POWERING THE SMART GRID
Issue 34: Autumn 2021
All aboard the bandwagon!
Excitement mounts over hydrogen’s potential Vehicle-to-grid
The sector is gaining ground but faces regulatory battles
Poland snapshot
Battery companies find fresh opportunities in the heart of Europe
Chemistry Upclose Five new battery chemistries trying to get out of the lab
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FOR THE CHALLENGES AHEAD...
INNOVATION AWARD WINNER
EDITORIAL Debbie Mason: debbie@energystoragejournal.com
It’s time to be honest about renewables As Europe looks forward to rocketing winter gas prices or blackouts, it’s time to stop praying for wind and sunshine and acknowledge that we simply can’t do without fossil fuels yet. Not if we want to keep our lights on and our homes heated. Writing for the American Experiment thinktank on September 21, Isaac Orr sums it up in ‘Europe’s renewable energy obsession has set up a winter energy crisis’: “Praying for good weather in the wintertime is not a coherent energy policy for a modern nation; it is something humanity did when Laura Ingalls Wilder was busy writing Little House on the Prairie and The Long Winter.” America, ironically the home country of Laura Ingalls Wilder, is not facing the same issues — because by tapping into its abundant resources of shale gas it has practically halved the cost of natural gas and revolutionized its energy supply. In Europe, fracking is banned in most countries. That’s one of a few reasons for this spike in prices — emerging from lockdowns has seen sudden demand from businesses and factories re-opening, Russia has tightened gas supply to Europe, and yes — the wind hasn’t done what it should have done — but whatever the reasons, it won’t just make home-cooked dinners and central heating more expensive — there will clearly be a knock-on effect on everything we buy. This, in turn, is bound to inflame populations who might not necessarily feel the warming we are supposed to be going through as a planet when their pipes are freezing and they’re having to light candles. This magazine issue looks at two growing sectors that attempt to help stabilize countries’ electricity supplies: one in the form of vehicle-to-grid, by tapping the unused battery potential that spends a lot of time sitting on people’s drives; the other, upscaling the creation of hydrogen to provide another source of power. But like everything emerging in technology, they both still need time, and they won’t be enough for a considerable time to come.
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The panic about switching off coal and gas and restricting oil is all because of our fear of carbon dioxide and the fact that 0.0012% of the atmosphere is CO2 produced by humans. If we didn’t have that fear, admitted several of the people interviewed for this issue, we wouldn’t be spending trillions on alternatives and turning reliable sources of power off before we were ready to replace them with something else. And whether you believe decarbonizing the world is crucial to our future life on Earth or not, the fact is that this huge boom in renewable energy largely isn’t decreasing emissions of it anyway. Wind turbines, for example, are not only unreliable and intermittent. They’re also a direct contradiction to their very reason for existing — reducing carbon emissions. We all know that wind turbines are made of steel. And while hydrogen could be a future contender for firing the furnaces needed to heat the iron ore, at the moment that has to be done by burning coal. There is no other viable way. Every tonne of new steel requires 0.77 tonnes of coal to be burned, therefore a standard 200-tonne turbine will have consumed 154 tonnes of the black stuff — and that’s without including calculations for the carbon produced in burning the coal to create the concrete it has to stand in, or the emissions produced in shipping each one into position, or the rare earths sourced from toxic mines the other side of the world in sweatshop conditions to make the magnets and other machinery in the blades. This isn’t to say we’re going in the wrong direction — there’s a lot of science behind the energy transition and a lot of it makes sense. Energy storage is the reason for this magazine’s existence, and there are some exciting technologies emerging or already in commercial use — batteries, hydrogen, compressed air — and it does feel like we are on the cusp of seeing a real difference to our future energy supply. But we need to exercise a little more caution as we head there — or we might end up going back a lot further than where we started.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 1
Contents
CONTENTS
FEATURES
Energy Storage Journal | Issue 34 | Autumn 2021
COVER STORY: HYDROGEN
VEHICLE-TO-GRID
POLAND SNAPSHOT
24
31
37
ALL ABOARD! EMBARKING ON THE HYDROGEN BANDWAGON Governments everywhere are publishing H2 manifestos as excitement mounts about what the gas might do for our energy future
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
3
It’s all change at the top at American Battery Metals Corp, including a new CEO
EUROPE FACES AN ENERGY WINTER OF DISCONTENT. WILL V2G ONE DAY PROVIDE AN ANSWER? The world awaits the potential of V2G to be fully unleashed, but it’s going to have to hurdle quite a few regulatory and compliance challenges first
BATTERY STORAGE IN POLAND STARTS COMING OF AGE
Some say Poland is an ideal location for basing battery factories. We look at the international firms who have so far expressed interest
13
19
20
India’s government offers billions of dollars to encourage battery firms to put 50GWh in place
A 10,000m2 battery recycling plant is being planned for Europe’s largest seaport
Five different battery chemistries are trying to make their way out of the labs and into production
IN THIS ISSUE: 1 EDITORIAL: It’s time to be honest about renewables | 3 NEWS: PEOPLE | 5 PROJECTS & INSTALLATIONS | 8 INVESTMENTS 11 LITHIUM BATTERY FIRES | 13 INDIA NEWS | 15 GENERAL NEWS | 20 CHEMISTRY UPCLOSE: Five technologies under the microscope | 24 COVER STORY: Hydrogen: The world gets on the bandwagon 31 VEHICLE-TO-GRID: How far the technology is being rolled out | 37 SPOTLIGHT: Poland and its energy storage ambitions
ABOUT US
41 FORTHCOMING EVENTS: ESJ sorts through the re-scheduled programme following major disruptions caused by lockdowns
Energy Storage Journal — business and market strategies for energy storage and smart grid technologies Publisher: Karen Hampton karen@energystoragejournal.com +44 7792 852 337 Editor-in-chief: Michael Halls mike@energystoragejournal.com +44 7977 016 918
Let cool heads prevail
Editor: Debbie Mason | email: debbie@energystoragejournal.com | tel: +44 1 243 782 275 Advertising manager: Jade Beevor | email: jade@energystoragejournal.com | tel: +44 1 243 792 467 Reporter: Hillary Christie | email: hillary@batteriesinternational.com Finance: Juanita Anderson | email: juanita@batteriesinternational.com | tel: +44 7775 710 290 Subscriptions and admin: admin@energystoragejournal.com | tel: +44 1 243 782 275 Design: Antony Parselle | email: aparselledesign@me.com Reception: tel: +44 1 243 782 275 The contents of this publication are protected by copyright. No unauthorized translation or reproduction is permitted. Every effort has been made to ensure that all the information in this publication is correct, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors, or opinion expressed, or omissions, for any loss or damage, cosequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material published. Any warranty to the correctness and actuality of this publication cannot be assumed. © 2021 HHA Limited. UK company no: 09123491
The lead-lithium storage debate steps up a notch The new titan of lead The CEO interview
Next gen integrators
on, head-to-head
the ideal middle man
soon to a 2021 Ecoult’s UltraBattery, Anil Srivastava and • Coming 2 • Energy Storage Journal Autumn smart grid near you, ready to take lithium Leclanché’s bid for market dominance
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PEOPLE NEWS
All change at American Battery Metals Corp
Ryan Melsert
US lithium-ion battery recycler and metal extraction firm American Battery Metals Corp appointed a new CEO on August 30 as well as making two appointments in July. Formerly chief technology officer, Ryan Melsert is part of a leadership transition, the company says, ‘to prioritize the company’s technology development and commercialization efforts and to position the
Andrés Meza
Doug Hamilton
company for long-term growth’. Melsert worked for Tesla for four years as one of the founding designers of the gigafactory near Reno. He has also worked as R&D manager of the Advanced Energy & Transportation Technologies group at the Southern Research Institute. “We have an unprecedented set of tailwinds behind us as our tech-
nologies simultaneously address the critical needs of mitigating global climate change and the environmental impact of conventional battery metals mining, of producing lower cost battery metals to increase the penetration of electric storage solutions throughout the market, and of increasing domestic production of battery metals to improve security of supply and na-
Jason Lally takes up post as VP sales at Solar4America US renewable energy company SPI Energy, which provides solar storage and EV solutions across a wide range of sectors, appointed Jason Lally as VP of sales and franchise development of its subsidiary Solar4America, the firm
Jason Lally
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announced on August 16. Before joining Solar4America, Lally was senior director of sales for Swell Energy, where he directed sales strategy alongside the launch of smart grid solarplus-storage options in collaboration with local utility companies in southern California. He also spent five years at Tesla, where he moved up the ranks to regional sales director. SPI Energy says that according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 19.2GW of solar PV capacity was installed in the US last year, bringing the total of installed capacity up to almost 100GW. “The US solar industry is expected to install more than 324GW of capacity over the next 10 years, quadrupling the current amount of installed solar capacity,” the firm says.
tional security interests,” he said. Doug Cole steps down as CEO. Andrés Meza was made chief operating officer on July 28, coming from Transom Capital Group, where he was vice president. Previous jobs include working for McKinsey and Apple. “Andrés brings years of experience that serve to contribute to the mission and progress of ABTC,” said ABTC CEO Doug Cole. “His knowledge in organizational leadership and effective strategy implementation will strengthen our team as we cultivate, scale and expand our business.” A week earlier, Doug Hamilton was made head of policy with ABTC. Formerly head of Business Development, Hamilton has only been with the company since January, before which he worked for Impact Science Education as sales and marketing director, and before that as sales training manager for Sungevity. “When I left teaching, I went directly into selling residential solar systems with a start-up company, and about six years in I got my first opportunities to work in policy,” said Hamilton. “I was immediately struck by the lack of thought, planning and infrastructure for the endof-life disposition of these batteries. “This problem was too far off in the future for manufacturers and installers to worry about at that time. Well the future is here and I am thrilled to be a part of ABTC to help provide a solution.”
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 3
PEOPLE NEWS
Li-Cycle appoints vice president of Asian business Canadian lithium battery recycler Li-Cycle has appointed Li Dawei as vice-president of its Asian business, the company said on July 27. Li will oversee business development in Asia and the rolling out of bat-
Li Dawei
tery recycling across the continent, which is fast becoming the industry powerhouse. “The Asian lithiumion battery market is the world’s largest, presenting a considerable supply of battery manufacturing scrap as well as lithium-ion batteries that are approaching their end of life and will need to be recycled,” said co-founder and CEO Ajay Kochhar, to whom Li will report directly. “When Tim Johnston and I founded Li-Cycle we realized that there was a glaring hole in the lithiumion battery recycling supply chain — the lack of an environmentally and econom-
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4 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
ically sustainable recycling and recovery solution,” said Kochhar. “Our technology is cost effective, efficient and scalable. We use a unique hydrometallurgical approach which is much safer, and maximizes recovery rates, and in turn profitability. We’re proving that recycling can be a cost-effective, sustainable
alternative to mining in the long term.” Li joins Li-Cycle from the North Carolina chemical manufacturing firm Albemarle Corporation, where he was global business director for lithium carbonate. Before that he was global segment marketing manager at Eastman Chemical Company.
New co-director appointed at Advanced Grid Institute The Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on August 18 said they had hired Noel Schulz to co-lead the Advanced Grid Institute with PNNL chief electrical engineer Jeff Dagle. The institute is a research collaboration set up in May 2018 ‘to promote the evolution of advanced grid modelling to support planning and operations of complex power systems of the future’. “The institute combines complementary expertise from PNNL and WSU in the fields of advanced grid modelling, widearea measurements, demand response, energy storage, grid architecture, cyber security and power system reliability research,” the institute says. “The goal is to enhance the resilience of the power grid to withstand all hazards, including natural disasters and malicious threats.” Schulz was part of
the institute from its beginning, and the appointment makes her position there more permanent, said the associate laboratory director for the Energy and Environment Directorate at PNNL, Jud Virden. Schulz has researched power systems modelling and analysis, smart grid applications, microgrids, renewable energy and shipboard power systems, publishing 175 papers and two book chapters. She has worked for more than a quarter of a century in different universities, including Washington State, and is first lady of the university.
Noel Schulz
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NEWS — PROJECTS & INSTALLATIONS
Drax aims to move mountains to allow expansion of hydro plant Scottish renewable energy firm Drax has started the planning permission process to expand its pumped storage hydro plant in Scotland by 600MW, more than doubling current capacity and generating enough power for around a million homes, the company said at the end of June. The new plant will be inside Ben Cruachan — the tallest mountain in the Argyll area — and the project will require removing a million tonnes of rock to hollow it out, leaving a cavern that would be large enough to contain Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis (1,345 metres), laid on its side, the firm says. “Last year, the UK’s lack of energy storage capacity meant wind farms had to be paid to turn off supply and we lost out on enough renewable power to supply a million homes,” said Drax CEO Will Gardiner. “We need to stop renewable power from going to
waste by storing it, and Drax is ready to move mountains to do just that.” “The existing upper reservoir, which can hold 2.4 billion gallons of water, has the capacity to serve both power stations,” Drax says. “Like Drax’s existing site, the new station will be able to provide lifeline stability services to the power system alongside, acting like a giant water battery.” Turbines powered by
wind farms will pump water from the lower lake, Loch Awe, to the upper reservoir on the mountain side, and when needed the water will be released back through them to generate power. “This will help to cut energy costs by reducing the need for wind farms to be paid to turn off when they are generating excess power,” says Drax. The announcement is
timely, given that Scotland is due to host the COP26 meetings in Glasgow on October 31-November 12, when world leaders will meet to discuss the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on climate change. ‘Ben’ means ‘mountain’ in Gaelic. While ‘Cruachan’ means ‘insurmountable mountain peak’, it is also thought to be the battle cry of the Campbell clan.
New York Queens borough to get 100MW/400MWh storage New York’s Queens borough is to get a 100MW/400MWh battery after the city’s Public Service Commission, which directed utility Con Edison to deploy 300MW of storage systems in New York by 2023, approved the project on July 15. The battery, to be installed on a site in Astoria once occupied by the Charles Poletti power plant, will be installed by the company 174 Power Global, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the South Korean business conglomerate, Hanwha Group. The property is owned by
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the New York Power Authority. “Energy storage technology has emerged as an essential component of the energy landscape and the proliferation of energy storage projects in New York is critical to meeting the state’s ambitious climate change targets,” said 174 Power Global president and CEO Henry Yun. “Bulk storage will let us bring large amounts of renewable energy to our customers without compromising our reliability, even as fossil fuel generators in New York City are
shuttered into retirement,” said Leonard Singh, senior vice president for customer energy solutions, for Con Edison. “Large-scale battery storage provides the opportunity for greater flexibility and resiliency of the electric grid and will support the growth of renewable energy for decades to come,” said Gil Quinones, New York Power Authority president and CEO. New York State had already set some aggressive energy and climate goals when in October 2020 commissioners insisted the
state must generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Energy storage is considered an essential part of the drive, with New York Battery & Energy Storage Technology consortium executive director Bill Acker saying it would be a gamechanger in bringing reliability to the grid. NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, has set a goal of 1,500MW of energy storage to be in place by 2025 and to double that by 2030.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 5
NEWS — PROJECTS & INSTALLATIONS
First steps taken towards creating commercial lithium refinery in UK Mineral processing company Green Lithium has secured £1.6 million ($2.2 million) in seed round funding to help pay for a lithium refinery in the UK, the company said on June 28. According to the firm the funding round attracted more than five times the target, and comes on top of a £600,000 ($820,000) government grant given via the Automotive Transformation Fund in April. “The capital will take the project to the next stage of development, including raw material laboratory test work analysis, planning and environmental scoping and baseline surveys, ground investigation and other activities relating to the early development phase of the project,” says
the firm. Refining the element is a crucial step in the move towards creating what Benchmark Mineral Intelligence calls ‘a lithium economy’. With sizeable deposits of lithium under exploration in the UK, and a number of battery gigafactories in the planning stages (see our latest issue of ESJ), a refinery would cross off a vital requirement in the list. Green Lithium says it should be able to deliver its project by 2025, ‘and meet the growing demand for locally manufactured batterygrade lithium chemicals to support the UK and European battery and automotive industries’. While Green Lithium says its refinery will be the first and only in the UK, Lev-
Siemens JV Fluence to supply 100MW battery for Bavaria Technology giant Siemens on July 19 signed a letter of intent to build a 100MW/200MWh battery facility in Germany to store surplus renewable energy and balance the grid at peak demand. The battery, in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel, will be operated by energy company Zukunftsenergie Nordostbayern (ZENOB). The plant, which will be installed by the Fluence joint venture that Siemens and AES have set up, will be capable of supplying 20,000 average households with electricity, the firms say. “This benefits the upstream grid operator because it gives them more flexibility to compensate for voltage fluctuations, which are increasingly common
because of the expansion of renewable energy generation,” said Bernd Koch, head of technology performance services at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. Smart storage technology will be used to optimize the battery performance to ensure as much ‘green’ power is used as possible. Andreas Schmuderer, Siemens’ project manager, said the battery would help to cut the costs involved in switching large industrial plants on and off in the grid area, which uses a lot of electricity. A hydrogen generation plant with a capacity of 8.75MW has also been agreed for Wunsiedel. From 2022 it will produce up to 1,350 tonnes a year of hydrogen using renewable sources.
