Energy Storage Journal - Summer 2015 - issue 9

Issue 9: Summer 2015

The ow battery challenge Vanadium redox to offer new economic logic Island microgrids Renewables make commercial sense as diesel replacement

The CEO interview Ron Van Dell: VizN’s bid to bring zinc-iron to a wider market

Pioneers of the grid Lady Vanadium and the remarkable Maria Skyllas-Kazacos

POWERING THE SMART GRID

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Meet the team Sara Vanbruggen, Associate editor Sara, one of the founding figures of Energy Storage Journal, has since relocated to Madrid, and now works as our in-house adviser as well as a respected contributor to sister magazine, Batteries International.

Mike Halls, editor Mike, a former journalist with the UK newspaper the Financial Times, has been involved in journalism, publishing and print for three decades.

“I’m particularly fond of writing about the energy storage industry,” he says. “It’s an unusual mixture of being fast-paced but slow to change — and friendly too. There’s always something more to learn.”

Claire Ronnie, office manager and subscriptions Claire’s our unflappable person — she’s the go-to girl for subscriptions or account enquiries.

Go ahead and challenge her!

Karen Hampton, publisher In her recent years of working within the energy storage business Karen has become a well known figure at conferences — not least as our social butterfly. “My job,” she says, “is to get the maximum benefit for our advertisers to make sure their name and brand is out there, while maintaining the integrity, fairness and excellence our publications are renowned for.”

Antony Parselle, page designer Better known in the office as ‘Ant’ he’s been working in magazine design and layout since the early 1990s. Not so good on showing his best side however!

June Moutrie, business development manager She’s our accounting Wunderkind who deals with all things financial — a kind of mini Warren Buffett.

But more fun!

Jade Beevor, sales executive Jade, who joined the team in early 2015, is already getting a feel for the industry.

“This is an incredible business we’re in,” she says. “These people are literally changing the future of our lives — and the planet too!”

Jan Darasz, cartoonist Jan has won international fame as a cartoonist able to making anything — including an electrolyte! — funny. And as for LiCFePO4 ...

Wyn Jenkins, Supplements editor Don’t let his boyish charm deceive, Wyn’s been a journalist and respected editor on major financial titles for some 20 years. When not heading his own publications firm, Seren Global Media, he looks after our supplements.

Kevin Desmond, historian More than just a historian on energy storage and batteries as he’s written about many things. He’s the inspiration behind our Heroes of the Grid section.

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EDITORIAL

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EDITORIAL Mike Halls, editor • mike@energystoragejournal.com

Too many breakthroughs, not enough reality Every week a flood of press releases cross our desk. Mostly they’re about the Next Big Thing in energy storage.

They vary from the downright strange — “potato batteries will power the cars of the future” (that, by the way, is almost verbatim) — to the vain glorious couched in the new-speak gabble of breakthrough solutions. And that’s for products that are still years away from a manufacturing line.

It’s difficult to say which is the more unreadable: theoretical fantasy from university laboratories or the gobbledegook of a start-up with its obligatory ®, ©, and ™marks that still fails to impress.

But behind this profusion of hucksterism there is both a reality and a falsehood. And since the world is never black or white, a spectrum of intermediate values.

The reality was that when the first lithium ion battery came out it was a true game changer. It was disruptive technology with a capital D and T. It spelt the arrival of the portable computer, the mobile phone, the tablet, the digital camera and much, much more. We are still being rocked by the implications of cheap, small sized power and miniaturization.

Most go into the trash after a couple of seconds.

Some minutes, if it’s that kind of day. Surely the world needs to know how good potato starch could be as an electrolyte? Or how many meaningless capital letters can be inserted into a ComPany’s products.

Since Sony and Asahi Kasel released the first commercial lithium ion battery in 1991, the world has changed. Effortlessly, previous battery shapes and chemistries were eliminated. Brands such as Kodak — perhaps the firm most reckoned as synonymous with cameras in the world — couldn’t compete as digital photography leapt in its way.

But the trouble is, there’s always a lingering doubt. Have we confined to the easily dismissed, one of the most important stories we should have followed up?

Within a decade of mass adoption of lithium ion, Apple had sealed them inside the iPad and changed forever our understanding of even the need to replace batteries.

History, so they say, is written by the victors. To them the spoils.

And the falsehood? Thomas Alvin Edison, a canny businessman as well as one of the world’s great inventors, described the battery as being little more than “a mechanism for swindling the public … one of those peculiar things which appeals to the imagination, and no more perfect thing could be desired by stock swindlers than that very self-same thing. ... Just as soon as a man gets working on the secondary battery it brings out his latent capacity for lying.”

Something similar — perhaps disturbingly similar — occurs with the arrival of new technologies. And with equal distortions of the truth.

