the demonstration operation of electrothermal energy storage,” says Díaz López, who put the decision down to a “lack of a commercial market for large scale storage.”

Among other contenders only Azelio, a Swedish company that stores energy as heat in recycled aluminum at up to 600 C, has managed to commercialize its solution. The company reports that it currently has 13 systems, known as TES. PODs. It is commercially operating across the UAE, Sweden, and South Africa, with its largest installation supplying up to 1.3 MWh of storage capacity.

Berlin-based TES company Lumenion says it has shifted to only storing energy for use as heat for systems with a capacity under 100 MWh. Elsewhere, Australian-based 1414 Degrees is now reworking its thermal energy storage system. MAN Energy Solutions, in Switzerland, found limited interest. Raymond Decorvet, a senior account executive at MAN, says that while the company has enormous demand for its industrial heat pumps, its TES business is less active. “I haven’t seen big movement on that, not on energy storage,” he says. “On heat pump storage, absolutely. I think it’s because of the question: who pays for it? Who benefits from it? We have to bring the barriers down.”

One of the remaining TES hopes is Malta Inc, a company spun out of Google-owner Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” X, which has received more than $85 million in investment. Malta has a pumped-heat energy storage demonstration facility installed at the Southwest Research Institute, a Texas-based non-profit group.

Compression hopes

Another major LDES hope, compressed air energy storage (CAES), has a 50-year track record, second only to pumped hydro in terms of installed scale. Two operations have been in use reliably since 1978 and 1991, in Germany (with a 290 MW capacity) and Alabama (110 MW), respectively. A study produced in 2002 by the Electric Power Research Institute found that some 80% of US geology was suitable for CAES.

The technology stores energy by compressing air and storing it in an underground cavern or a container. The air is later released to drive a turbine. The technology has a fast startup time, can store large amounts of energy, and improvements are still being made. CAES plants have boomed in China, where developers are utilizing disused mines. The world’s largest CAES site, at 350 MW/1.4 GWh, has begun development in a Shandong salt mine and may expand to 600 MW.

Hydrostor, a Canadian company with patented advanced compressed air energy storage technology, is one of the larger players outside China. With a $250 million war chest, Hydrostor counts Goldman Sachs among its investors. Among its projects, Hydrostor is developing a 300 MW to 500 MW advanced-CAES facility in Ontario and the company has secured a power purchase agreement (PPA) from community electric company Central Coast Community Energy for a proposed 500 MW facility in California.

Hydrostor CEO Curtis VanWalleghem says the company aimed to improve traditional approaches to CAES by eliminating the constraints of geology. Hydrostor advanced-CAES can be placed “anywhere there is competent hard rock at 600 m depth,” says VanWalleghem, which is “more than 50% of the world.”

“Hydrostor’s A-CAES technology can provide the same megawatts and megawatt-hours as pumped hydro power while using up to 10 times less land and up to 20 times less water,” added VanWalleghem.

The CEO claims his company’s solution is 60% to 65% efficient, with capital expenditure for the system “in the $2,500/kW range for eight hours, or $250 to $300 per kWh of storage capacity, for an asset with a 50-plus year life without performance degradation.” The system is monetized via PPAs.

Batteries flow

One of the biggest LDES electrochemical hopes is Form Energy, an alternative battery player with deep pockets. The company has raised more than $800 million for an iron-air battery that it says can store 100 hours of energy at system costs that are competitive with conventional power plants. Form’s first battery manufacturing facility is set for Weirton, West Virginia, with finished batteries expected in 2024.

Flow batteries represent another vector of hope. Vanadium-based redox flow devices are well understood, and a 2022 Chinese project installed a 400 MWh system. Other approaches using different materials – principally moving away from expensive vanadium – are also gaining market interest.

NYSE-listed iron flow battery specialist ESS recently expanded into Europe and with renewables investment in the U.S. exploding, is readying supply for expected demand. Hugh McDermott, senior vice president for business development and sales at ESS,  told pv magazine how the company is ramping up production: “As fast as possible!” he says. “We’re moving quickly to do our part to meet expected demand in the LDES market. McKinsey predicts that we will need 30 TWh to 40 TWh of LDES in the US alone by 2040.” ESS’ first fully automated battery assembly line has an annual production capacity of 75 MW, with McDermott noting plans to expand capacity to 200 MW.

“On a total cost of ownership, our energy storage systems are significantly less costly to own than lithium-ion,” adds McDermott. “This is partly due to the fact that our technology has no cycling limits and our products are designed for a 20-plus-year life with no degradation or need for augmentation.”

Technology company Third Derivative has backed half a dozen flow battery startups, including new generations of flow chemistry that use organic compounds and alternative materials to vanadium, such as zinc-air. But greater investment is required, says Wood Mackenzie’s Shang, adding, “The key thing is that deployment of [LDES] at large scale has a lot of benefits. As a society, the reward is great. But what we need to do now is more planning, more investment, and more action. We must invest today to reap the rewards of tomorrow.”