6 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
erton Lithium, near Basingstoke, already refines and converts around 3,000 tonnes of basic lithium raw materials a year. However, Leverton CEO
David Hicks says his company’s refining starts higher up the value chain with basic lithium carbonate, whereas Green Lithium will refine spodumene.
Amber agrees deal to install 50MW/100MWh Tesla Megapack battery in UK A 50MW/100MWh utility-scale Tesla’s Megapack battery, optimized by Tesla’s Autobidder software, will be installed in the north of England by infrastructure investment firm Amber Infrastructure, the firm announced on July 20. The battery will provide grid-balancing services to system operators as they struggle to manage the growing amount of intermittent renewable energy sources. “As well as enabling higher renewable energy generation onto the grid, battery storage is expected to reduce the current costs of operating the electricity system, creating a cost benefit to consumers as well as earning its investors an attractive return,” said Amber. This initial project should be operational by the end of next year, and
the parties are aiming to bring an additional 200MW/400MWh online in the future. According to RenewableUK, a trade association formerly known as the British Wind Association, the total pipeline of battery storage projects in the UK stands at more than 16GW — whether at the planning, operational, construction or consented stages — across 729 sites, with 1.13GW operational. The association says capacity has increased rapidly, with applications in 2012 standing at just 2MW. On top of battery storage, 6GW of liquefied and compressed air, pumped hydro, flywheels and gravity-based technology is either operating or on the way. Total energy storage in the UK, once installed, will total 22GW.
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NEWS — PROJECTS & INSTALLATIONS
Wärtsilä hired by AGL Energy for first grid-scale battery installation Australian integrated energy company AGL Energy has appointed Finnish technology firm Wärtsilä to supply a 250MW/250MWh battery storage system, the second largest in the country after Tesla’s Hornsdale Power Reserve, the company announced on August 9. The Torrens Island installation, located near Adelaide, is the company’s first grid-scale storage project, and on completion will support thermal and renewable generating sources. The firm
already operates the Torrens Island Power Station, which is the largest in South Australia. AGL says it is the first project in a planned roll-out of 850MW of batteries nationwide. “The planning phase is well under way. With the support of the Australian government, we’ve been able to streamline the process, enabling us to bring the battery online sooner,” said chief operating officer Markus Brokhof. Construction is planned
for later this year, with the option to expand the battery by up to four hours) at a later stage. In January, AGL chose Wärtsilä as one of two suppliers for its storage plans, which include 200MW in Victoria and 200MW in New South Wales, as well as the Torrens Island project. Separately, Wärtsilä on August 10 said it would supply a 5.2MW/5.2MWh energy storage system to Kaohsiung city in Taiwan for frequency regulation
and spinning reserve services on the national grid. “Frequency regulation will enable the integration of greater levels of renewables, while the Wärtsilä energy storage solution will support frequency stability and enhance the reliability of the system,” the company says. Taiwan intends to generate 20% of its electricity from solar and wind power by 2025, with an additional 15GW of offshore wind to be installed by 2035.
Wärtsilä to double number of UK storage projects Wärtsilä is to expand on its two Pivot Power battery projects in the UK with another 100MW/200MWh of energy storage, the technology firm announced on July 19. The storage will consist of two systems — which the firms are calling ‘superhubs’ — in the West Midlands, in central England, and construction will begin in the last quarter of 2021. They will be big enough to power 200,000 homes for two hours, the firms claim. “At both sites the battery storage systems will share their connection to the high-voltage electricity transmission network with a high-volume power connection, which will deliver large amounts of power for rapid EV charging to strategic locations in the local area, from public charging hubs to bus depots and commercial fleets,” says Pivot Power. Where Wärtsilä will provide the energy storage technology, UK firm Pivot Power will operate the system in a similar model to an ongoing Oxford project which uses a vanadium battery as well as lithium-ion. The Midlands project is
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an expansion of the Oxford ‘Energy Superhub’ system, which was intended as a demonstrator project for the hybrid battery model, says the firm. “It was part funded by the government and will run until 2023, with the aim of
testing and evaluating new technologies and businesses models. The results of this project will help to inform future developments. In the meantime, Pivot Power’s focus is on deploying lithiumion systems, which are delivering reliable, cost-effective
energy storage globally to accelerate a net zero future.” Pivot Power’s ‘superhubs’ are all placed alongside National Grid substations, ‘and have been selected for proximity to major road networks and urban populations’, says Pivot Power.
RWE to build combined run-of-river battery hybrid in Germany RWE is building one of the largest battery storage systems in Germany — a 117MW facility that is being installed at the company’s power plants in Lingen in Lower Saxony and Werne North Rhine-Westphalia, the German utility announced on July 22. The two systems will cost around €50 million ($59 million). “What is special about this project is that the batteries will be virtually coupled with RWE’s runof-river power stations along the river Mosel. By raising or decreasing the flow-through at these power stations, RWE can make additional capacity available, also as
balancing energy,” says a company official. “This coupling process raises the total capacity of the batteries by another 15%. The battery and the hydropower stations work hand in hand to help keep the frequency in the power grid stable.” The system is scheduled to start operations at the end of 2022. The planned system comprises 420 lithiumion battery racks, housed in 47 overseas shipping containers spread across the two power stations. The system at Gersteinwerk in Werne will have a capacity of 72MW while the one at the Emsland station in
Lingen will have 45MW. “Battery storage systems are essential to the success of the energy transition. They help balance out fluctuations in the power grid, which are increasing as the share of renewable energies grows. Our project is setting new standards and shows how we can offer the market even more flexibility by intelligently linking up battery capacity with runof-river power stations,” said Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation. RWE is also working on projects with new technologies such as redox-flow storage systems and second-life batteries.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 7
NEWS — INVESTMENTS
French firm Verkor and friends raise €100 million to build battery gigafactory French industrial company Verkor on July 6 said it had raised €100 million ($118 million) with nine partners to build a lithium battery gigafactory with a manufacturing capacity of 50GWh by 2030. A Verkor Innovation Centre will also be built in Grenoble for the design of advanced battery cells and modules. “All 10 partners are united by the same vision: to build a competitive, sustainable and local battery cell value chain in Europe,” says Verkor. The other partners are EIT InnoEnergy, Groupe IDEC, Schneider Electric, Capgemini, Arkema, Tokai COBEX, Renault, EQT Ventures and the Fund for Ecologic Modernisation
of Transport, managed by Demeter. All have invested funds apart from InnoEnergy, ‘who is supporting in many other ways, and is one of the founding investors’, says Verkor, adding that of the €100 million, around two thirds is equity. Verkor said the European Battery Alliance was also an important partner. “Verkor is a full part and important player in the EBA ecosystem,” Verkor says. “The EBA has supported Verkor long before Verkor was created. It planted the seed.” The partners bring many different things to the table. Tokai COBEX, for instance, is a speciality manufacturer of low-carbon, efficient battery anode materials, and
Schneider Electric specializes in using digital tools to integrate technologies and services. Arkema is a materials science specialist. “In three years, Europe has become a global hotspot for battery investment, showing that we can achieve open strategic autonomy in this key industrial sector,” said Maroš Šefcovic, EU Commission vice president for Inter-institutional Relations and Foresight. Market pundits are less
rosy-eyed about the prospects of creating gigafactories across Europe. “The European Commission came to the game very late in the day,” says one commentator. “Asia has over a decade’s worth of manufacturing experience that will take new gigafactories time to learn. They have mature supply chains in place and some manufacturers in China have mineral rights agreements for years to come.”
Vanadium battery firm receives $24 million investment from Thai energy developer BCPG VRB Energy said on July 2 it had been given $24 million from Thai energy developer BCPG, which will speed up growth and enable BCPG to step into utility-scale energy storage. Majority owned by North American minerals exploration and development firm Ivanhoe Exploration (formerly High Powered Exploration), VRB Energy has a portfolio of 40MWh installed around the world, with 800,000 hours of demonstrated performance, it says. In March it was given a project to install a 100MW/500MWh flow battery to be integrated with a solar photovoltaic power station in Hubei Province, China. This will ultimately become a factory that will produce 1,000MW of VRB energy storage systems a year, alongside a vanadium
flow battery R&D institute, BCPG says. The investment will provide a welcome boost for VRB from BCPG, which already runs energy storage installations across southeast Asia, Japan and Australia totalling 900MW with more than 2,200MW
in the pipeline. “This strategic partnership paves a strong pathway for BCPG to fulfil its ambition to be at the forefront of the utility-scale renewable energy and energy storage business,” said BCPG. VRB Energy chairman Robert Friedland calls his
firm’s technology ‘a catalyst for integration of massive amounts of renewable energy around the region’. BCPG chairman Pichai Chunhavajira will take a seat on VRB’s board of directors once the transaction is completed, the firms said.
Taiwan Cement moves into energy storage with 60% stake in ENGIE EPS Taiwan Cement Corporation on July 20 confirmed it had completed the acquisition of a 60.48% stake in ENGIE EPS, the stationary storage and e-mobility arm of the Italian electric utility ENGIE. ENGIE EPS has been renamed ‘NHOA’ — short for ‘New HOrizons Ahead’ — and ENGIE EPS CEO Carlalberto Guglielminotti has been appointed CEO
8 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
of the new company. Taiwan Cement paid a total of €132 million ($156.6 million) in cash for what is now NHOA. “Through the transaction, the TCC group will be able to expand its international energy and energy storage footprint and to diversify its product offerings, as well as strengthen its technical capabilities in the energy storage field,”
said TCC. “Co-operation with NHOA can help TCC to become a comprehensive storage solution provider and enter the global markets for electric vehicle fast chargers, microgrids and hydrogen.” ENGIE EPS was conceived in 2005 as Electro Power Systems and in 2013 Guglielminotti took over as CEO.
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NEWS — INVESTMENTS
Ambri secures $144 million from Reliance to commercialize, expand Long-duration storage firm Ambri Inc has received a $144 million investment from Reliance Industries, Ambri announced on August 9. Reliance New Energy Solar led the financing round, which reaped investment from Ambri’s largest shareholder, Bill Gates, among other new investors. The money will be used to build manufacturing facilities in the US and around the world so that it can compete in the global bid to meet growing storage demand. “This financing supports the commercial growth of our company and technology,” said Dan Leff, Ambri executive chairman. “Further, these funds are instrumental to driving our efforts to scale the company’s op-
erations and establish our manufacturing infrastructure to meet rapidly expanding customer demand.” Reliance will also steer the company’s plans to make Ambri’s batteries in India. “Reliance Industries sees this strategic partnership with Ambri as an important step in its journey of achieving its decarbonization goals,” said Reliance chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani. “Our investment in Ambri is part of our broader plan to develop the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex, which will be among the largest integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in the world and the epicentre of India’s Green Economy movement.”
Ambri’s battery technology is a liquid metal chemistry, which began life in the lab at MIT under professor Donald Sadoway. Its cells are calcium and antimony electrode based, in containerized systems that it says are more economical than lithium-ion batteries and capable of operating safely in any climatic condition without requiring supplemental air conditioning. As well as securing the investment Ambri says it has agreed a long-term supply of antimony with Perpetua Resources, owned by Paulson & Co. John Paulson said his firm had been looking for an opportunity to invest in large-scale battery storage technologies. “Ambri’s battery technol-
SSE buys first battery from Harmony Energy Scotland-based energy company SSE has made its first venture into battery storage with the purchase
of a 50MW installation in southern England, the firm announced on August 18. SSE has bought the pro-
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ject development rights from Harmony Energy, which has been developing the site in Salisbury, Wiltshire for four years. It won planning permission to install the storage system, with lithium-ion batteries, in April 2020, when it said the battery would connect to the distribution network at 132kVm, allowing more intermittent renewable energy to be added to the grid. “We are entering a critical period for the future of the UK’s energy supply,” said director Pete Grogan at the time. “Coal-fired power is on track to be phased out by 2025 and with strict targets to decarbonize our system through the continued rollout of low-carbon gen-
ogy is ready to deliver a low-cost, durable and safe battery for longer duration applications that will enable a stable grid that incorporates an increasing amount of intermittent renewable generation,” he said. Ambri says its batteries can last for 20 years with minimal degradation, and are particularly suited to high-use applications, such as shifting energy from daytime solar generation to evening and morning peak load times. “The batteries are designed to last for durations ranging from four to 24 hours,” the company says. “The company is securing customers for large-scale projects with commercial operation dates in 2023 and beyond.” eration, utility-scale energy storage systems like these are key to maintaining security, stability and flexibility.” “Our distributed energy division has ambitions to build a significant portfolio of batteries — we’re looking at around 500MW of early stage opportunities — and we hope today’s announcement signals the seriousness of our intent in this market,” said SSE sector director for Distributed Generation & Storage Richard Cave-Bigley. Harmony Energy owns a number of battery assets in the UK, ranging in size from 7.5MW to 99MW. CEO Peter Kavanagh said the move demonstrated SSE’s confidence in Harmony’s energy storage technology, ‘which is fundamental to the UK’s energy mix and enabling the reduction of carbon emissions’. It also owns a number of wind turbines and wind farms.
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NEWS — LITHIUM BATTERY FIRES
Tesla battery fire takes firefighters four days to be extinguished International media have reported that a four-day Tesla battery fire was eventually put out at the electric car company’s utility-scale battery site in the state of Victoria, Australia on August 2. According to reports, a 13-tonne lithium battery caught fire inside a shipping container and could easily have spread to other battery containers, but was kept under control and then finally put out. Authorities were reported as saying the cause of the fire was unknown, and no one was injured in the blaze. The ‘Victoria Big Battery’ was installed by French energy firm Neoen in 2017, when it was the largest grid-connected energy storage system in the world at 100MW/129MWh. Tesla owner Elon Musk famously offered to waive the installation fee if it could not be completed within 100 days — and it was. It was doubled in size in September 2020. Lithium battery fires are
notoriously difficult to extinguish safely because they react with water, even when they are not alight. The batteries have to be soaked in water for long enough to make sure that the water gets right into the cells, otherwise they can reignite. Brilmyer believes the economic case for deploying lithium in containers is flawed. The Big Battery’s woes have not ended there. On September 23, news agency Reuters reported that the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) had filed a lawsuit against Neoen, claiming the Tesla battery had not provided back-up power for four months in 2019, yet had still banked the payment, and the operator was seeking fines and court costs for ‘a significant number of breaches’ during July to November of that year. “It is vital that generators do what they say they can do if we’re going to keep the lights on through the market’s transition to variable
renewable generation,” said AER chairman Clare Savage. Each breach of national electricity market rules carries a maximum penalty of A$100,000 ($75,500). Delays to spodumene Separately, Reuters news agency reported that the North Carolina mining firm Piedmont Lithium had delayed first shipments of lithium spodumene to Tesla, without giving a new date for when they could begin. A five-year deal was signed in September with the firm
to begin supplying the element between July 2022 and July 2023, but Reuters said last month that officials had voiced concerns about Piedmont’s project at what is one of the largest lithium mines in the US. The company, it says, plans to apply for a state mining permit this month. “We have built in some degree of flexibility based upon the needs of our customers and their timelines, and that consideration is mutually agreed upon,” Reuters quoted Piedmont spokesman Brian Risinger as saying.
IFBF speaker says China on brink of replacing lithium battery bulk storage with VRFBs The Chinese government is looking to increase its long-term energy storage from 3GW to 30GW in the next five years and a large proportion of this, probably exceeding 20GW, will be in VRFBs, according to Mianyan Huang, president of VRB Energy, on July 8. Speaking in an unofficial capacity at the virtual International Flow Battery Forum, Huang said that the 25MWh LiFePO4 battery that exploded in Beijing in April, killing two firefighters, could mark a
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step-change in stationary storage options. The battery was part of a system that also featured 1.4MW of solar capacity on a roof and 94 EV charging points. The Chinese government has not formally announced a shift in policy. “But it’s only reasonable to assume that any government will use the resources it has — it has huge reserves of vanadium — for its energy needs,” an attendee at the IFBF said. “Moreover, the country has to import nickel and
cobalt for high-powered lithium batteries.” Huang also said the other technology increasingly favoured by the government as a substitute for lithium was compressed air storage. Separately, China’s National Energy Administration on June 22 published a draft document calling for a ban on repurposed lithium batteries — ie old EV batteries — being used in large-scale energy storage projects. The document, the New Energy Storage Project
Management Code (Temporary) will be open to consultation until July 22, 2021.