In the business tussle to emerge as top dog, any kind of acknowledgement of the failings of your own technology, is one of the first casualties of war.

All perhaps not so original. Since the world began salespeople have always talked up their products. Think, Elan Musk, Giga-factories and his Great Choice; which US state will get my blessing/subsidies? Aren’t they little more than the 21st century equivalent of previous times “do you want your mega-pyramids at Memphis or Valley of the Kings?” www.energystoragejournal.com

All this is a prelude to our cover story. In this we examine the way flow batteries suddenly seem to offer a challenge and a solution to the way energy storage could work in the future.

The problem — for us all — will be getting to grips at what level they pose a challenge, and to what degree they can provide a solution for the grids of the future.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 1

CONTENTS COVER STORY

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VANADIUM REDOX BATTERIES Energy storage economics for flow batteries start to stack up Flow batteries, once regarded as economically disadvantaged to put it politely, now appear to offer the possibility of being affordable and ideally suited to some applications — think wind power particularly. Moreover, the magic combination of containerization and ming with other battery chemistries that can deal with grid stabilithy and renewables integration, suggests that cost may soon be an irrelevance when buying these systems.

Going with the flow

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• An alternative to the costs of full EU grid integration • India goes offgrid, telcos to find flow battery solutions • Flow batteries go nuclear, the joys of uranium Andrew Jones steps up as SVP for S&C Electric 6

EDITORIAL

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Too much hype, too little substance, but where to draw the line?

PEOPLE NEWS

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Jones steps up as SVP for S&C, Buchanan to retire in December • Bergman joins Maxwell board while Finger starts as VP for global sales • Navitas Systems hires three into manufacturing and engineering • Two resignations at American Vanadium • New executive chairman for Ioxus • Solaris Power Cells appoints Calderon chairman and Lawrence as new COO • Redflow hires former Siemens sales exec • Ghislain Lescuyer as new chair of Saft’s management board • New appointments for KPMG as Marshall, Petropoulos step forward

THE CEO INTERVIEW

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ViZn is a start-up on a growth spurt. Having spent the last six years perfecting its zinciron flow battery technology, the firm now led by Ron Van Dell is ramping up and on a recruitment drive to seize commercial storage opportunities

NEWS

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Siemens launches rent-a-storage system • Saft supplies energy storage for Arctic Circle microgrid • Divide to form for lithium ion batteries between EV users and stationary ones • Cellstrom supplies vanadium battery for University of New South Wales microgrid • Fraunhofer microgrid to deploy flow battery • GE enters into lithium-ion first with Con Edison • TNG partners with VRB battery manufacturer • Flow batteries Alps test could lead to bigger things says Imergy • ZBB breakthrough battery validated • Electrovaya completes acquisition of Evonik • Litarion Reliance Jio places €7m battery order with Saft • ViZn supplies advanced flow battery to US college • SunEdison invests in vanadium for India • Younicos and Leclanché partner on Graciosa project • Aquion Energy declares Ideal Power PCS compatible • Drexel develops next gen lithium-sulphur component • Boston-Power and Darfon team up for solar • Cheaper batteries to boost energy storage tech revenues • Sumitomo buys stake in Willey, orders Toshiba batteries • VCs invest $69m in battery companies in first quarter • Umicore sued for lithium-ion patent infringement

SOLARUNITED Our industry partner gives voice to ways to help unite a fragmented industry.

Plus: news from the association’s members 2 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Ron Van Dell: Taking one’s VizN to a new generation of customers 10

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News of energy storage in the wastes of the Arctic 14

Island microgrids: the start of bigger things to come

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CONTENTS ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS

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Energy storage lets island and other types of remote grids use more wind and solar, lowering electricity costs, while building a better understanding of the technology’s role within mainland grids

BACK TO BASICS —ESSENTIAL LITHIUM

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In the first of a series Isidor Buchmann, founder and CEO of Cadex and creator of the online Battery University explains some of the fundamentals behind the choice of lithium as a battery chemistry.

CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES AND LITHIUM

Messe Dusselforf: the place to be in March 52

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Energy storage systems able to use more than one type of battery chemistry can address both power- as well as energy-intensive applications, to broaden the range of benefits and services possible with one asset.

EVENT REVIEW

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Energy Storage 2015 March 9-11, Dusseldorf, Germany Looking for that breakthrough moment

EVENTS

Grid hero: Maria SkyllasKazacos, pioneer of vanadium flow batteries 58

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A listing of some of the major events in the energy storage and smart grid world

HEROES OF THE GRID

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Lady Vanadium: The vanadium redox flow battery is proving an invaluable storage technology underpinning the increased use of renewable energy. Its remarkable inventor is Maria Skyllas-Kazacos.