From pv magazine global

A fury of competition and innovation throughout the decade of solar’s boom has largely perfected the job of turning DC power into AC. In 2022, improvements and refinements to the process are harder won. And as boom times prevail, the inverter industry continues to grow.

Yet 2022 wasn’t a story of easy times despite demand. Supply chains still failed to keep pace, with most inverter manufacturers unable to cut down lead times to anywhere near pre-pandemic timeframes. Things are said to be improving in 2023, but choke points remain for key components including insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and advanced chips. And that story leads us to identifying some of the bigger trends throughout the year in inverters.

S-curve stalls

PV inverters are facing a typical late cycle in a technology or innovation S-curve, where mature, rapid improvements in DC-AC inverter technology have been made, and new gains are harder won.

At the opposite end of this typical S-curve is the hydrogen market, which is seeing rapid advancements in technology and products, with new gains easier to achieve through scale and investment.

However, PV inverters are arguably some way off reaching the tipping point of diminishing returns, thanks to an actively changing market. For example, at the residential and commercial level, many regions are embracing hybrid inverters as default to accommodate battery storage. Other examples include accommodating EV charging and, at some point, vehicle-to-grid solutions, as well as virtual power plant capabilities, smart controls and connectivity, and more. However, the core DC-AC conversion is mature.

All of this was evident in fewer step changes in products: new and better inverters came to market at all classes from a flourishing industry, but marketing departments were forced to work harder to explain benefits outside of raw efficiencies.

Elsewhere, high-power string inverters seen throughout 2020 and 2021 weren’t eclipsed in 2022 by even higher-power offerings, perhaps as weight and sizing limits were met. And, looking towards new technologies, silicon carbide semiconductor PV inverters continue to show considerable opportunity for the industry, but electric vehicles control the demand, costs remain high, and IGBT-powered inverter topologies in solar remain the dominant type.

Manufacturing growth

Inverter manufacturing expanded significantly in 2022, despite the wide economic downturn and tougher conditions for businesses. Enphase committed to adding four to six new manufacturing lines, totaling around 4.8 GW to 7.2 GW of solar microinverter manufacturing capacity in the United States, provided it can secure funding via the production tax credit (PTC) system that is part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Fronius also announced this year it will invest $244 million to expand production in 2023, with Martin Hackl, Global Director Marketing and Sales of the Solar Energy business unit at Fronius International, noting, “photovoltaics are in greater demand than ever before and the demand is exploding as a result.”

Central inverters

The central inverter market blossomed again in 2022 with multiple companies re-invigorating the market. Sungrow introduced a new “1+X” modular central inverter solution to the market, and Gamesa Electric won awards following the launch of its Proteus PV central inverter.

Sungrow’s option offered modularity at 1.1 MW increments up to 8.8 MW to meet the demands of project developers while promising higher energy yields, while Gamesa went for industry-leading efficiency from its Spanish-made inverter, with options scaling up to 4,700 kVA in a compact design.

New string inverters series launched throughout the year, but at utility scale, central inverters were some of the more interesting products entering the market.

Off-grid grows

2022 also saw inverter manufacturers turn niches into larger market opportunities: more off-grid inverters emerged into the market this year, and more inverters were certified to handle both on- and off-grid operation, adding some variation to grid-tie-only solutions. Intriguingly, manufacturers bringing their solutions to Europe and the US had previously established markets in regions like Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa, where power outages are more common. In response to both the energy market crisis and climate crisis, know-how from less grid-stable places became more useful.

Rule of thumb

As inverters reach technical maturity and both project and homeowners aim for less maintenance and more longevity, 2022 saw some useful studies emerge as a guide to plant life. A study by Bern University of Applied Sciences shows that the performance of most PV inverters and power optimizers remains optimal for up to 15 years, the current industry rule of thumb anyway, after evaluating inverter failure surveys from 1,280 PV systems with 2,151 inverters, finding well-founded fears over inverters left in the causing faster aging.

From pv magazine global

Ion Storage Systems, a US battery startup based in Maryland, has received $30 million in Series A venture capital funding from the likes of Toyota Ventures, Tenaska, and Bangchak Corp. The company aims to develop factories to reach mass battery cell production.

Ion Storage is developing solid-state batteries and aims to produce 10 MWh per year and generate commercial revenue by the end of 2023. The key differences to other solid-state and next-generation batteries is a bi-layer cell design. This reduces typical lithium-ion battery defects, and works with existing and next-generation cathode chemistries, avoiding the use of critical raw materials like cobalt, nickel, and gold.

Neil Ovadia, Ion’s vice-president of operations, told pv magazine that the company can target multiple markets, ranging from defense to consumer products to electric vehicles and stationary grid storage. Ovadia noted that Ion is working on a variation to the core product meant for stationary storage applications.