Mianyan Huang
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NEWS — LITHIUM BATTERY FIRES
10,000 LG Chem lithium batteries recalled over potential fire hazard Around 10,000 residential storage system lithium batteries by LG Chem subsidiary LG Energy Solutions have been recalled because of a fire hazard, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on August 4. The RESU 10 (Type-R) batteries were recalled after warnings were issued that they ‘can overheat, posing a risk of fire and emission of harmful smoke’. Five reports were received of the wall-mounted batteries, which store energy generated by solar panels, causing property damage and one injury, the CPSC said. The batteries were made in LG Chem’s factory in Nanjing, China, between 2017 and 2018, according to Korean media, which said the recall had caused the firm’s stock price to drop by 6.7%. In December 2020, around 1,815 units of the same model were recalled for the same reason, the CPSC hav-
ing received five reports of fires resulting in minor property damage, but no injuries. The latest recall came just two days after a four-day lithium battery fire was put out at a utility-scale Tesla battery site in the Australian state of Victoria. International media reported that a 13-tonne lithium battery caught fire inside a shipping container and could easily have spread to other battery containers, but was kept under control and then finally put out. The ‘Victoria Big Battery’ was installed by French energy firm Neoen in 2017, when it was the largest grid-connected energy storage system in the world at 100MW/129MWh. Tesla owner Elon Musk famously offered to waive the installation fee if it could not be completed within 100 days — and it was. It was doubled in size in September 2020. Lithium battery fires are
notoriously difficult to extinguish safely because they react with water, even when they are not alight. “Statistically it’s not if they fail, but when,” says George Brilmyer, CTO at HighWater Innovations and formerly R&D manager of separator firm Microporous. “It’s a million to one chance that a cell will fail but if you have tens of thousands of them on a cargo of containers, the statistics are against you that one is going to fail. With thermal runaway it’s then a cascading process as one by one ignites, and that’s why it takes days to put them out.” The batteries have to be
soaked in water for long enough to make sure that the water gets right into the cells, otherwise they can reignite. Brilmyer believes the economic case for deploying lithium in containers is flawed. “You’re not moving them around, they are staying in a container on the ground, there’s no reason why you should be using lead at a fifth of the cost. “Parts of Australia are very warm, so lithium cells will probably need air conditioning on to keep them cool — well if you do the energy balance and take that into account it doesn’t add up.”
“It’s a million to one chance that a cell will fail but if you have tens of thousands of them on a cargo of containers, the statistics are against you that one is going to fail. — George Brilmyer, CTO at HighWater Innovations and formerly R&D manager, Microporous
Thousands forced to evacuate as 100 tonnes of batteries explode Up to 4,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes on June 30 after up to 100 tonnes of lithium batteries exploded at a former paper mill in Morris in the US state of Illinois, local and international media reported. The paper mill was owned by a firm called Superior Battery, according to CBSN Chicago. But there is no connection with the well-known US lead battery firm Superior Battery Manufacturing Co Inc, based in Kentucky. Firefighters decided to let the blaze burn out rather than risk causing more explosions: it is notoriously
difficult to extinguish lithium battery fires because when they come into contact with water, they explode. According to news agency AP (Associated Press), between 80 to 100 tonnes of batteries exploded with a noise that could be heard across the city that night, having been stored at the unused paper mill without the knowledge of the fire department or other city agencies. They ranged in size from cellphone batteries to large car batteries, the agency said. “Firefighters stopped using water on the blaze
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minutes after they arrived when they discovered the batteries because water and firefighting foam can cause batteries to explode,” the report said. “Crews will not be sent to battle the fire because of the unknowns about what’s inside.” Residents from some 950 homes were told to stay away for two days. “Many types of lithium — lithium iron phosphate
being the most obvious one given its lack of metals of value — are uncommercial to process,” says one commentator. “We’re hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence that many in the industry are simply stockpiling them until an efficient economical solution to their disposal can be found.” “If they are not warehousing them properly they are a very real and present danger to everyone.”
“We’re hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence that many in the industry are simply stockpiling them until an efficient economical solution to their disposal can be found.” www.energystoragejournal.com
NEWS — INDIA
India plans to create 50GWh of battery storage in coming years The Indian government is putting up billions of dollars of cash, offering tenders and incentives to battery firms to put in place more than 50GWh of storage over the next few years. Policies in line with the country’s aims to Aatma Nirbar Bharat — Make in India — include a $2.5 billion ‘Production Linked Incentive’ scheme to achieve manufacturing capacity of 50GWh of advanced chemistry cell (ACC) battery storage and 5GWh of Niche ACC; floating tenders for 4,000MWh of battery storage; and a 2,000MWh standalone energy system. “While several companies have already started investing in battery packs, the capacities of these facilities are too small when compared to global averages, and there still is negligible investment in manufacturing, along with value addition, of ACCs in India,” says the PLI announcement. “All the demand of the ACCs is currently being met through imports in India. The National Programme on ACC Battery Storage will reduce import dependence. It will also support the Aatma Nirbar Bharat initiative.” ACC battery storage manufacturers will be selected through a transparent competitive bidding process, and the manufacturing facility will have to be commissioned within a period of two years. “With the approval of the PLI scheme many global companies are looking at entering the Indian market,” says Debi Prasad Dash, executive director with the India Energy Storage Alliance. “Companies such as Tata Chemical and TDK have acquired the land for setting up the gigafactories. Both companies are leading India’s energy storage market. “Some of the major companies planning to set up cell manufacturing plants in India include Exicom, Tata Chemical, TDK, TDSG, Amara Raja, etc. “Under Niche ACC, alternative technologies such as sodium-based, zinc air and aluminium batteries will get a boost, having better battery density, cycle life and safety. So the market looks quite promising for domestic and international players.” In July, the government announced it would float tenders for four regional
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“While several companies have already started investing in battery packs, the capacities of these facilities are too small when compared to global averages, and there still is negligible investment in manufacturing, along with value addition, of ACCs in India” load dispatch centres, at 1,000MWh each, for smoothing grid fluctuations as renewable sources are increasingly installed. Also in July, the state-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India said it would launch a tender, expected to be published at the end of August, for another 2,000MWh of energy storage systems. Dash says most of the tenders are technology agnostic. “They do not mention any specific battery chemistry, just requirements. If one wants to, and is capable, projects can be done with lead-acid batteries as well,” he said.
Reliance Industries puts up $10 billion for green energy
Earlier this year, Reliance Industries, a Mumbai-based conglomerate of petrochemicals, energy, telecommunications, textiles and other sectors, announed it would enter the new energy market with an investment of more than $10 billion over the next three years. Speaking at the annual general meeting, chairman Mukesh Ambani said work had already begun on the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex, which will comprise four huge factories — one for solar panel manufacturing, one for ad-
vanced batteries, one for the electrolyzers and ‘green’ hydrogen, and the fourth for fuel cells. “First, as one of the biggest energy markets in the world, India will play a leading role in transforming the global energy landscape,” Ambani said. “Second, as a company focused on growing businesses of the future, Reliance will provide leadership on the combined strength of our balance sheet, talent, technology and proven project execution capabilities. “Third, Reliance will make its new energy business a truly global business.” Ambani said the target of enabling 100GW of solar energy by 2030 would be achieved largely from rooftop solar and decentralized solar installations in rural India According to news agency Bloomberg, Reliance Industries owns the world’s largest crude oil refining complex, in Jamnagar Gujarat, with a refining capacity of 1.4 million barrels a day. Reliance Industries began modestly in 1957 with wool trading in a small office in Mumbai. It ventured into refining in 2000, commissioning the Jamnagar plant, and in 2004, the company became the first and only private Indian organization to be listed in the Fortune Global 500 list.
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NEWS — PURCHASES & ACQUISITIONS
Canadian investment firm buys UK firm Green Frog Power The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario on August 5 said it had agreed to buy Green Frog Power, a UK firm that develops and operates flexible generation projects in the UK. Once the sale is complete, IMCO has pledged to spend up to £288 mil-
lion ($397 million) to transform Green Frog into an owner and operator of utility-scale batteries and execute its pipeline of battery projects. “The transaction will enable IMCO and Green Frog to establish a global, utility-scale platform focused on battery storage assets,” IMCO says. “Green Frog has developed a substantial pipeline of near-term development projects and the Green Frog team is highly regarded
with extensive expertise in design, development, construction and operations of flexible generation assets.” This is the first time that IMCO, which has a vast portfolio of managed assets in sectors ranging from energy to health care, materials, real estate, utilities, communication services and government, has bought 100% of a company. “The acquisition of Green Frog gives us access to a leading flexible
generation platform and a substantial development pipeline in what we believe is the early stages of a trillion-dollar utility-scale battery sector,” said Tim Formuziewich, managing director of Global Infrastructure at IMCO. While Green Frog’s main focus so far has been building power plants, its new projects already include 280MW of battery storage. The firm says it is also working to bring hydrogen to the UK’s gas networks.
Ecobat buys lithium battery recycler Promesa, completes top team Battery recycler Ecobat has expanded its recycling operations with the purchase of the Germanybased lithium-ion battery recycler Promesa, the company announced on July 26. With its central location of Hettstedt, a dominant car manufacturing and lithium battery area, Promesa ‘provides Ecobat a crucial entry point in one of the most critical markets for battery access and OEM factory scrap’, Ecobat says. “Additionally, Promesa represents a critical part of the battery recycling process and value chain and will provide Ecobat with access to business-critical permits for 3,200 tonnes of chemical compounds,” Ecobat says. “These contracts cover a broad range of waste materials associated with a variety of battery chemistries from household to electric vehicles, positioning Ecobat for expansive growth opportunities.” Ecobat has also completed the formation of a
new senior management team with the appointment of Jamie Pierson as chief financial officer, the firm revealed on August 9. Pierson comes from the international transport firm Yellow Corporation (YELL), where he was responsible for operational and financial strategy. He has more than 10 years’ experience in investment banking, financial
restructuring, advisory and corporate development experience and strategic planning, says Ecobat. Five other individuals were placed on the executive team: Jenn Congdon as chief HR officer; Paul Harper as chief sustainability officer; Jamie Lee as chief information officer; Thea Soule as chief commercial officer; and Daniel Terrell as chief legal officer.
Craig Clark was also promoted to president of lead operations. “It is an exciting and dynamic time at Ecobat,” said Ecobat president and CEO Jimmy Herring. “With the recent acquisition of lithium-ion recycler Promesa, we are positioning Ecobat for solid growth in the coming years as our industry adapts for the future.”
Oxis Energy assets and IP sold to Johnson Matthey The sale to Johnson Matthey of Oxis Energy, the lithium sulfur battery developer, was finalized on July 28 just over two months after the company was placed in administration on May 19. BDO, the business restructuring firm brought in to deal with the sale, said Johnson Matthey would take over the premises in Oxfordshire and Wales, as well as the assets and intellectual property. Oxis was at the fore-
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front of research into lithium-sulfur batteries, with its own plant in Brazil that was touted as having the capacity to produce five million cells a year. But a lack of investment spelt the end for the firm, and claims that it would be able to make all-solid state configurations with a delivery potential of 1,000Wh/l are not going to be realized. Perhaps it was just too soon for the chemistry. Mahdokht Shaibani is a research fellow in the De-
partment of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Monash University, Australia, and has studied lithium-sulfur for about eight years. She said the chemistry probably needed a few more years of research before it could be developed. “The progress on the lithium metal anode protection has been incremental and without a breakthrough on that component, there will be no mass adoption of the Li-S system,” she said.
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NEWS
World’s biggest battery fails one month after installation completed The world’s biggest utility-scale battery had to be switched off on September 4 after a major overheating incident occurred just one month after the whole installation was completed. The overheating at Vistra Corp’s Moss Landing energy storage site in California resulted in sprinkler systems being deployed and firefighters called to the site. The 300MW/1200MWh lithium battery, which was made by LG Energy and installed in partnership with Fluence and Vistra, was switched on in January this year. It was hailed as a flagship project and celebrated with much fanfare when it was
completed with the addition of a further 100MW just a few weeks ago, on August 19. The added capacity brought the total storage capacity to 1600MWh. “We share a goal of facilitating a nationwide transition to zero-emission energy and, as more intermittent renewables come online, battery projects like this play a vital role in building a more reliable grid,” said Claudia Morrow, Vistra’s SVP of Development and Strategy, at the time. The battery was hoped to help strengthen the reliability of California’s grid, which suffers blackouts every year during the
state’s wildfire season. “With safety as its number one priority, the company is taking a conservative approach and keeping the entire facility offline as it investigates the root cause of the incident in partnership with its engineering contractor, Fluence, and battery manufacturer, LG Energy Solution,”
said a Vistra statement. “Vistra is uncertain on the timing of the return of the facility, pending an investigation and any needed repairs.” The additional 100MW/ 400MWh battery was not affected by the overheating, the company said, and as yet the cause of the problem is not clear.
FREYR Battery becomes newest member of EUROBAT
to be considered in the next steps towards implementing the regulation, including clearer definitions, avoiding overlaps with existing measures, basing decision-making on solid methodologies, respecting the differences between battery technologies and adopting reasonable timelines.
EUROBAT on September 16 welcomed Norwegian lithium battery maker FREYR Battery into its membership. FREYR makes lithium batteries using electricity generated by hydro and wind energy, and targets the electric mobility, stationary energy storage, marine and aviation sectors. “FREYR Battery’s ambitions will place us as one of Europe’s largest battery suppliers,” said CEO Tom Einar Jensen. “We do compete globally in the battery cell industry, but in FREYR Battery we believe it is right to collaborate where we can, to drive important areas that we all benefit from such as regulations, access to the market, research, education and sustainable materials.” FREYR is building a gi-
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gafactory in Norway, and EUROBAT executive director Rene Schroeder said the company would be a welcome contributor to drafting future EU policy frameworks for batteries.
EUROBAT has been busy going through the EU’s Batteries Regulation, which was published last year and broadly welcomed by the battery association. It identified five key areas
Power firm expands presence in energy storage with purchase of SimpliPhi SimpliPhi Power has been snapped up by the gas engines and power generation equipment manufacturer Briggs & Stratton, the firm announced on September 7. The purchase will accelerate Briggs & Stratton’s growth in the energy storage system market, the company says, and broaden its customer base. “Combining forces with Briggs & Stratton will provide SimpliPhi Power with new growth oppor-
tunities and substantial resources to lead the energy storage system market,” said Catherine Von Burg, CEO of SimpliPhi Power. “Briggs & Stratton’s expansive distribution network, power application expertise and commitment to innovation will accelerate our growth and our mission of providing resilient energy storage systems that create universal access to safe, reliable and affordable energy to empower people, com-
munities and enterprises globally.” Briggs & Stratton is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and claims to be the world’s largest producer of gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment. It also designs and makes lithium-ion batteries, as well as other power products. SimpliPhi makes LFP batteries, having moved away from cobalt in 2007.
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NEWS
Energy Vault to list on NYSE through merger with Novus Capital Corporation II Novus Capital Corporation II and Energy Vault, an energy storage company, said on September 9 that the two boards of directors had entered into a definitive agreement for a merger. The new company will be known as Energy Vault Holdings. The transaction values the combined grid storage company at roughly $1.5 billion, the companies said. The transaction should close in the first quarter of 2022, subject to shareholder approval by the firms and regulatory conditions. Energy Vault uses a block tower system to store and
release renewable energy from wind and solar operations. It uses surplus renewable energy to store power by constructing the tower with a crane. When demand rises, the crane unstacks the tower, producing kinetic energy by dropping the blocks so that they can turn generators and create electricity. “Energy Vault has successfully demonstrated commercial scale deployment of its technologies,” says a joint statement of the firms. “It has a strong pipeline of customer engagements, including eight executed agreements
and letters of intent for 1.2GWh of energy storage capacity, with deployments planned to begin in the fourth quarter of 2021 in the US, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Australia in 2022. Novus Capital Corporation II is known as a SPAC (a special purpose acquisi-
tion company) created as a channel to take companies to go public. Robert Piconi, a co-founder of Energy Vault, will be chairman and chief executive officer. As part of the transaction, Novus chairman Larry Paulson will join the post-closing board of directors.
Recurrent Energy completes majority sale of 1.4GWh energy storage project in California Canadian Solar announced on September 8 that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy, had sold an 80% stake in its 350MW/1,400GWh Crimson storage project to Axium Infrastructure, a fund manager. Recurrent Energy will retain the remaining 20% ownership. This is Axium’s
first investment in battery storage. Construction of the storage project will begin in Q3 2021 and should reach commercial operation by next summer. The Crimson storage project is Canadian Solar’s first stand-alone storage project and the largest developed to-date. It holds two energy
storage contracts with local utilities. The first contract is to provide 200MW/800MWh over a 14-year and 10-month contract with Southern California Edison under a full tolling agreement. The second contract is a 15-year 150MW/600MWh agreement with Pacific Gas and
Canadian Solar signs operations and maintenance agreements with solar plus battery storage projects in the US Canadian Solar reported on September 7 that it had signed long-term operations & maintenance agreements with two solar plus battery storage projects — the Slate and Mustang projects —and owned by Goldman Sachs Asset Management Renewable Power. The agreements cover the full Slate Project, which is a 300MW solar plant designed with a 140MW/561MWh battery energy storage system; and the storage component of the Mustang Pro-
ject, which is a 100MW solar plant retrofitted with a 75MW/300 MWh battery storage system. Both projects are located in Kings County, California. Both were developed by Canadian Solar’s subsidiary Recurrent Energy. Under the long-term agreements, Canadian Solar will be responsible for O&M obligations across both projects, including plant monitoring, NERC registration, performance management and preventative and corrective maintenance. Canadian
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Solar services will help to increase site availability, minimize downtime and maximize the value of the projects. “These contracts further solidify Canadian Solar’s position as a leading solar and energy storage O&M provider,” says the firm. “The company now boasts a global O&M portfolio of nearly 4GW of solar and 860MWh of storage projects under contract across nine countries, of which 2.3GW of solar projects are in operation.