THE LAST WORD

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Tesla and the Great Gigafactory Debate • Drama and English opens way forward to ESJ sales • Brace, brace, here comes high flying lithium • Something for the weekend to read

Supplements editor: Wyn Jenkins, wyn.jenkins@serenglobalmedia.com, +44 1792 293 222

Energy Storage Journal — Business and market strategies for energy storage and smart grid technologies Energy Storage Journal is a quarterly publication.

Publisher: Karen Hampton, karen@energystoragejournal.com, +44 (0) 7792 852 337

Business development manager: June Moultrie, june@energystoragejournal.com +44 (0) 7775 710 290 Reception: Tel: +44 (0) 1 243 782 275 Fax: +44 1787 329 730 Subscriptions and admin manager: Claire Ronnie, subscriptions@energystoragejournal.com admin@energystoragejournal.com +44 (0) 1 243 782 275

Editor: Michael Halls, mike@energystoragejournal.com, +44 (0) 1 243 782 275

Research editor: William Aslan will@energystoragejournal.com

Associate editor: Sara Verbruggen, sara@energystoragejournal.com, +44 (0) 7981 256 908

Design: Antony Parselle aparselledesign@me.com

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They seek a gigafactory here, they seek it there 64

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Any warranty to the correctness and actuality cannot be assumed. © 2015 HHA Limited UK company no: 09123491 Working with

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 3

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PEOPLE NEWS

Jones steps up as SVP for S&C, Buchanan to retire in December Andrew Jones became senior vice president, international business, at S&C Electric at the start of April.

He will report to S&C’s president Kyle Seymour.

All non-US regional businesses, including EMEA, Asia-Pacific, central and South America and Canada, will report to Jones.

Jones’ key responsibilities will be to oversee each business unit’s organization plans and staffing, as well as leading new business development globally and providing quotation, shipment and service support.

He will also lead all energy storage activities by S&C outside the US.

Jones: new international SVP

Since 2004, Jones’ key work has been as European territory manager, managing director Europe. In 2011 he was appointed managing director of S&C’s

EMEA business. During this time he has been closely involved in one of the UK’s biggest energy storage projects in Leighton Buzzard, which began operations in December 2014.

Tony Rooney joined S&C in February as the new managing director, EMEA business, reporting to Jones.

Rooney has previously worked at ABB and Alstom.

As a related part of Jones’ appointment, Grant Buchanan, executive vice president for international business retired in December. Buchanan who has had a 34 year career at S&C Electric will, however, remain as president of S&C

Bergman joins Maxwell board while Finger starts as VP for global sales Maxwell Technologies, the ultracapacitor maker, announced in May that Rick Bergman, chief executive of Synaptics, a developer of human interface products for intelligent devices, has been appointed to Maxwell’s board of directors.

Bergman joined Synaptics in 2011, after working in a series of senior executive positions with AMD, where he was senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s product Group from May 2009 to Sep-

tember 2011, and senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Graphics Product Group from October 2006 to May 2009.

Until AMD acquired ATI in 2006, Bergman was senior vice president and general manager of ATI’s PC Group. Previously, he was chief operating officer of S3 Graphics and before that he held other senior management positions in the technology industry after beginning his career with Texas Instruments and IBM.

Navitas Systems hires three into manufacturing and engineering Navitas Systems, an energy storage provider, made three appointments into its manufacturing and engineering operations in North America in midApril.

States Mead was appointed as vice-president of manufacturing, Chad Hartzog as director of engineering and Paul Corby as global supply chain

manager. Mead will be responsible for production, quality, engineering, warehouse, and equipment.

He was previously manufacturing engineering manager at The Morey Corporation.

He has also worked for Panasonic Factory Solutions Company of North America and Tyco Electronics.

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Finger: global sales

Separately, Maxwell appointed Michael Finger as vice president of global sales and marketing in March.

Finger joins from TT Hartzog, who will oversee battery hardware and software development, was previously senior manager of systems engineering at Enerdel specifically focused on battery management systems and grid energy storage.

Corby, who will oversee all procurement, fulfilment and supply chain logistics, previously was executive director of global materials and logistics at Stant USA Corporation. ■

Electric Canada until he retires this December. He will assist in the transition of his work.

Buchanan has been president of S&C Electric Canada since 1997. He was appointed to the S&C Electric Canada board of directors in 1994. He has also been vice president of various global business units.

During his career at S&C Buchanan has been responsible for the country’s factories in Mexico, Brazil and China as well as all sales and marketing activities outside of the US. Buchanan is also a member of the board of Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) and the Ontario Energy Network and is the chair of the Corporate Partners Committee. ■ Electronics where he was vice president, global sales and marketing at the global electronics firm.

