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Younicos to test li-ion system in Austin German firm Younicos said in May it is to supply a 1.75 MW/3.2 MWh lithium-ion system to test the use of multiple energy storage services in the US city of Austin, Texas. The system will explore how renewable energy and storage can be integrated on the grid at utility, commercial and residential scales in the city, and potentially US wide. Younicos, which opened a headquarters and technology centre in Austin in 2015, will install the system using its Y.Cube systems. The seven Y.Cubes and Y.Converters represent the company’s largest Y.Cube deployment in the US to date.
The company is working alongside the project’s prime contractor, Doosan GridTech, and publically owned utility Austin Energy. The storage system is part of a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) that will examine how to maintain grid reliability while also enabling the highest penetration of distributed PV generation. The battery storage system is part of a US Department of Energy (DOE)-funded initiative Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV (SHINES) project. The SHINES project aims
to test and forge a template on how other states can use storage and distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar photovoltaics, to harness and ensure grid reliability when utilizing renewable energy. Stephen Prince, CEO of Younicos, said: “The SHINES project is the perfect showcase for an alternative, distributed energy system with resources like energy storage providing resiliency and security.” Integrating energy storage with solar will be an ‘essential’ part of the City of Austin’s goal of reaching 55% renewable energy by 2025. The Austin SHINES program is more than a tech-
nical pilot, said Jackie Sargent, Austin Energy general manager. “It’s phase one of a larger rollout to maximize the value of distributed energy resources for our customers and the utility. Ultimately, it’s about testing innovative technologies that could have long-term benefits.” The Austin Energy SHINES Project was initiated in 2016 with a $4.3 million grant from the DOE’s SunShot Initiative with the goal of analyzing and determining best practices for integrating renewable energy and energy storage on the grid at utility, commercial and residential scales.
Li-ion project to explore methods of modernizing US grid system The US Department of Energy announced in June it is backing a project to examine how lithium-ion energy storage can allow grid-scale power operators to modernize its infrastructure. The challenges of developing technology that offers both a reliable and efficient electrical grid service to rural parts of Texas led the DOE to choose the University of Texas at Austin to lead a $1.6 million project to develop the technology. The university’s Center for Electromechanics (CEM) in the Cockrell School of Engineering will look at how utilities can integrate distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar photovoltaics, combustion engines and energy storage systems, onto the grid in a sustainable way. “Augmenting and modernizing the legacy electric grid while continuing to maintain reliable electrical service is a lot like rebuilding a ship while at sea, there’s a huge downside if you don’t do it right,” said Bob Hebner, CEM director and a research professor in the Cockrell School’s Department of
Mechanical Engineering. Network operators in the US are quickly having to develop ways to cope with the two-way flow of power — from distributed energy and traditional sources — as America adopts a changing energy mix to meet low carbon targets. New methods for monitoring this energy mix will have to include new modelling capabilities that will crunch real-time, big data to ensure fluctuations, caused by the inherently unpredictable wind and solar energy sources, are smoothed and the grid remains stable. Hebner said: “The UT
Austin project will leverage machine learning and big data, maintain cybersecurity and use a technical approach like that supporting the Internet of Things. And it will do all of that while preserving the best of what we have today.” CEM will work with project partners Argonne National Laboratory, Verivolt, National Instruments and Pedernales Electric Cooperative to use existing and emerging sensor technology and enable real-time gridwise monitoring and modelling of loads and DERs. The project expects to develop affordable sensors that
Maldives turns to battery hybrid system to combat energy crisis The Republic of Maldives is the latest country to turn to a hybrid-lithiumion energy storage system to stabilize its electricity supply historically plagued by poor power quality and high costs. The system, which was announced by Chinese firm Sungrow in mid-
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June will use 700kW/333 kWh energy storage system using batteries developed by a joint venture between Sungrow and the South Korean company Samsung SDI. When combined with a diesel generator and 2.7 MWp of solar PV the system will be able to
will offer detailed information about the behaviour of the rural distribution system and inform a modern control approach that uses better situational awareness to minimize outage time. The system will be extensively modelled and tested at UT Austin and elsewhere. Then it will be installed to obtain field data and achieve a high level of system performance. It is one of seven major projects launched by the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability as part of a nearly $10 million research investment. supply grid-scale services included frequency regulation, peak-shaving and load-shifting. The project, which uses Sungrow’s inverters and energy management system, is expected to meet more than 30% of local domestic and office energy demands on the islands Addu, Villingili, Kurendhoo, Buruni, and Goidhoo.
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