Electric for resource adequacy only. Recurrent and Axium will operate the battery system in the wholesale California wholesale power market. Canadian Solar’s majorityowned CSI Solar subsidiary will provide both EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) and long-term operational services for the Crimson storage project. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, said: “Once it reaches commercial operation, Crimson will be one of the largest battery energy storage projects in the world. We are collaborating with our partner Axium to help improve California’s grid reliability and safety by providing critically needed resource adequacy capacity to meet electricity demand in all scenarios.” The US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management issued final approval earlier this year for the Crimson project: it is located in Riverside County and is sited on public lands in the California desert.
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NEWS
EDF North America signs PPA for 600MWh solar-plus-storage project EDF Renewables North America and Clean Power Alliance, a Californian utility, revealed on September 2 the signing of a 15-year power purchase agreement for the Desert Quartzite solar-plus-storage project. The project consists of a 300MW solar project coupled with a 600MWh battery energy storage system. This should begin delivery of clean electricity to CPA’s customers throughout Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in February 2024. The CPA Board of Directors approved the longterm contract during its September meeting.
The project is on unincorporated land in Riverside County, designated a Solar Energy Zone and Development Focus Area, set aside for utility-scale renewable energy development. At full capacity, the electricity generated will be enough to meet the consumption of more than 163,000 average California homes,, says EDF Renewables. This is equivalent to avoiding more than 669,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. “By coupling the solar facility with an energy storage solution, electricity
produced during peak solar hours can be dispatched later in the day, thereby creating a balance between electricity generation and demand. Energy storage can further smooth elec-
tricity prices and provide grid stability in an environmentally friendly way,” the company says. The project should create more than 800 construction jobs.
Li-Cycle to build new battery recycling facility in Alabama
vehicles and batteries, but to be good corporate citizens in the choices we make to protect our environment and the community around us,” said Michael Goebel, president of Mercedes-Benz, US International which is working with Univar on end-of-life solutions for lithium-ion batteries.
Li-Cycle Holdings Corp, a lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, announced on September 8 that it plans to build a fourth commercial lithiumion battery recycling facility — called Spoke 4 —in Tuscaloosa in the US state of Alabama. The firm says: “The southeast of the US is emerging as a critical region for the lithium-ion battery supply chain, as battery manufacturers and automotive OEMs establish operations in the region. This will lead to the generation of significant quantities of battery manufacturing scrap and end-oflife batteries available for recycling. “Univar Solutions will be an anchor battery feed supply customer for the new facility, following our onsite partnership with them to provide waste management solutions for electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery manufacturing.”
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Univar announced a partnership with Li-Cycle in July. When completed in mid2022, the new facility will have an initial capacity of up to 5,000 tonnes of battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries per year, bringing Li-Cycle’s total North American recycling capacity to 25,000 tonnes per year, the firms say. The Tuscaloosa site is also being developed to accommodate a future, second 5,000 tonne processing line, which would increase capacity at the Tuscaloosa site to 10,000 tonnes per year, and LiCycle’s total North American recycling capacity to 30,000 tonnes per year. Li-Cycle had previously planned three North American Spokes. Two are operational in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and Rochester, New York. Spoke facilities are commercially operational. The third in Gilbert,
Arizona announced this April is under construction. The Alabama Spoke should create some 30 new jobs. “We’ve a responsibility to not only manufacture
Sila to market anode replacement for graphite in lithium batteries Sila, a lithium-ion battery materials company, claimed on September 8 that it “is bringing to market the most significant breakthrough in battery chemistry in 30 years — the technology to replace graphite anodes — which will usher in a new era of energy storage”. Sila says its silicon anode chemistry dramatically increases the energy density of batteries, reducing battery size without sacrificing safety or performance. The firm, which had prviously focused on wearable battery technol-
ogy, says the advance will benefit the deployment of lithium batteries at all sizes and scales. “Sila’s materials increase the energy density of batteries by nearly 20% and have the potential to do so by up to 40%, without compromising cycle life, power, safety or other performance parameters, says the firm. “This innovation marks a significant step toward the electrification of everything, which has been stalled in recent years by minimal improvements to traditional Li-ion chemistry.”
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NEWS
$2 billion floating PV plus storage to be built on Indonesian reservoir Singaporean solar system developer Sunseap Group on July 21 signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian local government district Badan Pengusahaan Batam to build a floating solar and storage system on a reservoir at Batam Island.
The solar panels will cover a 1,600 hectare area on a reservoir to the south of the island. Sunseap says it will be the largest floating PV installation in the world. According to Sunseap, some of the energy will be consumed on Batam Island, but much will be exported
to Singapore about 50km away via a subsea cable. “Floating solar systems will go a long way to address the land constraints that urbanized parts of southeast Asia face in tapping renewable energy,” said Frank Phuan, CEO of Sunseap. “This hyperscale project
is a significant milestone for Sunseap coming soon after we had completed Singapore’s first offshore floating solar farm along the Straits of Johor.” A mixture of bank loans and internal resources will finance the plant, Sunseap says.
CATL launches sodium-ion battery on voyage to industrialization At a smart online event on July 29, CATL co-founder and chairman Robin Zeng formally launched the company’s sodium-ion battery, naming three areas for its application — renewable energy storage, EVs and integrating electrification and intelligence. The first generation of the battery has an energy density of 160Wh/kg, which although only around half of a lithium-ion battery, can charge within 15 minutes to 80% and has a better performance in colder temperatures, the company says. The sodium-ion cells can also be mixed and matched alongside lithiumion cells within batteries. “Energy conversion and storage are at the core of new energy development,” Zeng said. “In power generation, the power grid and power consumption, we have made a systematic layout of the development of electrochemical energy storage.” Also talking at the event, which was broadcast on the internet video platform YouTube, deputy dean of CATL Research Trust Huang Qisen said the nature of sodium ions — being ‘fatter’ than lithium ions — meant that when the battery was in operation, the flow of ions put higher requirements on
the structural stability and kinetic properties of the cathode material. “We have redesigned the bulk structure of the cathode material by rearranging the electrons and changing the surface, which has solved the worldwide problem of rapid capacity fading upon material cycling,” he said. With the anode, he said sodium ions could not move freely between the graphite layers as lithium ions could — so CATL had developed a hard carbon material that enables the abundant storage and fast movement of sodium ions with ‘a unique porosity structure’. The company had also come up with a unique
electrolyte, he said, without giving further details. Le Xu, senior analyst at commodity consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said developing a sodium-ion battery technology could diversity their raw materials consumption — especially lithium, for which demand is booming. “A sodium-ion solution could potentially solve cost challenges faced by Chinese renewables developers, bringing energy storage costs down to a new level,” he said. “Sodium-ion technology has long been touted for commercial battery use due to sodium’s low cost and high abundance relative to lithium, and CATL producing large-scale so-
dium-ion batteries shows the technology’s appeal is coming to fruition sooner rather than later,” said Wood Mackenzie research analyst Max Reid. “The lower energy of the sodium-ion cells suggests that the technology may be more suited for stationary energy storage applications which are less restrictive, while the unveiling of battery packs combining both sodium-ion and lithium-ion cells could point towards a compromise in performance for low-cost electric vehicles, with the potential to disrupt the mass market.” Robin Zeng said the company intended to launch the battery into the industrial chain by 2023.
US Mitsubishi affiliate to buy Smarter Grid Solutions Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc, the US affiliate of Japanese giant Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, on August 8 said it would buy the UK-based firm Smarter Grid Solutions. The deal is expected to be finalized within a few weeks. SGS develops distributed energy resources management software for power utilities and
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operators and could make a good fit for MEPPI, which produces battery energy storage systems, UPS and electric generators, as well as other electrical equipment. As the global mix of power supply changes with more decentralized power generation, largely because of renewable sources, controlling the flow is becoming increas-
ingly tricky. This has opened up opportunities for firms that can offer solutions, such as SGS. “We look forward to marrying SGS’s products with our suite of grid control products to help our customers respond to changes and still get the best performance from their electric grids,” said MEPPI president and CEO Brian Heery.
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NEWS
10,000m2 battery recycling plant planned for Europe’s largest seaport Dutch technology firm TES on July 11 said it had agreed a deal with Europe’s largest seaport, Rotterdam, for a 10,000m2 lithium battery recycling facility at the port. There is already a waste licence in place which allows batteries to be stored at the site and forwarded on from there, as well as manage battery production scrap. The plant, says TES, will be the first lithium battery recycling facility in the Netherlands, to add to its two other plants in Grenoble, France, and Singapore, the latter which was opened in March 2021. Lithium battery recycling in Europe is far short of what will be needed to meet
waste generation by 2030, according to a report from Circular Energy Storage released last December. Yet the European Commission says the continent could account for 17% of the global demand for batteries by 2030. TES claims it can recover 9kg out of every 10kg of usable commodity material in its hydrometallurgical recycling process, which separates copper and aluminium from the ‘black mass’ that forms the rest of the material produced. The black mass is then further refined in stages to produce graphite, cobalt hydroxide and lithium carbonate. “Once up and running, we will have up to 10,000
tonnes of shredding capacity per year and a subsequent hydrometallurgical process which focuses on the recovery of nickel, cobalt and lithium as a precursor feedstock for the battery industry,” said Thomas Holberg, global vice president of battery operations with TES. “Our mission is to close the loop on lithium battery production by encouraging
re-use and improving the collection and recycling of the scarce metals and materials they contain.” “It is important to take significant steps to establish circular production processes,” said Allard Castelein, CEO of the Port of Rotterdam. “This could very well become the largest European facility for recycling batteries from electric cars.”
Golden State approves Energy Code for all new buildings The Energy Code approved by California’s Energy Commission on August 11 will mean all new buildings must have solar panels and battery storage included in the build, among other requirements. Solar and storage use is to be expanded to highrise apartments, hotel and motels, tenant spaces, offices and clinics, retail and grocery stores, restaurants, schools and civic venues such as theatres and conference centres. New homes must have electrical panels, branch circuits and a transfer switch for battery storage, the 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards Summary says. It focuses on four key areas in newly built homes and businesses: Electric heat pump technology; establishing electric-ready requirements, expanding solar PV and battery storage; and, improving ventilation.
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The code aims to shift completely away from gas, requiring all new homes to be ‘electric-ready’, so that buildings with gas stoves, for example, also have the necessary wiring to support a switch to electric. Builders are to be encouraged to install heat pumps instead of gas-fuelled
HVAC units and required to provide dedicated 240V outlets so that electric appliances can eventually replace gas. Where there is insufficient space for solar panels, exceptions will be made. The approval does not mean the standards will go into effect, as this is down
to the California Building Standards Commission, which will look at it in December. “If approved by the CBSC, it would go into effect on January 1, 2023, giving builders, contractors and other interested parties a year to gear up for the changes,” says the CEC.
UK chemicals firms join forces to improve battery tech UK chemicals giants Johnson Matthey and Thomas Swan have joined forces with CPI (Centre for Process Innovation) to optimize battery technologies in a project part funded by the UK government’s Faraday Challenge, the firms said on June 22. The ICE-Batt project aims to improve energy and power density and the low temperature performance of battery technologies through carbon nanotubes and
graphene nanoplatelets, JM said. “ICE-Batt will fine tune these novel carbon structures produced at an industrial scale by Thomas Swan and demonstrate how they can best be applied to enhance the overall performance of traditional lithium-ion and next generation batteries such as JM’s family of nickel-rich advanced cathode materials,” said JM. “This project will add to
our understanding of how to maximize our battery materials, ultimately benefiting our customers to develop next generation batteries,” said Michael Edwards, business director of advanced materials with Thomas Swan. The UK Faraday Challenge is part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, a government fund aiming to boost research and development in technical fields.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 19
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An emerging world of new power and storage solutions Energy Storage Journal looks at potentially disruptive chemistries to the energy storage world. Frank Millard reports. FIVE CHEMISTRIES TO WATCH A new generation of battery storage chemistries is emerging. Probably the key question is whether they can make the transition from the research lab to the manufacturing line. Zinc-manganese oxide battery The zinc-manganese oxide battery has a real potential to be an alternative to lithium-ion and lead acid batteries, say scientists at the US Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). They have picked up on an unexpected chemical conversion reaction in zincmanganese oxide batteries which, if controlled, could increase energy density in conventional batteries at no extra cost. The energy density of the rechargeable alkaline zinc battery then makes it a good fit for large-scale stationary energy storage. Safety concerns are assuaged to some degree by the use of a non-flammable aqueous electrolyte, and costs can be kept low because of the availability
Xiaolin Li, PNNL: “The material cost of Zn-MnO2 battery potentially can be substantially cheaper than rechargeable Li-ion batteries.”
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and abundance of raw materials. There is one drawback: commercial viability is not guaranteed due to the poor reversibility of zinc anodes in alkaline electrolytes. “The material cost of Zn-MnO2 battery potentially can be substantially cheaper than rechargeable Li-ion batteries,” says Xiaolin Li, the scientist representing the electrochemical materials and systems group in the Energy Processes and Materials Division at PNNL. As the alkaline battery is the primary single-use Zn-MnO2 battery on the market, a rechargeable Zn-MnO2 one will extend battery life many times through periodic recharging. Li says the technology can be categorized into rechargeable alkaline batteries, aqueous Zn-MnO2 batteries, or non-aqueous rechargeable Zn-MnO2 batteries — depending on whether the electrolyte is water based or organic solvent based, and whether it is acidic or base pH. “The reaction mechanisms are different for systems with different electrolyte,” says Li. “In a rechargeable alkaline battery, the charge carrier is a proton; the aqueous Zn-MnO2 battery has a proton and Zn2+ as the charge carrier; the non-aqueous rechargeable Zn-MnO2 battery uses Zn2+, like the Li battery.” However, there are challenges. The Zn battery has a long pedigree, dating back to the mid-1950s, and scientists have tried several times to make it rechargeable. “Many fundamentals are still not clear,” says Li. “The challenges come from many aspects including Zn dendrite, gas generation, Mn2+ dissolution from the cathode, low-cost electrolyte, salt precipitation. All these challenges
need to be resolved before scale-up is needed. “It is easy to demonstrate a concept academically, but it is a challenge to demonstrate at a scale that will interest industry. Many academic systems use materials in a very small amounts and other materials in excess amounts. This is similar in many ways to other early innovative battery research.” The battery can be used for largescale energy storage, for peak shifting, frequency regulation, backup power and, thinks Li, possibly for long duration storage. Organosilicon electrolyte batteries Chemistry professors Robert Hamers and Robert West at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed organosilicon electrolyte batteries as a safer alternative to the carbonatebased solvent system in Li-ion batteries. One result of this would be to solve the problem of thermal runaway. Kyle Fenton, manager, power sources R&D at Sandia National Laboratories, says that electrolyte research has the potential to offer increased performance in battery applications. “This can be electrochemical performance, material properties, safety performance and more. There is some flexibility in the synthesis of these materials that could provide interesting performance benefits,” he says. “Electrolyte development always has the challenge of the trade-offs between conductivity and electrochemical performance versus other properties, including safety, SEI (solid electrolyte interphase) stability and toxicity.” A Sandia report, OrganosiliconBased Electrolytes for Long-Life Lithium Primary Batteries, describes how electrolytes have been synthesized that
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utilize organosilane materials that include an ion binding agent functionality. The report says numerous materials were synthesized and tested in lithium carbon monofluoride battery systems for conductivity, impedance, and capacity. “The resulting electrolytes proved non-flammable and indicated promise as co-solvents for electrolyte systems, due to low dielectric strength,” he says. Conventional electrolytes suffer from uncontrolled interfacial reactions and irreversible decomposition, it states, leading to a deterioration of performance and potential safety issues. Organosilicon compounds are a promising line of research in electrolytes — chemical modifications are relatively easy, they have low glass transition temperatures (the ability to change from a solid state to a viscous one) as well as superior chemical and thermal stabilities. The report describes the research progress of organosilicon-based functional electrolytes for the development of liquid, gel and solid-state electrolytes in Li-ion and Li-metal batteries. Focus is placed on different types of organosilicon such as silane, siloxane, polysiloxane and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes relating to molecular design, ionic conductivity, functions shown in batteries, thermal, chemical, electrochemical stability and safety.