Previously, he held a series of senior sales and management positions with Hella KGaA Huek & Co, a global supplier of lighting systems and electronic products for the automobile industry.

“Finger will build and lead the company’s sales team to continue driving sales growth with existing customers and also expand Maxwell’s sales bases in the US, Europe and Asia,” according to the firm.

Key markets for Maxwell’s ultracapacitors include global transportation and also grid/stationary storage. ■ Two resignations at American Vanadium For the record, American Vanadium announced in February that founding director George Hayes had resigned as a director of the firm. In January another founding director, Kelly Hyslop, also resigned as a director. ■

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PEOPLE NEWS

New executive chairman for Ioxus Ioxus has appointed Donald Runkle as its executive chairman. Runkle is an authority in the automotive industry with C-level experience at General Motors and Delphi.

At General Motors Runkle held a variety of assignments, including chief engineer of Chevrolet, chief engineer of powertrain and racing at the Buick Division, director of Advanced Vehicle Engineering, vice president of GM’s Advanced Engineering Staff and vice president of GM’s North American Engineering Center where he was GM’s top engineering executive.

Runkle: ex-GM veteran

After GM, Runkle became vice-chairman of Delphi Corporation where he was the senior executive

for deploying lean principles and streamlining and integrating engineering, manufacturing, and purchasing.

Runkle was Delphi’s chief technology officer, responsible for R&D, global supply management, and executive leadership of engineering and manufacturing. He was also the leader for the DaimlerChrysler and Commercial Vehicle customer teams, two of the higher growth customer accounts.

“He has had a career filled with innovation and successes, and this makes him an exceptional fit for our vision for the future” said

Mark McGough, Ioxus’s CEO. Runkle said: “The auto industry has taken seriously the challenge for improved efficiency, lower environmental impact and growing customer demands for increased electrical/electronic features.

“Ioxus’ proprietary technology is now capable for meeting these global challenges, particularly in the aggressive automotive sector.

“The potential for rapid growth, a strong set of investors, and an extraordinary and experienced management team made it and easy decision to join this company.” ■

Solaris Power Cells appoints Calderon chairman and Lawrence as new COO Solaris Power Cells, a renewable energy storage start-up firm, has appointed former California state senator Charles Calderon as its chairman and Steve Lawrence as its chief operating officer.

Calderon has spent 38 years as a lawyer and legislator. “He is the only legislator in California to serve as

majority leader of both the California State Senate and Assembly,” says a Solaris announcement.

“During his tenure as a legislator he created the California Earthquake Authority and authored the California Interstate Banking Act and the CalderonSher Safe Drinking Water Act along with many other

Redflow hires former Siemens sales exec Australia-based zinc-bromide battery company Redflow has appointed Frédéric Ridou as sales manager for Europe, based in Germany.

Ridou was previously energy storage systems sales manager for Saft’s Industrial Batteries Group in Nuremberg. Before that he worked with Siemens as well as Total as an analyst for the German oil market.

His recent experience at Saft has covered the range of energy storage systems applications from small

residential to utility scale, on or off-grid.

Stuart Smith, chief executive officer of Redflow, said his experience was part of a drive into Europe. “His experience with leading companies in the energy industry will help us achieve volume sales contracts.

“In addition to residential systems, the distributed generation and commercial markets will also be targeted in Europe with applications ranging from several kWh to MWh.” ■

8 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

significant social, economic, environmental and regulatory laws.”

Calderon said: “My work with the California State Legislature has helped shape the renewable energy legislative portfolio within the State of California.

Therefore, we are prepared to spearhead Solaris Power Cells into the Renewable Energy Corridor and help energy companies utilize our

cutting-edge technology in order to meet the capacity for energy storage.” ■

East Penn promotes Miksiewicz to senior VP position For the record, East Penn Manufacturing has promoted Larry Miksiewicz as senior vice president of manufacturing and purchasing. He reports directly to Robert Flicker, chief operating officer.

Miksiewicz will oversee each of the company’s manufacturing divisions including Automotive, Industrial (reserve power & motive power), and

Diversified (wire, cable, accessories, and injection molding).

Political clout: Calderon

Royal steps down at Maxwell Kevin Royal, senior vice president and chief financial officer will step down from his position during 2015. He joined the firm in 2009. “Royal will remain active in his current role until a successor is named and an effective transition is planned and initiated,” according to the firm. ■

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PEOPLE NEWS

Ghislain Lescuyer as new chair of Saft’s management board Ghislain Lescuyer was appointed chairman of the management board of French battery and energy storage systems supplier Saft Group in March and started in May. He takes

over from Bruno Dathis, group financial director, who has been chairman of the management board, since John Searle’s sudden death last September.