“Ion’s unique technology unlocks the power of solid-state batteries through its patented Bi-layer cell design. The dense ceramic electrolyte separator is connected to a porous ceramic electrolyte scaffold,” explained Ovadia. “The porous scaffold acts as a “sponge,” creating uniform and continuous pathways for lithium metal plating without external volume change, while the dense layer acts as a solid-state separator blocking lithium metal dendrites – thereby avoiding the need for compression and preventing short circuits. This architecture makes Ion’s solid-state electrolyte compatible with a wide range of existing and next-generation cathode chemistries.”

“Ion bi-layer cell architecture is made of inexpensive, nonflammable materials and use of a lithium metal anode has been able to meet next-generation performance metrics, including high-energy density, strong cycling performance, wide temperature range, and fast charging all at room temperature and without compression,” he said.  “Its ability to utilize both existing and next generation cathode chemistries removes the need for supply constrained materials such as nickel and cobalt. The manufacturability of ION’s technology also sets us apart as we utilize already-scaled processing and high-speed green body manufacturing techniques for our ceramic electrolyte and largely utilize existing lithium-ion manufacturing processes for cell production.”

Furthermore, the battery allows for a “cathode agnostic” approach, opening a wide range of cathode materials to be used, he said.

Ion has previously said it aims to produce more than 1 million cellphone-size batteries annually, And while those figures were not restated, the plan is to develop Ion’s pilot manufacturing facility at its Beltsville headquarters in 2023. It will then supply samples to interested parties and first market customers.

In terms of the struggles that companies face to scale-up production processes, Ion says it “employs existing industrial scale ceramic preparation methods.” It claims its unique structure “allows for the use of widely deployed Li-Ion battery manufacturing equipment for final cell assembly.”

From pv magazine Global

Tesla has sold Maxwell Technologies, a company it bought in 2019 in an all-stock deal. Tesla did not officially announce the sale to investors or the market, or mention it in its earnings call, unlike its acquisition announcement.

Instead, a press release issued by ultracapacitor company UCAP Power said it had purchased the “Maxwell brand [and] Maxwell Technologies Korea business, as well as other assets from Maxwell Technologies.”

Hidden in the detail was the fact Tesla has held on to key Maxwell technology, namely its dry battery electrode (DBE) process methodology.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed the sale in a series of tweets, noting the irony of selling off technology he had personally investigated. Musk said lithium-ion is sufficient for Maxwell’s capacitor technology.

(Read more.)

From pv magazine Global

The U.K. government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is overseeing a “longer duration” energy storage competition, with millions up for grabs for innovative entrants.

As part of the U.K.’s £1 billion ($1.38 billion) Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the competition has as much as £68 million ($94 million) available in capital funding for new technology projects which can store energy for longer than four hours, to support renewable power generation.

The storage technologies listed in the scope of the competition include electric, thermal, and “power-to-x” projects and exclude “widely deployed U.K. commercial demonstration” tech such as lithium-ion, pumped hydro, or large water tanks.

The competition guidance document requests first-of-a-kind, full-system prototypes or demonstrator projects. While global companies can enter the contest, provided they are U.K.-registered, demonstrations must be relevant for the U.K. energy system and take place in the U.K.

“Storage shot”

Earlier in July, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) set a goal to reduce the cost of grid-scale, long duration energy storage by 90% within the decade. As the second target within DOE’s Energy Earthshot Initiative, the so-called “Long Duration Storage Shot” aims to accelerate breakthroughs that store electricity generated by the hundreds of gigawatts of clean energy that the agency expects to come onto the grid over the next few years.

DOE said that several of its offices conduct energy storage activities, and the administration’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request included a total of $1.16 billion for those activities. Pending appropriations from Congress, DOE said it anticipates funding opportunities and other activities to help advance its goals.

DOE said that long-duration energy storage – defined as systems that can store energy for more than 10 hours at a time – would support a low-cost, reliable, carbon-free electric grid. Cheaper and more efficient storage would make it easier to capture and store clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.

Streams

The U.K. competition is split into two streams for competitors to receive grants or funding.

Stream one applies to more commercially advanced projects involving actual demonstrations. Up to £1 million (€1.2 million) will be given to projects that reach phase one. A final three projects from phase one will then advance to phase two, where around £11 million will be available in grants.

Stream two involves earlier-stage projects, with lower technology readiness levels. Some 12 projects are set to be awarded, with £150,000 ($207,300) per project for phase one. As with stream one, a final three projects will then be chosen to progress to phase two development, and each will be awarded a maximum of £9.45 million ($13.1 million).

Finalists in each stream must plan to start their phase one efforts in November with a completion date in November next year. Phase two will start in December next year, with projects completed, at the latest, by March 2025.

BEIS has also launched a low-carbon hydrogen competition, with up to £60 million ($83 million) available in funding, and following a similar timeline to the longer-duration storage contest.

A previous £33 million ($45.6 million) low-carbon hydrogen competition produced five winners across carbon capture and storage technology, offshore wind-powered production, and a U.S.-based winner, with technology developed by the Gas Technology Institute, a natural gas-focused non-profit.

Additional reporting by David Wagman.