Silatronix, co-founded by Hamers and West, has developed a product, OS3, to enhance the performance of organosilicon electrolyte material. The company claims that OS3 improves lithium-ion cell performance when added to the electrolyte formulation in concentrations of 1%-5%. It works by stabilizing lithium salt in solution and helping to prevent the decomposition that normally occurs in high voltage and high temperature battery operation. In May 2018 the company signed a $2 million contract with the US Navy Office of Naval Research: Organosilicon Electrolytes to Enable Safe, High Energy Li-ion Batteries with Advanced Silicon Anodes focused on improving the cycling stability of Li-ion cells using NMC622 cathode in combination with silicon-graphite composite anodes. Gold nanowire gel electrolyte batteries While experimenting with relatively non-combustible gels, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, coated gold nanowires with manganese dioxide, then covered them with electrolyte gel. When the electrode was charged researchers discovered it went through 200,000 cycles without losing charge as compared with 6,000 cycles in a conventional battery. MnO2/gold nanowires consist of lin-
ear gold nanowires coated with a hemicylindrical layer of MnO2, an electrical energy storage material, that is several hundred of nanometers in thickness. MnO2 can serve either as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries, or as a capacitor positive electrode material in lithium-ion capacitors, opposite a carbon negative electrode. “In either case, these systems reversibly intercalate lithium ions, and deintercalate lithium as discharging and charging occurs, respectively,” says Reginald Penner, chair and a professor of UC Irvine’s chemistry department. MnO2/gold nanowires consistently fail after 6,000 lithiation/delithiation cycles. “This is actually excellent cycle stability,” says the professor, although they hope to do better. “Looking at the cause of failure, we learned that the MnO2 coating was falling off the gold nanowire current collector, which occurs as a consequence of strain-induced embrittlement of this oxide material, caused by the volume change associated with lithium insertion/deinsertion. “My student Mya Le Thai found that when these nanowires were embedded in a poly(methyl methacrylate)-based gel electrolyte, this failure mode was completely eliminated. Cycle stability increased from 6,000 cycles, to 100,000 cycles with zero capacity fade.”
Sandia National Laboratories: exploring the challenges of electrolyte research
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Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 21
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Nanowires have enormous potential for use in batteries due to their being highly conductive, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, and having a large surface area for the storage and transfer of electrons. However, up until now their extreme fragility has prevented their use. The study, which was published in the American Chemical Society’s Energy Letters, was conducted in coordination with the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of Maryland, and with funding from the Basic Energy Sciences division of the US Department of Energy. Penner says the systems were patented and research on related systems has proceeded. “However, it is not being commercially developed at this time. A key limitation of these systems with respect to commercialization is low volumetric capacity because the lithographically patterned nanowires are not space filling. Three-dimensional versions of these nanowire-base systems are necessary to solve this problem. “Other, higher energy storage compounds are now under investigation,” says Penner, including Nb2O5 and MnS (a conversion material).
TankTwo string cell batteries
TankTwo has developed a string cell battery that speeds up the process of recharging. The battery contains a collection of small independent self-
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organizing lithium cells and consists of a plastic enclosure covered with a conductive material enabling it to form contacts with others quickly and easily. Connections in the electrochemical cell are controlled by an internal processing unit. To recharge at a service station, the balls contained in an EV battery are extracted and swapped with charged cells. The extracted cells can then be recharged separately during off-peak hours. But this is more than a battery swap idea. String cells are independent, modular units that fill up a string tank. Each individual cell consists of an integrated cell management system, a unique ID, encryption technology, communication capability, and a plastic enclosure. Through the conductive material on the surface of the enclosure, string cells form contact points with one another that are then used to determine the most efficient cell usage by a separate algorithm. So, the cells can work independently and are not dependent on all the other cells working as a whole. Bert Holtappels, company CEO and founder, says: “We treat each individual cell as an energy containing unit like anything that contains something of value, such as a shipping container. So, each individual cell is stacked, has its own ID, history and characteristics.” Some cells age better than others, some deal with higher temperatures than others, some might go below what is considered acceptable performance. By managing the cells as different units, much more control can be applied. “The ability to hold energy is expensive,” says Holtappels. “The energy itself is not expensive. That is why you want to maximize the utilization rate of your most expensive asset, which is the battery. Some of our customers are in the critical high reliabilities sphere in medical and certain industrial sectors and defence. They use the same principle of algorithms where each of the cells can make different connections.” Being able to re-route within the battery pack means extremely high rates of resilience. Holtappels gives an example that if someone shoots a bullet through a battery pack, usually that would cause catastrophic failure, but with his system all the cells are operational units, so when one string fails from physical damage then the remaining cells find a route around the damaged cells. “Here, if 20% of the cells are damaged, you lose 20% of the capacity, but
in a traditional battery if 20% of the cells are damaged, you’re done for.” It means it is not like in a traditional battery pack where the weakest link determines the strength of the chain. “In our case it is the aggregate performance of each individual cell that determines the capacity.” NanoBolt lithium tungsten batteries In a NanoBolt lithium tungsten battery, tungsten and carbon nanotubes are added to the anode materials to create a larger surface area for the attachment and storage of ions during recharge and discharge cycles. The larger surface area means improvements to energy storage capacity and recharging rates of the battery. The nano matrix added to the anode provides a broader and denser area to which electrons can attach, which increases usability.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Brisbane have been reviewing the doping/coating of tungsten and related elements to improve the electrochemical performance of cathodes in batteries, especially the cycle stability. A recent white paper, The role of tungsten-related elements for improving the electrochemical performances of cathode materials in lithium ion batteries, says the selection of tungsten and related elements is based on their special properties including the high valence state, strong bonding with oxygen and the large ionic radius. It says: “The improvement of cycle stability mainly results from two features: first, the enhancement of bulk structure stability upon doping and second the resistance of side reactions of electrode/electrolyte by the surficial layer induced by direct coating or bulk doping.”
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LEO300
— a revolutionary Impact module Impact Clean Power Technology has designed and built an innovative battery module using silicon rich anode cells with the highest energy density on the market of 300Wh/kg. The module, with the LEO300 trade name, has been made in the popular VDA PHEV2 format. As a result, the range of electric buses will increase from approximately 380 km to 550 km on a single charge. The LEO300 module format allows for easy assembly within existing energy storage structures. This simplifies the integration of the LEO300 module into buses, enabling a quantum leap in the density of energy stored in on-board accumulators, which translates into increased competitiveness of the vehicles offered. The achieved energy density at the storage level is above 260 Wh/kg. Battery systems dedicated to overnight charging operations are built using lithium-ion cells based on either a lithium iron phosphate cathode or a nickel manganese cobalt cathode. Both types of cathode material are combined with an anode made of carbon in graphite or amorphous form. The first electric buses introduced into commercial service were mostly equipped with energy storage based on LFP cells. This was due to the similar energy density performance of the early LFP and NMC cells as well as the significantly lower price of the LFP cells. As NMC cell technology developed, it was possible to observe a decrease in the average price of a kilowatt hour stored in the cell, while energy density increased. Further changes in the cathode material led to a significant reduction in the available number of cycles. Therefore, increasing the energy density stored in the cell, and consequently increasing the operational range of the bus, requires cells with a modified anode material. Classical carbonbased anode materials are well tested and widely used in industry so the search has begun for a new material with higher energy density. Potential
candidates for anode material include: carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, graphene, porous carbon, silicon oxide, silicon germanium, lead, and transition metal oxides. The desired anode material should provide a very large surface area to volume ratio, which will provide an increase in capacity, and a large anode contact area with the electrolyte, which in turn will allow increased lithium-ion transfer through the barrier between the anode and electrolyte. Meanwhile, the anode material should be characterized by a low volume change during the charge cycle, which translates into the lifespan of the anode and therefore the number of cycles that can be achieved. Silicon stands out as an excellent candidate as an anode. It is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust and has a gravimetric capacity of 4,200 mAh/g, which is excellent compared to the commonly used graphite (372 mAh/g). At the same time, the
value of the electrical potential to Li/ Li+ is close to that of graphite. Previous attempts to construct a cell with a silicon anode faced great difficulties due to the variation in silicon volume during the charge cycle of up to 300%. Such large changes had a very negative impact on the durability of the cells under construction. Implementation studies have focused on shaping the surface of the anode material in such a way that volume changes do not disturb the anode structure. The problem was solved by using an anode made of silicon nanofibres. This unique structure makes it possible to exploit the advantages of silicon as an anode material while providing space for volume changes during the cell cycle. The LEO300 module is a technological leap that allows the construction of battery systems for buses that significantly increases their range and battery lifespan and reduces charging time. LEO300 is another element in the ICPT value chain based on the principles of sustainable development, circular economy and climate protection. With traction batteries based on LEO300 silicon rich anode modules, our clients gain a huge competitive advantage in key tender elements such as range, charging time, battery lifespan or number of passengers. Written by Maciej Kwiatkowski and Bartłomiej Kras Impact Clean Power Technology Swietokrzyska 30 lok. 63 00-116 Warsaw, Poland https://icpt.pl/en/home-en
Leo 300: większa gęstość energii i rekordowy zasięg
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COVER STORY: HYDROGEN
All aboard! There are plenty of people getting on the hydrogen bandwagon — but it’s too early to say how far they will get. Or whether the road they are on will lead anywhere. Governments and energy agencies across the world are trumpeting the benefits of hydrogen as a new, clean alternative to fossil fuels in all areas of energy. Strategy upon strategy has been published, with road maps setting out how to reach a future where hydrogen will play a major part in the energy story in a low-cost, low-carbon way. International classification agency
“I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable” —Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (1874).
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DNV’s research report Hydrogen as an energy carrier forecasts that demand for hydrogen will rise from about 1,000 tonnes today to up to an eye-watering 161 million tonnes a year by 2050, and it says that of the 1,100 senior energy professionals it has surveyed, three quarters of them say it will be essential. “By 2025, almost half of energy companies globally involved in hydrogen expect it to account for more than a tenth of their revenue, rising to 73% of companies by 2030 — from just 8% of companies today,” DNV says. In theory it makes sense: what could be cleaner than an element found almost everywhere that when burned for energy, emits just water vapour? The International Energy Agency says global capacity of electrolysers has doubled over the past five years, with 350 projects under development and 40 others in the early stages. “Should all these projects be realized, global hydrogen supply from electrolysers — which creates zero emissions provided the electricity used is clean — would reach eight million tonnes by 2030,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.
“This is a huge increase from today’s level of less than 50,000 tonnes, but remains well below the 80 million tonnes required in 2030 in the IEA pathway to net zero emissions by 2050.” The path to green hydrogen The huge sticking point is whether enough hydrogen can ever realistically be created with renewable energy. If it takes more electricity from the grid to create the gas than can be put back in, the whole exercise is pointless. The IEA, in its Global Hydrogen Review 2021, published on October 4, says low-carbon hydrogen production is minimal in size, its cost is not competitive, and its use in promising sectors is limited: “But there are encouraging signs that it is on the cusp of significant cost declines and widespread global growth.” “The current green hydrogen market is non-existent — 0.0002% of all hydrogen produced is clean,” says Nadim Chaudhry, CEO of World Hydrogen Congress organizer Green Power Global. “We talk to analysts and there is a broad spectrum of viewpoints, ranging from predictions that final energy demand by 2050 will be 8% hydrogen, to 34%. “Even if it’s 8%, that would represent about a half a trillion US dollar annual market. To go green, from what it is now to 8% over the next 30 years, would mean considerable growth. “If you wanted to replace the existing hydrogen market with green hydrogen, you would have to build a huge electricity industry to be able
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COVER STORY: HYDROGEN to create it. If it were to be 34% of final energy demand it would require building out an electricity grid greater than three times the current one, just purely dedicated to producing electricity to then convert hydrogen via electrolysis.” “The total expected hydrogen demand in Europe could potentially be met by green hydrogen produced in the EU and UK, using renewable electricity,” says Gas for Climate, a consortium of European gas transport companies that have made plans to build a pan-European hydrogen network by 2040. However, it warns: “Yet producing such quantities of green hydrogen domestically is subject to public acceptance of an accelerated expansion of renewable installed capacity, financing, regulation and quality standard setting.” Stepping stones Bill Ireland is the CEO of Logan Energy, which installs hydrogen systems across Europe. These include Quadrant 3, where Logan has designed and installed a fuel cell CCHP system inside a
“The growth is phenomenal, there’s a lot of hype and excitement and it’s reminiscent of the dot-com boom. There are lots of people on the bandwagon that might not actually get there — some will fall by the wayside but a lot will make it” — Bill Ireland, CEO of Logan Energy
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Blue hydrogen: myth or future? Today, the vast majority of hydrogen is made by steam reforming of methane in natural gas (grey hydrogen), which also produces carbon dioxide emissions. One trending proposal is to capture the emissions and store them — perhaps underground — and rename the gas created ‘blue hydrogen’, as it does emit CO2 but then it is safely stored away. Unfortunately a peer-reviewed paper published in August by Cornell and Stanford Universities, supported by a grant from the Park Foundation and published in the Energy Science & Engineering Journal, looked into the methods and processes being promoted and concluded: “We see no way that blue hydrogen can be considered ‘green’.” “Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane,” the report says. “For our default assumptions (3.5% emission rate of methane from natural gas and a 20-year global warming potential), total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for blue hydrogen are only 9%-12% less than for grey hydrogen. “While carbon dioxide emissions are lower, fugitive methane emissions for blue hydrogen are higher than for grey hydrogen because of an increased use of natural gas to power the carbon capture.
“Perhaps surprisingly, the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat. “In a sensitivity analysis in which the methane emission rate from natural gas is reduced to a low value of 1.54%, greenhouse gas emissions from blue hydrogen are still greater than from simply burning natural gas.” The report also cautions that while the university’s analysis assumes captured CO2 can be stored indefinitely, this is ‘an optimistic and unproven assumption’. “Even if true though, the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds,” the report says. Nadim Chaudhry, founder of Green Power Global, is also sceptical. “We see a lot of participation from the oil and gas industry in renewables and offshore wind – and in creating projects to produce green hydrogen,” he says. “This makes me believe that if they were so certain of the blue hydrogen route, why would they be investing so much in green hydrogen? “Blue hydrogen has yet to be proven. As does green, but from an environmental perspective you have a huge renewable energy industry that is keen to be able to expand their electricity markets and opportunities to grow grids from their current size by a factor of two to three.”
Nadim Chaudhry, CEO of Green Power Global — “there is a broad spectrum of viewpoints ranging from 8% to 34% of final energy demand by 2050”
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 25
COVER STORY: HYDROGEN 30,000sq2 (2,800m2) retail, restaurant and office complex on London’s fashionable Regent Street. “It’s expanding quickly, the growth is phenomenal, there’s a lot of hype and excitement and it’s reminiscent of the dot-com boom,” Ireland says. “There are lots of people on the bandwagon that might not actually get there, promising things they can’t
deliver. People are springing up from nowhere — some will fall by the wayside but a lot will make it. “We are working with people trying to develop the carbon capture technology and people want to get into it but are making grey hydrogen at the moment. There’s a large requirement for hydrogen and part of the next thing is to do smaller scale storage.
SG H2 Energy: Green hydrogen from biomass Hydrogen company SG H2 Energy this September signed a deal with several partners, including ABB, to set up a hydrogen plant in Lancaster, California, to supply 90 refuelling stations in the state. Claiming it is one of the largest purchase agreements ever signed in the sector, the plant is designed to produce 3,800 tonnes of hydrogen a year. The company aims to get the cost of hydrogen down to $1/kg using its Solena Plasma Enhanced Gasification, which breaks down any kind of waste — paper, plastics, textiles, etc — to make hydrogen that qualifies as ‘green’ hydrogen. “The alternative, to use electrolysis, would need economies of scale first, and renewable power would have to drop down to 1-1½ cents per kilowatt,” says CEO Robert Do. Electrolysis powered by renewable sources to create hydrogen and make it ‘green’ would cost around $10/kg. And much of that would have to be made further away — in the desert, for instance, from where it would need to be transported to its place of use. “But our hydrogen is coming
Robert Do, CEO, SG H2 Energy
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100% from biomass, here paper, breaking down hydrocarbons to their essentials – hydrogen, carbon and oxygen — and it’s 100% renewable,” says Do. The waste feedstock is disintegrated into molecular compounds at extremely high temperatures of up to 4,000°C generated by plasma torches. It is a plasma-enhanced thermal catalytic conversion process enhanced with oxygen-enriched gas. Do says the result is a 99.99% pure hydrogen gas. A small amount of biogenic carbon dioxide is also produced, but it is not a greenhouse gas, Do says. The plant his firm is building in Lancaster will use recycled paper only, and there is enough to provide 120 tonnes a day, which when processed will produce 11 tonnes of hydrogen. The company has also hatched plans to build hydrogen modules in the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, with the idea of blending the hydrogen with natural gas to use it in the existing pipeline infrastructure. “For us, as a hydrogen-producing company, we are not limited to providing hydrogen for one purpose. We are talking to gas, power companies, storage, data centres cement makers, industrial heat — multiple different applications. “The problem with the energy system is that it’s divided into three different sections: electrons going to electric utilities; natural gas going to home heating and industrial heating; and refineries and oil companies providing diesel and liquid fuel. “The beauty about hydrogen is that it is one molecule that can replace electricity, liquid gas, diesel and natural gas.”