Lescuyer has been a

Lescuyer: started as chairman in May

member of Saft’s supervisory board for the last 10 years and chairman of its strategy and technologies committee. He is also a senior vice president of Alstom Group in charge of information systems and technology.

As part of this, MarieClaire Daveu joined the supervisory board in early May replacing Lescuyer.

Daveu was recommended

by Saft’s remuneration and appointments committee, during a meeting held this March.

After a career as a senior civil servant in the field of agriculture and the environment, Daveu occupied the post of technical adviser to the cabinet of French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. She then became chief of staff to Serge Lepeltier, the minister of ecology and sustainable development in 2004.

Since 2012, she has been

the chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs of the Kering group.

The supervisory board now consists of five independent members: Yann Duchesne (chairman), Jean-Marc Daillance (vicechairman), Bruno Angles, Charlotte Garnier-Peugeot and Marie-Claire Daveu.

Earlier this year, Saft’s management committee appointed Frédéric Hapiak as director of the committee’s energy storage unit. The management committee serves as a forum for discussing and for implementing Saft’s global strategy, says Saft Hapiak is the general manager for Saft America and based in Florida. His previous work at Saft included being deputy general manager of the company’s industrial battery group and a director of global sales and marketing. ■

New appointments for KPMG as Marshall, Petropoulos step forward Amy Marshall has joined KPMG as a director in the firm’s power and utilities practice.

Marshall joined from Engage Consulting where she was a director of business development, working with Engage’s experts to advise clients in energy and utilities.

Marshall’s remit at KPMG includes business development in new and emerging sub-sectors of the power and utilities sector, including smart meters and smart grid. Energy storage will also be in her remit.

Storage, and the emerging trend toward smaller

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scale storage, such as community energy, among other emerging business models, are seen as a key component and enabler of the smart grid.

Before Engage, Marshall was director of smart utilities at Cable and Wireless, with responsibility for global smart grid and smart metering markets.

Separately, KPMG has appointed Dimitrios Petropoulos as a principal adviser in the firm’s cyber security team.

Dimitrios has over 20 years of cyber security experience and has worked with financial institutions, telecom organiza-

tions, energy and government agencies in the EMEA. The cyber threats that are emerging as the

smart energy sector develops make his experience relevant for KPMG and its clients, says the firm. ■

Amy Marshall

Dimitrios Petropoulos

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 9

THE CEO INTERVIEW: RON VAN DELL ViZn is a start-up on a growth spurt. Having spent the last six years perfecting its zinc-iron flow battery technology, the firm now led by Ron Van Dell is ramping up and on a recruitment drive to seize commercial storage opportunities.

Taking the message of zinc iron redox to yet wider markets Location, location, location. A rule for estate agents around the world — but also no different for energy storage companies seeking to plant their start ups.

For the main part in the US startups have plumped for California. Its 1.2GW energy storage target aside, setting up an office in the state lets you tap the Silicon Valley talent pool and maximize opportunities to rub shoulders with venture capitalists looking for new hi-tech stocks to bet on.

However, Ron Van Dell, who has been chief executive of ViZn — it’s pronounced as ‘vision’ — since May last year, chose to build his corporate team in Austin, Texas.

The state capital is arguably one of the most attractive of alternative American tech hubs to rival Silicon Valley. It has a young, well educated population and is home to the regional offices and, in some cases, headquarters of many Fortune 500 bluechips, including Intel, Apple Google and IBM in addition to Dell.

The Austin Technology Council predicts that by 2017 nearly 10,000 new tech jobs will be created in the city.

That said, it’s all a long way from ViZn’s roots.

The company was founded some 1200 miles further north in Montana in 2009, originally as Zinc Air Inc. The plan was to bring to market a zinc-iron flow battery, based on a decade’s worth of fundamental research and development in a joint partnership between the US Department of Energy and US aerospace company Lockheed Martin.

“The company built up a core team mostly in R&D over five years,” says Van Dell. “But I don’t have five years

10 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

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THE CEO INTERVIEW: RON VAN DELL in which to build out the rest of the company. We need a larger ecosystem to tap into for the right set of skills.

Austin is attractive to relocate to and has a very good high-tech food chain.”

The company will keep what has been working well in Montana.

Undoubtedly Columbia Falls, the gateway to the stunning Glacier National Park, where Zinc Air Inc was founded also scores well when judged by on quality-of-life criteria. However, it is also close to one of Applied Materials’ subsidiaries with plating technology and expertise. It took a further five years and six generations of prototypes to prepare the technology for commercialization and to perfect the production design.

In 2013 Zinc Air Inc was split into two companies — ViZn Energy Systems is pursuing large-scale stationary energy storage applications while ZAF Energy Systems and is dedicated to commercializing zinc-air and nickelzinc batteries for smaller applications, such as handheld electronics.