“We’re dealing with it all — our preference is green, but we recognize there are stepping stones to take so we’re pragmatic about that. Ideally it should be only green, but we don’t have the skills at the moment. We’re training people, and we’re getting them excited.” Axel Haller, global segment manager for speciality chemical, pharma and hydrogen at ABB Automation Products, says although creating green hydrogen is the goal, so-called blue and yellow hydrogen will be essential in the short to mid-term, until renewable sources are more reliable. “As we know, renewable energy is volatile — and not always available — so we need some intermediate energy storage,” he says. “The industry has the technology readily available and in the market to keep us on track until 2030 and reduce emissions by 13 gigatonnes this decade. “However, a full transition by 2050 will require more innovations, many of which are still at the demonstration and prototype stage, notably the storage, production and use of hydrogen. “One of the challenges with hydrogen is the energy intensity needed to
“One of the challenges with hydrogen is the energy intensity needed to produce it sustainably.” Axel Haller, global segment manager for speciality chemical, pharma and hydrogen at ABB Automation Products
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COVER STORY: HYDROGEN produce it sustainably. With the International Energy Agency calling for a push to improve energy efficiencies across the entire value chain, this has to be our top priority.” ABB is looking into emerging technologies with a view to developing them, for example methane splitting, which it says is still in the R&D stage but if it could be replicated at scale, could yield hydrogen gas and solid carbon without CO2 emissions — and at the same time require less than five times the amount of energy than electrolysis. Transport and distribution Because it has such a low boiling point and low energy density — three
times less than methane — moving hydrogen to where it is required can add as much as three times the cost of producing it to the final delivery cost, says ABB. “It’s no wonder that almost all hydrogen today is used at the same location it is produced,” says the firm. “Pipelines represent the most economical means of inland transport in bulk, but for longer distances or overseas shipping, it will need to be either liquefied or converted into some other carrier to be economical.” Green Power Global’s Chaudhry agrees as to why most hydrogen is consumed where it is produced. “It’s volumetrically by order of magnitude a lot bigger than methane, and
to ship it you either need to compress it at 700 bar or freeze it down to minus 30° Kelvin — so you have those processes to put in place,” he says. “But in terms of using it for residential gas, the existing network could be easily re-purposed for hydrogen. You could hydrogen-proof your network and some places in Germany are using town gas, which used to have a high content of hydrogen. “Boilers can be converted from natural gas and take increasing percentages of hydrogen in a blend. Although a 20% blend doesn’t mean a 20% emissions reduction, ultimately you could go to 100%.” SG H2 Energy has overcome the transport issue by developing modu-
Focus: Germany at the forefront of ramping up of support for hydrogen strategies Germany’s National Hydrogen Strategy (NHS) was one of the first to be published in the European Union, in June 2020, even before the EU published its strategy for the bloc as a whole. The German government followed up six months later with a Renewable Energies Sources Act, which contained specific provisions to support the production and industrial use of green hydrogen. The NHS considers blue and turquoise hydrogen carbon neutral, with the caveat that they are likely to be short-term methods of production until green hydrogen can be commercially sustainable. Hydrogen will play a major part in Germany’s plan to claim carbon emission neutrality by 2050, and with the government predicting H2 demand of 90TWh-110TWh by then, it is going to have to scale up the number of renewable energy plants it installs to avoid an increase in CO2 emissions produced from simply producing the gas. “To accommodate this demand, electrolysers with a total capacity of up to 5GW are to be built in Germany by 2030 (including the offshore and onshore energy production required for providing electricity for the electrolysis),” says international law firm Watson, Farley and Williams, which advises industry on transactions and disputes across energy, transport and real estate. “This corresponds to a green hydrogen production of up to 14TWh
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and a required renewable electricity quantity of up to 20TWh.” Incentives and support measures include the German government’s promise to exempt companies from tax levies on all electricity consumed in producing green hydrogen. “The NHS commits Germany to providing public funding amounting to €7 billion ($8.2 billion) for the market ramp-up of hydrogen technology in the country,” says Watson, Farley and Williams. “The actual programmes and requirements are currently being developed.” 100MW electrolyser pledge A letter of intent has been signed with industry giants Vattenfall, Shell,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hamburg’s municipal heat supplier Hamburg Wärme to install a 100MW electrolyser — one of the largest in the world — using just wind and solar energy to power it. The electrolyser will be installed on the site of a former coal plant at the Port of Hamburg, a city the Hamburg’s Ministry of Economy and Innovation says is likely to become a ‘European hub for green hydrogen’. “The region and the surrounding northern German states already score with a high share of renewable energies and are planning the rapid expansion of the green hydrogen economy along the entire value chain,” it says.
Hamburg to install a 100MW electrolyser
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COVER STORY: HYDROGEN lar systems that can be set up near to where the gas is then used. “We see it as two large markets,” says CEO and president Robert Do. “The large utility scale, where you go offshore and build electrolysis and make it and bring it back, or you make smaller distributed units like ours, closer to the city.” European Hydrogen Backbone Like most other countries and regions, the EU published its own ‘Hydrogen Strategy’ in July 2020. In the same month, an even more ambitious plan was presented by the consortium Gas for Climate, made up of 11 European gas infrastructure companies: Enagás, Energinet, Fluxys
“In the coming years, Germany will be investing €9 billion ($10.5 billion) in the development of a green hydrogen economy.” Existing gas pipelines are being expanded for hydrogen use. Kentaro Hosomi, president and CEO of Energy Systems for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said the installation would ‘show Europe and the world that the hydrogen economy is real’. “Hydrogen has enormous potential not just as a means of power storage,” said Christian Heine, CEO of Wärme Hamburg. “Wärme Hamburg has pledged to make available all sources of waste heat and to utilize this climate-neutral heat. “This is why we have decided to take part in the electrolyser project. We also want to evaluate if we can use the existing infrastructure at the Moorburg site and use other additional forms of renewable energy.” Green Hydrogen Systems A much smaller project intended to pave the way for larger scale hydrogen applications in the future has been agreed by hydrogen technology developer Wenger Engineering and agreed with Green Hydrogen Systems, which makes electrolysers for on-site hydrogen production based on renewable electricity. The project consists of three electrolysers, with a combined capacity of around 1.3MW, to produce hydrogen using the electricity gener-
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Belgium, Gasunie, GRTgaz, NET4GAS, OGE, ONTRAS, Snam, Swedegas and Teréga. This outlined a plan for a dedicated hydrogen infrastructure, a ‘European Hydrogen Backbone’, which set out details of a plan to use 23,000km of mostly converted natural gas pipelines to connect ‘hydrogen valleys’ in the 10 European countries of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland to offshore wind and solar PV plants, where the hydrogen created would be classed as green. Consumers a distance away from renewable electricity sources would gain access to the gas through existing
ated by wind turbines. They will be connected to an electricity network in a trial to determine what effect disparate generation units will have on the grid. The test will also look at applications for the logistics, transport and food sectors. “The insights from this project will not only have a significant scaling effect on the hydrogen economy in Germany, but the results can potentially be valuable for all of Europe’s green energy transition,” said Wenger Engineering CEO David Wenger. Not everything in the German hydrogen garden is rosy. One potentially huge electrolysis plant — up to 800MW in size — on the site of Bavaria’s biggest oil refinery, Bayernoil, has been hit with legal challenges about its sources of energy, which include gas produced from residual wood — in other words, biogenic material, as well as wind and solar. Bayernoil processes 12 billion litres of crude oil a year, and has said it will convert its operations to produce green alternatives, such as green methanol. However its plans to use up to four million tonnes of wood in the final stage have come under scrutiny, according to the news agency Clean Energy Wire. The use of biogenic sources is a grey area, and lawmakers have advised the government to look into whether it should be classified as a green source.
gas grids, which would be modified to take hydrogen. “Domestic hydrogen production can also be blue hydrogen produced at locations with good transport links to carbon storage locations,” the plan said, adding that the vision would cost up to €64 billion ($73.8 billion) “which is relatively limited in the overall context of the European energy transition”. In April 2021, the plan was extended to 40,000km, costing up to another €17 billion ($19.6 billion) and now includes 21 European countries, including the UK and Switzerland as the only non-EU member states. In June, an initial legislative framework and financing options was proposed so that the initiative could be kickstarted and completed in 2040, with further extensions also possible. “The EU and the UK could see a hydrogen demand of around 2,300TWh (of which 2,000TWh in the EU) by 2050,” the proposal says. “This equals about 45% of EU+UK natural gas consumption in 2019.” US Hydrogen Earthshot On August 31, the US Department of Energy held its ‘Hydrogen Shot Summit’, featuring Microsoft’s Bill Gates and John Kerry, the first United States special presidential envoy for climate, as guest speakers. It was held a couple of months after then new secretary of the US Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm launched a proposal for a ‘Hydrogen Energy Earthshot to Accelerate Breakthroughs Toward a Net Zero Economy’, with the stated aim of slashing
“Clean hydrogen is a game changer. Achieving these targets will help America tackle the climate crisis, and more quickly reach the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while creating good-paying, union jobs and growing the economy,” Secretary of the US Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm
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COVER STORY: HYDROGEN
Some 40,000km of pipelines are planned for the European Hydrogen Backbone
The hydrogen rainbow Hydrogen comes in many colours — in theory, at least, depending on the amount of carbon emissions are produced in creating it. Brown and black
The dirtiest form of hydrogen creation, made with coal or any other fossil fuel, such as gasification.
Grey
The most common form of production today by far. It uses natural gas or methane in a steam reformation without capturing gases emitted.
Blue
Also made from natural gas using the steam reforming process, but with carbon emissions and carbon capture.
Pink
Generated through electrolysis powered by nuclear energy. Also known as purple or red.
White
Naturally occurring hydrogen in underground deposits tapped by fracking. Not exploited currently.
Yellow
Made by powering the electrolysis with solar power. This is at a very early stage.
Turquoise
A new process in which methane pyrolysis produces hydrogen and solid carbon, which could be permanently stored or used.
Green
The holy grail, using renewable sources of energy only to power the electrolysis and producing no carbon emissions. Expensive.
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the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to just $1/kg within a decade: the socalled ‘111’ goal for $1, 1kg, one decade. “Clean hydrogen is a game changer. Achieving these targets will help America tackle the climate crisis, and more quickly reach the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while creating good-paying, union jobs and growing the economy,” said Granholm. The launch issued a Request for Information on hydrogen demonstrations on a range of topics, including hydrogen production, resources and infrastructure; end users according to region and cost; greenhouse gas and other emissions reduction potential; environmental justice; and science and innovation. Most of the hydrogen produced in America is grey, which is cheap to produce but emits around 10kg of CO2 per 1kg of H2 produced. According to Do of SG H2 Energy, the hydrogen road is a one-way route, and by 2050 the landscape will have changed enormously. “Solar and wind cannot replace every energy need that we have,” he says. “Look at cement, steel plants — how are you going to use solar and wind to power them? They have to burn coal. Gas and oil companies are trying to sell natural gas and kerosene molecules but they will have to start selling green molecules and the only noncarbon fuel molecule, the only green molecule they can burn, is hydrogen. “With grid storage, batteries to a certain size will work, but you need a very large battery to handle a megawatt size. We can put 340MW of liquid hydrogen in two tankers. We can replace diesel generators at data centres and for back-up power. “The infrastructure is already there, the turbines are already there.”
“The greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60% greater than burning diesel oil for heat” – How green is blue hydrogen report by Cornell University, August 2021
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID
On the cusp: V2G technology As Europe heads into winter, restricted gas supply and light winds have led to coal power stations being fired up again. With the arrival of more electric vehicles, grids will come under yet greater pressure; but EVs could also be part of the solution. With restrictions on the sale of new ICE cars about to be implemented in countries and regions around the world — India by 2030; most European countries by 2030 to 2040; California by 2035 — the increasing use of EVs in the next couple of decades can only mean more pressure on national grids. But it also means there will be thousands of batteries travelling around on wheels that sit doing nothing for more than 95% of the time, providing
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a potential vast reservoir of power. They could be a better bet than stationary storage, says George Hilton, senior analyst, batteries and energy storage, with the research firm IHS Markit. “We see EV sales accelerating very rapidly. There will be a huge number of bi-directional enabled vehicles on the road in the coming years,” he says. “They are perfectly placed to provide long-duration balancing services at the intraday scale and play a large
“Now it is up to industry stakeholders to overcome the barriers of low customer value and concerns over battery degradation … and whether an effective commercial proposition can be made among the stakeholders in effectively unlocking the value of V2G” — George Hilton, senior analyst, IHS Markit
potential role in stabilizing wholesale markets under higher penetrations of renewable energy. “Now it is up to industry stakeholders to overcome the barriers of low customer value and concerns over battery degradation. “That said it remains to be seen whether an effective commercial proposition can be made among the stakeholders, including auto OEMs, energy suppliers and flexibility providers, in effectively unlocking the value of V2G.” Chris Rimmer is Infrastructure Strategy lead of the V2X initiative — V2X being a catch-all term for vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-building, and so on — with the consultancy firm Cenex. Cenex is short for the Centre of Excellence and Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Technology
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID
“It’s the modern equivalent of the night storage heater. And the advantage over buying a stationary battery is the asset itself — it’s a car as well, that’s what it was bought for, but this is an added benefit” - Chris Rimmer, Infrastructure Strategy lead with consultancy firm Cenex
and is a not-for-profit consultancy created by the UK government and the automotive sector in 2005. Cenex’s function is to help get university projects off the ground when they come out of the laboratory, and while no longer associated with the government in a formal way, it helps with projects such as Innovate UK, which has put £30 million ($41 million) into V2X. Rimmer says a standard EV battery could power an ordinary house for up to six days. “Government electricity market regulator Ofgem says the average house uses 3,300kWh a year, so roughly 10kWh a day. Your classic EV gives you 40kWh-60kWh — so that’s four to six days,” he says. “It’s the modern equivalent of the night storage heater. And the advantage over buying a stationary battery is the asset itself — it’s a car as well, that’s what it was bought for, but this is an added benefit.” Europe front of the queue The European Union is keen to roll out V2G as widely as it can. “V2G technology is one of the few viable flexibility assets that could support the grids, help avoid peak power plants usage, and at the same time benefit EV users financially,” says Johan Soederbom, thematic leader for smart grids and energy storage at EIT InnoEnergy.
Paige Mullen: “We’re seeing higher value with fleets than residential V2G”
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“The deciding factor for its adoption would be the development of V2G enabling infrastructure, and its integration in flexibility markets in the foreseeable future. “This certainly is a big challenge, but achievable with EV stakeholders’ collaboration and government-level involvement.” He predicts that the cumulative combined battery capacity of the EV fleet in the EU, China, US and India by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency’s Sustainable Development Scenario, will amount to 16,000GWh. The EU is providing the finance to get a million electric and hydrogen charging stations installed by 2025. “The challenge,” Soederbom says, “is whether some of this stored energy can be harnessed to help meet peak demand.” Leading the charge in Europe are the Nordics, particularly Denmark, where for five years the owners of vehicle fleets have been generating an average of $2,000 a year per vehicle in revenue by providing grid support, says Paige Mullen, European programme manager with Californiabased Nuvve. Nuvve is one of the largest V2G firms offering charging and grid services in a way that optimizes the charging and discharging of vehicles on the grid. “We are seeing a higher value with fleets than residential V2G in most markets,” she says, “and our deployment is greatest in the Nordics and the US. “Denmark has lots of EVs, lots of clean energy, and it’s been using it commercially for five years. Fleet vehicles are more reliable for bidding into the market because you know when they’re going to be there, whereas with residential vehicles it’s not so certain. “But each market is different, across the world. Different countries have different technical qualification structures with energy suppliers, there’s a different market access depending on what energy market we are allowed to participate in — some have a minimum charger/battery requirement — the technology is here. That said we need the regulations and standards to improve, and for more EVs to be on the road to capture the full potential of V2G.” Scott Edy is the UK and Ireland business development manager with EV charging platform firm Virta, which makes charging stations and
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID the cloud-based software that manages them. The company operates in 32 countries, and says it records a charging session in at least one of those countries every four seconds. The company’s product is aimed across the V2X board, which means it could be a row of charging points outside a supermarket or a single point for an indi-
vidual household. Edy says there is still an immense amount to do with standardization, pricing, charging infrastructure and so on before there can be a full-scale roll-out, and he believes that in 2030 there will still be 60% ICE cars on the roads. The destination, though, is not in doubt, he says.
China: EV frontrunner, V2G laggard China would be an obvious place to start a large-scale roll-out of vehicleto-grid infrastructure given that it has more electric vehicles on its roads than any other country. Indeed, this is where the World Resources Institute, a global research organization set up in 1982, has done
Australia’s ‘global laggard’ approach to EVs will hold V2G back With just 0.6% of new vehicles sold in Australia plug-in electric cars, there is a long way to go before there can be enough resources to accomplish a meaningful vehicle-togrid society. There is no government mandate that all new cars should be electric, as exists in many other countries; however, of the new EVs that are sold, they will all be V2G capable by 2025, the government has said. Laura Jones is a senior analyst in the Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program in the Research School of Electrical, Energy and Materials Engineering at the Australia National University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science in Canberra. Jones and her team have been carrying out a ‘Realizing Electric Vehicle-to-grid Services’ trial in which a fleet of 51 Nissan Leaf cars is being used for various purposes. It is partly funded by ARENA, the government’s renewable energy agency. An interim report published in May was not optimistic about the results from the trial: end-users were anxious about maintaining business continuity while vehicles and chargers were deployed; and concerned about drivers having to change parking arrangements and work routines. When it came to private EV users, the report found they believed V2G would only work for them under specific conditions. “Their perceptions are mediated by a [lack of] trust that energy providers and the technology align with their own interests and expectations,” the report said.
Practical and mental barriers Mindsets, says Jones, will have to be changed before V2G will work. “Everyone we speak to tells you
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ANU trial with fleet of 51 car fleet: ‘not optimistic about results’
what V2G is good for — but somehow, it’s never good for them,” she says. Barriers to participation include distrust of V2G providers and software, battery degradation concerns, flexibility and practicality. “Australia is a global laggard in EV adoption with ownership in 2020 accounting for only 0.6% of market share compared to a global average of 2.5%,” the ARENA report says. “That said, DER could be considered a national strength, with some of the highest rates of home solar power systems in the world and increasing installation of commercial solar and home batteries.” The only kind of charger that is approved in Australia, which has its own unique standards, is expensive — about the same price as the battery — and with so few people owning an EV there’s not much demand for them anyway. Most of the people pushing V2G are energy retailers, says Jones, because they see the risks of peak demand resulting in them having to build more networks. “They’ve been trying to push the reform agenda for a long time to get people to pick up time-of-use pricing, other forms of dynamic prices
— people haven’t been interested but if you can give them something like an EV that has a real benefit it might get people to pick up on these new sorts of pricing.” The team at Australia National University is looking at how to move from a 51-car trial to a real-world roll-out, but it won’t be overnight. “EVs are gaining momentum, even though they’re just at 0.6% market penetration now,” says Jones. “It’s about reframing people’s minds to show that their car can be just as much an energy thing as a transport thing.”
ANU’s Jones: “Mindsets will have to change for V2G to work.”
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID
“Even I am wondering how we are going to make this work. It’s easy to describe the practicalities and benefits of vehicle-to-grid, but it gets difficult when you try to come up with how you commercialize it” — Scott Edy, UK and Ireland business development manager with Virta
Bi-directional charging capabilities: not universal as yet There are two competing charging connectors on the market: the CHAdeMO (Charge de Move) version, which has bi-directional capability and is favoured by the Asian manufacturers, ie Nissan and Mitsubishi; and the CCS version, which is favoured in Europe and is a few years behind. It does not have standardized bi-directional charging yet, although this is being developed. “It will be two or three years before they can deploy that,” says Cenex’s Rimmer. Tesla has yet another kind of charger, but it has developed an adapter so either of the other protocols can be used. “It’s complex,” says Hilton, from IHS Markit. “V2G with DC chargers can only be done with cars with CHAdeMO chargers, however CCS will enable bi-directional charging in
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2025. Also, V2G can be done with any EV with an AC charger that is bi-directional enabled (but there are few of these currently). “As we see EV sales accelerating very rapidly, there will be a huge number of bi-directional enabled vehicles on the road in the coming year.” “We experienced some delays to the V2G hardware gaining the necessary CHAdeMO certification, and there were challenges around costs and processes associated with connecting V2G chargers to various distribution networks,” says the Project Scirius software platform designer Kaluza (see separate box). “And as the only type of compatible EV in the trial was a Nissan LEAF, the pool of customers eligible and willing to have V2G hardware installed was relatively small.”
most of its research on V2G, or as it terms it, VGI — vehicle-grid integration. “This presents an imperative case to build smart, reliable and future-proof charging infrastructure that can accelerate EV adoption while providing grid services,” says the WRI. “Through evidence-based research, introducing international perspectives, organizing stakeholder engagement and promoting vehicle-grid integration, WRI is providing strategic guidance to national and local governments on the adoption of smart charging and vehicle-to-grid in China’s major infrastructure plans.” However, despite leading the world in terms of units in the global plugin market, China has not made much progress in vehicle-grid integration, and the WRI says that while the country recognizes the potential for the grid, pilot projects are a recent phenomenon, with technical feasibility being tested first. In a ‘high-impact scenario’ set out in the WRI report Quantifying the grid impacts from large adoption of electric vehicles in China, EV charging could, it says, result in an increased peak load of more than 12%, possibly overstressing the generation and transmission systems. “On the distribution scale, the impact of unmanaged charging is even greater,” says the report. “When electrification of private vehicles exceeds 50%, the majority of transformers in residential neighbourhoods risk being overloaded.” It advises caution short term, until proper planning has been carried out to control charge and discharge times, and possibly beginning with smallscale V2G pilots providing peak shaving or frequency regulation. A second report, Action plans and policy recommendations on vehicle grid integration in China, sets out a raft of recommendations for China in rolling out VGI. They include collaboration between parties, subsidies, allowing access to the wholesale market and upgrading bidirectional charging and interconnection capability. Barriers to roll-out Rimmer, from Cenex, identifies three key problems that are holding up wide-scale V2G take-up — and these don’t include the charging protocols. “The first problem is there just isn’t the pool of cars to make it a widespread proposition that customers can
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID access,” he says. “The second is that the hardware is expensive. A unit you would use at home would cost you at best two or three thousand pounds ($2,700-$4,100). If you’re only going to earn £300 ($411) a year from selling it to the grid, the business model doesn’t stack up. “If you have a business and want a fleet, you’re going to need to upgrade from the standard 7kW charger to at least a 10kW one – and that’s going to cost you at least £10,000 ($13,700). “Then there’s the technical standard issue, and the commercial cost issue. Costs are coming down, but the market can’t work out how to receive the energy. Although it’s set up well for stationary batteries, wind and solar, the idea that a collection of vehicles distributed across an area might work together to yield power to the grid would cut across regulatory categories. “You have to aggregate a certain amount of load, which is already a problem because there aren’t the vehicles and they’re expensive, and it needs to have a certain responsiveness to fit in to the products that the likes of the National Grid are offering.” “It is difficult to set up the mechanisms,” says Virta’s Edy. “It’s almost like a currency exchange — buying and selling with a middle man — an entity in the middle that is suggesting only they can handle this transaction, whether it’s financial or goods, services, or anything else. “That’s our job, as a platform, to manage that rather than rely on another person to do it. We’re struggling to work out how the different stakeholders are going to make money from it. You have the DNOs and the DSOs, who make money selling electricity. If you’ve got your own bi-directional charger you don’t need them — you can do it yourself. But these companies have still got to make money and keep their investors happy.” “It’s so early for V2G, it’s difficult to tell how this will develop,” says Hilton, from IHS Markit. “One way that vehicle owners could be paid for V2G is through reduced electricity bills, but there are others – reduced vehicle lease costs, for instance.” “Even I am wondering how we are going to make this work. It’s still a problem,” says Edy. “It’s easy to describe the practicalities and benefits of vehicle-togrid, but it gets difficult when you try to come up with how you commercialize it. That’s the problem. “It’s coming, though. It’s coming quicker than you think.”
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Jury out on battery degradation Whether V2X will degrade EV batteries more than the conventional daily charging is still open to question, but looks likely to be dependent on how they are charged. Cenex’s Rimmer says the University of Hawaii conducted a study in 2017 that discovered unequivocally that it wrecked them. “Later that year, the University of Warwick did a study – which deduced that V2X could extend battery life,” he says. “Then they did a collaborative study where they said to be honest — it depends!” The European Commission backed this up in a report looking at the study produced in collaboration, and concluded the same thing.
“The study shows that, while current V2G models would be detrimental to the lifetime of an EV battery, optimized, or smart V2G systems — designed to work more responsively and efficiently, and which rely on prognostic battery degradation models to limit the amount of energy that could be traded — would be viable, profitable, and capable of extending battery life even beyond the case in which there is no V2G.” Rimmer is leading a project with the University of Warwick that is looking at battery degradation. He says preliminary results show that when the battery is charged intelligently, using smart technology and getting the timing right as well as blending in V2X function, the life of the battery could be extended by 10%-15%.
Case study: Project Scirius One of the projects that Cenex has been involved is the OVO Energy vehicle-to-grid ‘Project Scirius’, which has just finished after two years and is now being analyzed. The project, claimed to be the world’s largest domestic vehicleto-grid endeavour, used 300 Nissan LEAF cars with a battery capacity of 30kWh each, and installed more than 300 V2G units comprising CHAdeMO charging cables capable of 6kW output, whether importing or exporting. Seven parties collaborated in the project — Cenex, OVO Energy, software firm Kaluza, renewable technology firm Indra and Nissan; and funding bodies the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), and Innovate UK, under the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Customers were given the equipment and intelligent energy platform software by Kaluza, which allowed them to set charging times and energy levels as well as provide live information on the state of charge of their EV’s battery. Any electricity that wasn’t taken up by the customer’s own household needs was sold to the grid. “OVO customers have been moved on to the standard V2X tariff, and will continue as before,” says Cenex’s Rimmer. “If it looks as if people are continuing with it
and OVO can make some money from it, it wouldn’t surprise me if a commercial offer starts to come to market.” Kaluza says customers earned as much as £725 ($990) a year, and with people at home so much during the lockdown months the project only emphasized the potential for extra grid support. “By 2030, the UK could have almost 11 million EVs on the road. If 50% of these vehicles were V2G enabled, this would open up 22TWh of flexible EV discharging capacity per year, and could provide around 16GW of daily flexible capacity to the grid,” says Kaluza. “Collaboration between these industry players has never been achieved at such an enormous scale before,” says IHS Markit’s Hilton. “But it is likely to be the determining factor in whether V2G can be an effective enabler for grid storage and decarbonization in the years to come.”
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VEHICLE-TO-GRID “Specific details will probably come out next year, after a peer review, but it’s looking like V2G may help battery life,” he says. “There are two types of ageing in a battery. One is just the passing of time, which occurs in all batteries.
The other is cyclic ageing, the amount of energy you put in and out. If you thrash the battery, it isn’t going to last. If you hold the state of charge really high, you accelerate the calendar ageing. “You need a charging profile that’s
mindful of all of this.” For the present, charging platforms such as Virta or Kaluza are not considering battery degradation — they focus on optimizing the times and costs of electricity being used or sold to the grid.
The bigger the better — bus batteries World’s first bus-to-grid project in London UK utility SSE Enterprise is about to launch what is believed to be the first bus to-grid project in the world, in Northumberland Park, London. Twenty-eight double-decker buses have been supplied by Chinese battery giant BYD, which also provides the charging technology. They will be capable of sending 1MW back to the grid when not being used at night and will be trialled for three years under the partnership of transport firm Go Ahead London, BYD, Innovate UK, UK Power Networks, and the University of Leeds. Had it not been for lockdown restrictions, forcing a delay in bringing Chinese engineers over to install the technology, the trial would already be under way. Charlie Barnes, EV project development manager for SSE, says buses are ideal because of the time they spend at the depot not being driven, and the size of the batteries they contain — up to 382kWh on a double decker, she says. “We are looking to optimize the resources we have when they are there,” she says. “The whole project is about balancing the benefits you can get by using these batteries out of bus service hours without affecting our service. “The typical peak energy time is between 6pm and 6am, and that’s when the buses are parked up, with
most of them there by 8pm. What we’re targeting isn’t just helping the grid, but energy trading and flexibility services such as demand side response. “We have had to develop a lot of bespoke materials, from modifying the vehicles and chargers to the software and then allowing the charger software to integrate with other grid connection management software; it would be silly if the bus-to-grid vehicles were discharging their load and it was going straight into another vehicle, for instance. “We’ve had to set the whole system up so that when there’s a request from the grid we can meet those services, that all the buses in the depot stop charging, those that can then discharge to the grid as long as needed and once that’s finished, start re-charging on the site. “None of the systems can be overwhelmed at any point – they must be in sync.” There is still a mountain to climb in the project, with just 28 out of a fleet of 250 buses B2G capable, and only 119 bus chargers, not all of them capable of bi-directional charging. But with at least 7,000 buses in the UK capital, it could be a mountain worth climbing.
US sees potential in going back to school The generic American yellow school bus could be coming into its own
if an initiative to electrify the entire country’s fleet is successful, and with 480,000 of them on America’s roads they could make a positive impact on powering the grid. However, the initiative is coming up against a wall of problems that need to be addressed first. “The idea just isn’t as complicated as the reality,” says Erika Myers, acting director for global eMobility with the World Resources Institute. One tangible barrier is the lack of cohesion between certification protocols: automobiles are checked through SAE standards, whereas utilities are done through UL. The two are not compatible. “Rialto, the electric school bus firm, had funding for buses that could connect to the grid, but they still don’t have a working demo because the utilities wouldn’t connect the charger equipment until the charger equipment received UL certification,” she says. “These chargers all had SAE certification but it wasn’t recognized by UL, and that’s the only one the utilities recognize as acceptable for interconnection.” But it will happen within 10 years, Myers says. “We all think that all the things that went in to making that vehicle and that battery can have more uses,” she says. “It’s sunk energy — whereas we could be using it for both transport and electric grid support.”
Charlie Barnes, EV project development manager, bus & coach lead, with SSE
36 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2021
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SNAPSHOT: POLAND
Poland positions itself as a key player in energy storage Poland is attracting international battery producers hoping to benefit from the country’s stable economic climate, government incentives for new manufacturing and proximity to major western European markets. Jaroslaw Adamowski reports from Warsaw. A 2018 paper released by representatives of Polish power generation equipment manufacturer ZPUE, Prospects for energy storage in the world and in Poland in the 2030 horizon, estimated that by 2030, the world’s energy storage capacity would exceed 50GW. Poland, it said, would account for some 410.6MW of that. “Global mega-trends in the development of electric energy storage are becoming noticeable in Poland,” the paper said. “While pumped storage hydroelectricity is the dominant technology … it is worth noting that some Polish distribution network operators already operate Li-ion battery energy storage systems … which can be considered pioneer installations.” Just three years after the paper was published, some are estimating that not only will global storage far exceed the prediction, but the capacity in Poland will also be double the paper’s predictions. Wood Mackenzie, for example, in its Global Energy Storage Outlook in September 2020, predicted the global sector would grow at a CAGR of 31% to reach 741GWh of cumulative capacity by then.
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“By 2030, we plan to build at least 800MW of new energy storage facilities,” said state-run energy firm PGE president Wojciech Dabrowski. PGE launched Poland’s first modular electricity storage facility in Rzepedz, in the country’s southern region, last December.
PGE president Wojciech Dabrowski photo by Miłosz Poloch for PGE.
The 2.1MW facility has a 4.2MWh storage capacity and was the first in Poland to use Tesla Powerpack modules. “The investment in Rzepedz is the first step towards achieving this 800MW goal,” said Dabrowski. “Further projects are already in the planning phase. In the coming days, we will be applying for the definition of the conditions for connection to the grid of a 200MW electricity storage facility in Zarnowiec in northern Poland.” Dabrowski said the major challenges facing energy storage projects were profitability and funding sources. “Therefore, we place great hopes on changes in the regulatory area, which may be an investment incentive for energy storage projects and, at the same time, will allow for better use of EU funds in the energy transformation,” Dabrowski said. Northvolt arrives in the Baltic Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt is aiming to invest about $200 million to open a plant with an accompanying research and development centre in Gdansk, in Poland’s northern Pomerania region.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 37
SNAPSHOT: POLAND
Energy law changes could boost storage In April, the Polish parliament voted with 443 out of 460 ballots to amend a number of provisions of the Polish energy law. Measures included getting rid of the requirement to get a licence for plants less than 10MW; allowing distribution system operators and transmission system operators to include energy storage facilities in their investment plans, enabling them to invest in such facilities instead of grid expansion projects; and, eliminating tariff obligations that had meant storage facilities were double charged for grid connections. Before the law caught up with changes in the industry, energy storage facilities had been considered both consumers and generators, and thus required to pay network and distribution charges — when in reality, they were neither. Barbara Adamska, the president of the Polish Energy Storage Association, welcomed the changes, which she said opened up the possibilities of using energy storage facilities in different areas. A number of foreign investments under way in Poland’s 14 special economic zones operate under a framework that provides the company with various benefits for manufacturing projects. Under the special economic zone scheme, investors pledge a minimum number of jobs they plan to create at their factories, along with a determined number of years and minimum investment. In return, they benefit from preferential tax treatment for their investments, and can acquire state support for their projects.