One of ViZn’s earliest projects was installing a battery system as a test unit at local Montana utility Flathead Electric Cooperative. The batteries store electricity at times of low demand and release the energy into the grid when demand is high and power is more expensive.

Ramping production and recruiting Van Dell says: “For ViZn, 2014 was the final year of testing the prototype batteries in the field with early adopters in the US and Europe. The next step, during 2015, is ramping production of the line. As we start to sell more systems, globally, we’ll recruit people in Austin with the skills for pre- and post-sale support as well as other functions needed as we hit that sales ramp.

“There are other locations that other CEOs might have pushed for — such as California or Boston — but I joined knowing that Austin would be a great location to build out the balance of the team.”

Moreover, Texas looks likely to continue building more renewables capacity. “It’s already the biggest state in terms of installed wind power, but the solar side of things is also growing fast, especially in large-scale photovoltaics,” he says.

Then there is the limited headroom — or narrowing gap — between peak demand and peak generation. That, coupled with the state of Texas’ big

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MARKING THE DANCE CARD

ViZn aims to work with companies that are integrators of energy storage systems, with the power conversion and software platforms that interface with the grid.

“We made a strategic decision to focus on the battery. We do the complete DC block up to and including the battery management system that can talk to the power conversion electronics and the top level control software. We partner the providers of this complementary content to deliver a complete storage solution according to the best fit and preferences for a given project.”

Greensmith, Dynapower and Princeton Power are current partners with the firm. and growing base of intermittent renewables, as well as a booming population thirsty for more electricity, is creating the perfect conditions for energy storage.

Last year the company launched an integrated 80kW/160 kWh system, the Z20.

“The Z20 is targeted at the C&I — commercial and industrial — and microgrid markets for customers with renewables and those who want a thin tie to the grid or the ability to island their microgrid. Our other product, the 1MW/3MWh GS200, has been developed for utility-scale applications,” he says.

“We want our dance card to be flexible. It gives us more opportunity to grow our market share. Some companies are already doing the power control systems themselves and the top level controls — the Siemens, the S&Cs, the ABBs and the Schneiders. If we did it all we would disqualify ourselves from working with these companies.

“In each segment — microgrid, C&I, utility — in different geographical markets, each has their group of providers. Because it is still early days, it is hard to say if the value chains will remain the same in the future. The breadth of projects that we are starting to see validates that this ability to be flexible is the right move for us.”

Target markets Following the first orders for the C&I segment in the US, later this year ViZn anticipates shipping for remote microgrid as well as utility-scale projects.

In addition to North America and Europe, the company is also targeting Africa and the Asia-Pacific.

“In the developing economies, more than 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity and more than half of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. These people are not going to get electricity from conventional centralized utility grids. These are too complex and too costly. Microgrids are a much better option to provide communities and

One of the problems the energy storage industry is facing is the pressure to identify the killer application, or what is the right mix of applications — between energy and power intensive needs.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 11

THE CEO INTERVIEW: RON VAN DELL BINDING CAPITAL TO ENERGY STORAGE

ViZn recently announced a partnership with LFC Capital, which provides financing and loans for the medical and healthcare industries and has also branched out into providing finance packages for solar photovoltaic systems for the C&I market.

“Solar went to structured finance a few years ago and we are seeing this same trend happening now with storage. Working with LFC Capital is the first step into financing solutions for ViZn with a focus on the C&I segment. A customer can pay for something on a monthly basis rather than upfront in one go. It makes no difference to us, they are a customer.”

In two or three years’ time, this will be how the majority of energy storage solutions are sold, he believes. “In the US, there are 50 states to go after because there is a lot of creativity and a lot of momentum to do the same kind of financing plays for storage as have been done for solar.”

The C&I market for solar and storage is broad. ViZn is seeing demand in water treatment, retail and resorts. “You could not pick three more diverse markets and then there is also demand for storage in direct industrial processes themselves.”

LFC Capital has already been providing structured finance for solar and the next logical step for it is energy storage. There is demand for installing storage at

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existing solar sites and also for new sites looking at solar and storage together.

“Typically most of the money is spent on the solar system, but if you size the storage properly you can get better economic returns overall.

This will become more important as the penetration levels of renewables continue to increase. Grid operators want renewable energy sources to be better behaved. Take Germany for example, the government wants new renewable energy investments on the condition these can be better managed and integrated into the grid.”

ViZn has partnerships with solar companies and engineering, procurement and construction firms and LFC Capital also has trusted companies it works with in this area.

Van Dell thinks that it is a bit too early on in the industry for players to start aligning with specific partners, but expects this to start happening in 2016.