38 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
Northvolt’s giga-factory for lithium-ion battery cells in Skellefteå, in Sweden’s northern part, which will have its production capacity increased from 40GWh to 60GWh owing to the company’s latest $2.75bn equity raise. Photo by Northvolt
Under the plan, the facility will launch manufacturing activities next year, according to senior company representatives. “Responding to the rapidly growing demand for energy storage solutions, Northvolt is investing $200 million into a greenfield battery systems factory project in Gdansk,” Jesper Wigardt, the vice president for communications and public affairs at Northvolt, told Energy Storage Journal. “The first stage of the project will provide 5GWh per year, and is expected to start production in 2022. Northvolt is also establishing an engineering R&D centre to serve as a platform for exploring and developing the next generation of technologies in the energy storage space.” In the long term, the Polish factory’s
Polish state-run energy business PGE launched Poland’s first modular electricity storage facility in Rzepedź, in the country’s southern part, last December. The 2.1 MW facility has a 4.2 MWh storage capacity. Photo by PGE.
output could be increased to some 12GWh, the company says. The production facility will cover an area of 50,000m2, and the greenfield project and R&D centre could create 500 new jobs in Poland’s north. Wigardt said the plant is being built to expand Northvolt’s battery module and system manufacturing capacity, which will fill the contracts Northvolt has secured from its customers in the grid and industrial markets. “The factory will not produce battery cells but instead receive cells from the Northvolt Ett gigafactory in northern Sweden, a set-up that enables us to leverage the clean energy mix of northern Sweden for the most energy-intensive part of the battery production process and thereby ensure Northvolt’s commitment to producing the world’s greenest battery solutions,” said Wigardt. In June, the Swedish business announced that to lock in enough equity to deploy further battery cell capacity and expand its Swedish gigafactory to 60GWh, it had raised private equity of $2.75 billion. “The additional capacity is designed to accommodate increased demand from key customers, including a $14 billion order from Volkswagen announced earlier this year,” said Northvolt. “The factory will start production later this year.” Northvolt has to date secured in excess of $27 billion of contracts from key customers, that include BMW, Fluence, Scania and Volkswagen.
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SNAPSHOT: POLAND “Europe is Northvolt’s primary edmarket for cells and energy storage solutions, and we are already delivering cells to customers based in several European countries,” said Wigardt. Set up in 2016, Northvolt now employs more than 1,500 staff. It aims to reach a total annual cell output capacity of about 15GWh by 2030, according to the company. The EV battery sector Poland’s location is attracting EV battery makers who recognize the advantages of market accessibility. In November 2019, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a €250 million ($297 million) loan to support the building of an EV battery gigafactory in Wroclaw by LG Chem. The bank said it was the only fully integrated plant in Europe producing all battery parts, from the electrodes to the cells and modules. By 2022, when the factory is completed, €2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) will have been spent, and it should have a manufacturing capacity of up to 70GWh of batteries a year, making it one of the largest EV battery plants in the world. “Becoming part of LG Chem’s ambitious venture in Poland illustrates that the EBRD is up for it,” said EBRD global head of industries Frederic Lucenet. In March, Korean firm SK Innovation’s subsidiary SK IE Technology said it would expand its battery separator manufacturing in Poland from 860m2 to 2.73 billion m2 by 2024, adding another two plants to its existing two. “SK IE Technology is making the largest investment in the history of their EV battery separator business to build new plants in Poland,” the company said. “We will increase the supply of safe separators and wipe out the concerns on safety to contribute to the growing EV industry.” Poland is positioning itself as a key player on a continent driving more and more quickly towards EV rollout with an eye on moving away from import reliance. “I am confident that by 2025, the EU will be able to produce enough battery cells to meet the needs of the European automotive industry — and even to build export capacity,” said European Commission vice president Maroš Šefcovic.
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Energa leads the Polish drive for battery storage
Power company Energa’s battery facility in Bystra
There’s a way to go before Poland achieves its goal of 800MW storage by 2030. The largest project in Poland to date is just 6MW, a hybrid battery energy storage system in Bystra, in the country’s northern Pomerania region, which was developed by state-owned energy company Energa. The 1,200m2 facility, a lead-acid and lithium-ion battery hybrid, stores electricity generated by the adjacent wind farm and has a maximum storage capacity of 27MWh. “Energy storage facilities of this type could soon provide us with an excellent solution for renewable energy generation which, by its nature, is unstable,” said Piotr Meler, the president of the group’s renewable energy subsidiary Energa OZE. “Locating an energy storage facility at the wind farm will allow us to better use the farm’s potential and increase the reliability of the electricity supply.” The battery project was carried out by the company’s subsidiary, Energa Wytwarzanie, and was implemented as a Polish-Japanese partnership involving Energa, Polish electricity grid operator PSE, Japan’s state agency New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Hitachi, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Building began in 2017 under an
agreement signed by the NEDO and Poland’s then Ministry of Energy. The initiative builds on an earlier project by Energa, which opened its first and much smaller 0.75MW/1.5MWh battery energy storage facility in Puck, on the country’s Baltic Sea shore. The Bystra and Puck installations are part of Energa’s efforts to diversify its energy generation sources. While its core business focuses on the distribution, generation and sale of electricity in Poland’s north, where the business has about 2.9 million customers, battery storage will be a good complement to its subsidiaries, which operate a portfolio of renewable energy facilities in northern Poland. In total, the group owns 46 hydropower plants, six wind farms, and two photovoltaic plants. In 2020, Energa generated 3.2TWh of electricity, from total installed capacity of 1.4GW. Of this, 0.5GW was from renewable energy sources, according to the company. Earlier this year, the company was granted permission to expand its factory in Biskupice Podgórne, a small town in Poland’s south-west, potentially increasing its investments in Poland to €3.1 billion ($3.7 billion). The plant in Biskupice Podgórne is being developed by LG Energy Solution Wrocław, a subsidiary of LG Chem, and will have a production capacity of 100GWh.
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 39
30 November - 2 December 2021 Stuttgart, Germany
Stay connected with the advanced battery and H/EV technology community
Join engineers, R&D leads, and executives from across the industry who attend our events to: Source the latest technology and industry solutions Network with peers at the industry’s largest trade events Learn from thought leaders at expert-led educational sessions
This event gives me real access to see some of the challenges that are met at an enduser level and with companies that are really working with the end-user in mind.
The Battery Show really is a great opportunity to meet people from a very high quality level in terms of industry, in terms of companies, in terms of technology.
Dr. Limhi Somerville., Advanced Battery Research, Jaguar/Land Rover
Bruno Samaniego, Engineering Integration, Airbus Defence and Space
For more information, visit thebatteryshow.eu
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Disruption to the events programme As we move further into the 2021 events season for the battery and energy storage industry, hosts and organizers are still struggling to decide whether to go ahead with events that have been in the diary for months, if not years. When this issue was released, and with the situation still changing on an hourly basis, a variety of energy conferences and meetings had been postponed or hosted online. While we have taken every effort to ensure these details are correct, please contact the conference organizers with any queries, or check websites below and throughout the listings. ees Europe + Power2drive
Battery Tech Expo
ees South America
October 6-8 Munich, Germany
October 12 Silverstone, UK.
October 18–20 São Paulo, Brazil
Discover future-ready solutions for renewable energy storage and advanced battery technology at ees Europe! Europe’s largest, most international and most visited exhibition for batteries and energy storage systems is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and users of stationary electrical energy storage solutions as well as battery systems. In 2021, more than 450 suppliers of products for energy storage technology and systems will be present at ees Europe and the parallel exhibitions of The Smarter-E Europe taking place in Munich. The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-day energy storage conference where leading experts delve into current questions of this industry.
The battery industry is on the cusp of a power revolution with big technology companies investing heavily in the next generation of battery development and energy storage. The event will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the latest products, technologies and services covering the battery management systems, EV Battery, battery storage, battery development/discovery, commercial and mobile power device sectors.
The special exhibition ees South America is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary and mobile electrical energy storage solutions. It will be hosted for the second time at Intersolar South America, taking place at the Expo Center Norte in São Paulo. Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies–from components and production to specific user application, it is the ideal platform for all stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market. The focus at ees is on energy storage solutions suited to energy systems with increasing amounts of renewable energy sources attracting investors, utilities, installers, manufacturers and project developers from all over the world.
Contact Solar Promotion www.ees-europe.com/en/home
Contact 10 Four Media David Reeks Email: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexpo.com
FENIBAT 2021 October 17–19 Londrina, Brazil Rescheduled for May 22-24, 2022
Contact Solar Promotion www.ees-southamerica.com
The 5th FENIBAT will gather in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil, from May 2224, 2022, with the Brazilian and Latin American battery and lead recycling industry and its suppliers. Its objective is to disseminate new products, services and technologies from all countries of the world to the South American market, as well as the exchange of information and knowledge. FENIBAT will bring information of interest to entrepreneurs, administrators and investors, managers, supervisors and technicians of administration, purchasing, production, maintenance, projects and product development, quality control, laboratories, metrology, work health and safety, environment and the like. Exhibitors talk here with the people who use their products. It´s a biannual event and in 2019, registered close to 800 attendees from 27 countries. Its conference included 20 speeches and its expo, 121 exhibitors.
ees: Europe + Power2drive
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Contact Jayme Gusmão Tel: +55 43 99937 4911 Email: gusmao@fenibat.com www.fenibat.com
ees: South America
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 41
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
19th Asian Battery Conference — 19ABC Virtual November 3-5 V Virtual Event Gothenburg, Sweden: Hosts Battery Tech Expo — Nordic in October.
Battery Tech Expo — Nordic October 20 Gothenburg, Sweden The Battery Tech Expo Nordic 2021 will bring together the latest technologies and services involved in battery technology, including battery storage, battery management systems, fuel cell technology, lithium-ion batteries as well as many other fields of interest. The event will welcome senior decision makers and users from across the power industry who share a professional interest in the technology and science of battery technology. Held in Gothenburg, the hub of battery technology industry in Sweden, the event will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the latest technological products and services from within the industry. Contact 10 Four Media David Reeks Email: david.reeks@10fourmedia.co.uk www.batterytechexpo.com
The Battery Technology Show October 26–27 Coventry, UK The Battery Technology Show will showcase the incredible developments happening across the battery and energy storage markets. If you are looking to keep up with the latest news in breakthrough technologies, gain invaluable insight from key players in the market, and discover the emerging technologies that are at the frontier of the energy revolution, this is the event for you. This show will feature a select lineup of world-leading manufacturers in the battery and energy storage space on our expo floor, alongside a first-class conference programme featuring three thought-leading symposiums: The Fu-
42 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
ture of Battery Technology, The Future of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles, and The Global Battery Market. Come and experience the power of the future. Contact Evolve Media Group Tel: +44 1179 323 586 Email: info@edpltd.co.uk www.batterytechnologyshow.com
Virtual 19ABC will be a new and exciting interactive experience. We will bring you the great content, speakers and networking you have come to expect, but in new ways, all while still providing technical knowledge, celebrating industry success, announcing new products and services and building and supporting our unique 19ABC family. Contact Conference Works Email: events@conferenceworks.com.au www.asianbatteryconference.com
Battcon
Faraday Annual Conference
November 2-5 Hollywood, Florida, US
November 17-18 V Virtual Event
Battcon is a high-energy mix of industry specific presentations, panels, seminars and workshops, plus a trade show. More than 600 stationary battery users meet at Battcon for three days of professional development and networking with industry experts and peers. It’s a forum focusing on design, selection, application and maintenance for those in the data center, telecom and utility industries can learn from and network with industry experts.
We invite any UK-based academic, anybody working in industry, government or policy in the UK battery space, and selected overseas industry and academic partners to SAVE THE DATE for this year’s Faraday Institution Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is Battery Research & Innovation for a Sustainable Future. Registrations will open in September 2021.
Contact Vertiv Group Email: Events@Battcon.com www.battcon.com
Contact The Faraday Institution Tel: +44 1235 425 300 www.faraday.ac.uk
Hollywood, Florida, US
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS Electricity Transformation Canada November 17 – 19 Toronto, Canada Electricity Transformation Canada will be Canada’s largest renewable energy conference and exhibition, with the key areas of focus being wind energy, solar energy and energy storage, while expanding to incorporate complementary technologies. This event will take place November 17-19, 2021, in Toronto and promises to attract the key players who are working together to drive Canada’s energy transformation. Participants will include utilities, system operators, governments, end-use sectors undergoing electrification, and a variety of energy professionals. Contact Hannover Fairs (Canada) Inc Tel: +1 647 560 7000 www.electricitytransformation.ca
The Energy Management Exhibition — EMEX November 24-25 • London, UK EMEX is the UK’s must-attend energy event for everyone wanting to increase their organization’s energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. EMEX connects all commercial energy consumers with leading experts, policy makers and suppliers. EMEX is more than just an event. It’s a platform where practitioners and experts from various backgrounds and sectors come together to share their knowledge and experiences from successful implementations of energy efficiency strategies. Whatever the size of your business there is an opportunity to find more efficiency in your energy use.
The Battery Show Europe November 30-December 2 Messe Stuttgart, Germany Join the advanced battery community. Meet manufacturers, suppliers, engineers, thought leaders and purchasers for a conference and trade fair focused on the latest developments in the advanced battery and automotive industries. This free trade fair is an opportunity to source the latest energy storage solutions to reduce costs and improve the performance of battery applications. Contact Informa Markets Robin Shelton Tel: +44 779 6941 621 Email: robin.shelton@informa.com www.thebatteryshow.eu
December 7-9 San Diego, USA + V Virtual
Connect in-person and virtually with a global audience of battery technologists from leading automotive OEMs and their key suppliers for a must-attend three days exploring development trends and breakthrough technologies. Contact Cambridge Enertech Tel: +1 781 972 5400 Email: ce@cambridgeenertech.com www.advancedautobat.com/us
Intersolar North America
The Smarter E India — ees India
January 13-15, 2022 Long Beach, CA. USA
December 2-3 Gujarat, India
As the first major solar + storage event of the year in North America, Intersolar North America highlights the latest energy technologies, services, companies and organizations striving to create a positive impact on climate change and support our planet’s transition into a more sustainable energy future. Attendees get in-depth technical training, hands-on product workshops, trends and education from top experts. Experience the solar industry’s best practices for the design, installation, and maintenance of code-compliant PV and storage systems. Tour the expo floor to review the best-in-class companies and the top solutions, services and products for the year ahead.
The market potential for electrical energy storage in India is expected to be tremendous in the future, especially driven by incoming policies for the emobility industry. With the great success and support of ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage, ees India becomes the most powerful energy storage exhibition in India. The exhibition is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary electrical energy storage solutions. Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies — from components and production to specific user applications. Contact Solar Promotion www.intersolar.in/en/for-visitors/about-intersolar-india/focus-energy-storage.html
Contact EMEX Tel: +44 208 505 7073 Email: rr@emexlondon.com www.emexlondon.com
London: The Energy Management Exhibition — EMEX in November
www.energystoragejournal.com
Advanced Automotive Battery Conference USA — AABC USA
Contact Diversified Communications Email: ISNAInfo@divcom.com www.intersolar.us
World Future Energy Summit — WFES 2022 January 17-19, 2022 Abu Dhabi, UAE WFES (World Future Energy Summit) is a global industry platform connecting business and innovation in energy, clean technology and efficiency for a sustainable future. WFES Expo hosts more than 850 exhibiting companies from more than 40 countries; The Future Summit; the unique WFES Forums, covering everything from disruptive technologies to future cities; a set of ground-breaking WFES Initiatives; and WFES Hosted Events, where individual growth markets come under the spotlight. Contact Reed Exhibitions Global www.worldfutureenergysummit.com
Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021 • 43
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
India: Gujarat hosts The Smarter E India — ees India in December 2021…
India Energy Storage Week — IESW January 17-21• Delhi, India
Energy Storage Policy Forum February 16 Washington D.C, USA Featuring nationally recognized policymakers and energy thought-leaders, the ESA Annual Policy Forum convenes a select audience of stakeholders from across the energy ecosystem, including state and federal regulators, policymakers, storage industry members, utility decision makers and power sector stakeholders. The 2022 Policy Forum promises to build on exciting developments to help guide one of the most interesting and important conversations in the electric ity sector today.
Intersolar Middle East Conference March 7 – 9 Dubai, UAE
Middle East Energy (MEE), Intersolar and ees are joining hands to co-deliver IESW is a flagship international an outstanding renewables and energy conference & expo by India Energy storage event at Middle East Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) incorporated 2022. in 2019, which was formerly Energy Renewables and energy storage at Storage India (ESI). MEE is the largest gathering of solar It is India’s premier B2B networkand renewable energy industry profesing & business event focused on resionals in the Middle East & Africa, ofnewable energy, advanced batteries, fering the most effective trade focused alternate energy storage solutions, platform to international manufacturelectric vehicles, charging infrastrucers and distributors looking to meet ture and microgrids ecosystem creregional buyers. ation. The annual conference and expo includes parallel events. Contact Contact The forthcoming edition of IESW Energy Storage Association Solar Promotion is expected to attract global particiwww.energystorage.org/events/policy-forum www.intersolar.ae/en/home.html pation with an intent to facilitate bilateral trade, which will invite 20+ … and Delhi host India Energy Storage Week — IESW in January 2022 countries, 50+ regulators & policy makers, 200+ industry leaders, 100+ partners & exhibitors and 1000+ delegates. Contact India Energy Storage Alliance — IESA Email: contact@indiaesa.info www.indiaesa.info/events/india-energystorage-week-iesw-international-conference-expo
44 • Energy Storage Journal • Autumn 2021
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