The company has raised over $24 million to date, including over $7 million in 2014. Some of the funds will also be used to expand ViZn’s capabilities at its Montana facility. “We’ll be focusing on higher performance and lower cost with ongoing R&D. For the future, we are also thinking about how we address international markets. Our intention is to have localized production in large markets. This will be via outsourcing or through licensing or structural partnerships.”

“We are missing the opportunity to go to market with a more versatile storage platform.

At the risk of sounding clichéd, a ‘Swiss Army knife’ approach is needed, an energy storage technology that delivers on both the kilowatt and the kilowatt hour fronts.” remote villages with reliable electricity autonomously,” says Van Dell.

Most of these remote areas rely on diesel gen-sets for electricity, which is expensive and often unreliable. The more remote the microgrid is the more costly diesel-based electricity becomes because of because of the expense of getting the fuel delivered. In some cases 25%-50% of the fuel never makes it to where it is needed.

“Remote locations are better served with remote capabilities. Renewable energy combined with storage reduces diesel reliance to the extent that it is just used for occasional back up. This enables local resources, sun and wind, to become the primary source of electricity for the remote microgrid,” he says.

ViZn is working with local partners on the ground that develop microgrid projects. “They secure finance via local governments or multi-government lending initiatives such as Power Africa.”

In the US and Europe energy storage can benefit the grid in a number of ways. One approach is through the provision of grid services, which tend to require battery or other storage technologies with high power. Or it can be through peak shaving or ramping, banking surplus renewable energy at times of low demand and making use of it during times of high demand, sometimes a few hours later.

But Van Dell thinks one of the problems the energy storage industry is facing is the pressure to identify the killer application, or what is the right mix of applications — between energy and power intensive needs.

“We are missing the opportunity to go to market with a more versatile storage platform. At the risk of sounding clichéd, a ‘Swiss Army knife’

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THE CEO INTERVIEW: RON VAN DELL

“Putting out a lot of capital expenditures which are tied up in energy storage assets with a 20 year service life and trying to be right about whether it is going to be power-intensive or energy-intensive is an extremely tough call to make.” approach is needed, an energy storage technology that delivers on both the kilowatt and the kilowatt hour fronts.”

It is hard for utilities to predict the mix of power and energy intensive services in, say, five years from now.

But also, in increasingly deregulated markets where independent power producers are entering to provide services, the revenues associated with all of these are not clear yet, he thinks.

“Putting out a lot of capital expenditures which are tied up in energy storage assets with a 20 year service life and trying to be right about whether it is going to be power-intensive or energy-intensive is an extremely tough call to make. ViZn is commercializing a flow battery that supports both power and energy services. As a result, the financial risks of mix planning are largely avoided.”

To do this requires a combination of innovations in cell and stack designs as well as the control system, which goes beyond the basic chemical equations and just moving electrons through a membrane.

Other players in the market are coming at this challenge with a different approach, developing energy storage platforms, such as power electronics and smart software that can operate more than one type of battery or storage hardware in one system. However, Van Dell does not think the economics of the hybrid storage system approach work.

“For example, for a 1 MW/4 MWh multi-service capability, you can’t buy a half size of lithium ion and a half size of flow system to meet the need.

You end up buying 1MW of Li-ion and still need 4MWh of flow. Therefore you end up with redundant costs compared to a single flow battery that can do both jobs.” ■

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BIO: RON VAN DELL, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VIZN Ron Van Dell has a track record of leading early-stage, turn-around and established businesses. His 30 year career spans industries in semiconductors and electronics, including power, communications, computing, industrial control, electrical distribution and clean-tech.

In May 2014 he was appointed president and chief executive of ViZn (previously Zinc Air Inc), a zinc redox flow battery firm targeting largescale stationary storage markets.

Before that Van Dell was president

and chief executive of SolarBridge Technologies, where he led the development and launch of a microinverter technology for AC Solar Modules, reaching eight digits in sales, while raising four rounds of funding.

Before SolarBridge, Van Dell was president and chief executive of Primarion, which was sold to Infineon, and the same roles at AMD spin-off Legerity.

He has also been the general manager for Dell Computer’s Dimension line of business.

Other companies he has held management positions at include Intersil Corporation, Schneider, Square D Company and General Electric.

VIZN — DATAFILE Set up in 2009, in Columbia Falls in Montana (as Zinc Air Inc), to bring to market zinc redox flow battery technology developed under a research programme between Lockheed Martin and the US Department of Energy.

In 2013, the company is split and ViZn pursues large-scale stationary energy storage applications and markets for the technology.

During 2014 the company installs its battery systems in microgrid and other pilots in the US and Europe.

In 2015 ViZn is ramping production and is also expanding its team in pre- and post-sales related areas from its new corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Business model • Large, scalable storage with the lowest cost / highest value per kWh delivered • Industry leading customers representing utilities, transmission, and renewable energy • Asset-light business model, through contract manufacturing and strategic partnerships • +$25 million equity funding to date from key stakeholders, management and high net-worth individuals • 3 patents granted, 13 patents pending.

Strategy ViZn’s strategy is focused on renewables and microgrids for behind-the-meter applications to expedite initial installations and field validations. The company is focused on islanding opportunities, campus applications and international projects, where higher electricity prices, unstable grids and lower regulatory hurdles are creating demand for energy storage.

The company’s channel strategy includes direct sales in addition to strategic partnerships that include system integrators, power conversion system (PCS) suppliers and engineering firms.

Service products • Ancillary services • Arbitrage • Backup power systems • Deferment of transmission • Frequency regulation • Integrated systems • Load shifting • Peak shaving • Renewables firming • VAR support

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 13

NEWS

Siemens launches rent-a-storage system Siemens and Ads-tec have launched a containerized battery for utilities to rent, to de-risk storage deployment. Containerized products are already becoming a de facto standard for energy storage but a financial model based on a rental product signals an increasingly sophisticated business model, Initially StoRent will be rolled out in Germany, Austria and possibly Switzerland, where the two companies have strong sales and distribution channels.

Utilities, as well as endusers in commercial and industrial sectors, have the option to rent the system, extend or change the rental

period and eventually buy the system outright.

“It allows grid operators, for example, to rent storage, start testing and evaluating and make the full investment later at a price equal to its residual value. During the rental period, they do not show any assets on their books, giving them more financial flexibility,” says Uwe Fuchs, a project manager in active power and storage sales at Siemens.

StoRent can be supplied in different sizes and can provide different grid functions, including ancillary services and peak shaving.

The systems are designed for easy relocation around the grid.

StoRent uses lithium ion batteries as these can fit into 20 or 40 foot containers. Lithium ion cells are declared as dangerous goods and need to be transported with special care, usually in separate boxes.

But Ads-tec’s battery module designs overcome this as the modules are certified to be transported safely in fixed mounted battery racks and can stay inside the container, during road journeys, with commissioning done quickly at the destination.

Siemens and Ads-tec are members of the Storegio association, whose activities include developing business models for energy

storage systems on the grid.

The association’s members develop pilots to demonstrate profitability, security and other issues.

Siemens has already had some limited commercial success with a lithium ion battery-based energy storage container product that it launched a few years ago.

The core technology at the heart of StoRent containers, such as inverters, batteries and controls, are the same as those in Siestorage.

However, the StoRent containers have been developed for multiple use cases, making them slightly more expensive than the tailormade Siestorage system. ■

Saft supplies energy storage for Arctic Circle microgrid French battery maker Saft is supplying its energy storage technology that will be used to integrate solar into a remote microgrid in the Arctic Circle.

The 200kW/230kWh system is being supplied to the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, which manages the microgrid for a small community of 150 inhabitants in the far north of Canada.

The system will be installed at the Colville Lake Power Station this June and will provide the residents

with a stable supply of solar power, cutting diesel fuel consumption and the cost of electricity. It will also help to reduce power outages.

Saft designed the lithium ion based energy storage system to withstand temperatures that can drop to -50°C in winter. The system includes 200kW power conditioning equipment supplied by ABB. When installed the energy storage system will become the heart of the hybrid microgrid that is part of a larger solar and diesel upgrade to

the existing power plant.

The battery bank will enable the solar panels to generate about 30% of the community’s electricity.

Without energy storage, the penetration of intermittent renewables, such as solar and wind in hybrid microgrids is usually limited to under 20%. In addition to enabling higher renewables penetration at the expense of diesel or other fossil fuels, energy storage systems provide power quality and stabilize the microgrid.

Following several years

Divide to form for lithium ion batteries between EV users and stationary ones The cost of stationary storage is set to stay high even though the price of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles will fall, according to Lux Research.

In its latest report “Crossing the Line: Li-ion Battery Cost Reduction and Its Effect on Vehicles and Stationary Storage” it forecasts that prices set by the top lithium ion manufactur-

ers could fall to as little as $172/kWh by 2025.

The stationary storage market, however, will continue to see higher prices.

The report predicts a price of $655/kWh for residential applications and $498/ kWh for grid applications.

Unlike EVs where batteries are a complicated but relatively simple addition to the car, stationary bat-

14 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

teries require construction of specific buildings and systems to be integrated.

The report also predicts a rising gap between best-inclass manufacturers and the rest with a pricing divide opening up of as much as $100/kwH for EV batteries.

“The estimate is based on a new bottom-up cost model built by Lux Research,”said the firm.” ■

of development, three years ago Saft started commercializing energy storage systems and has installed over 50 containers installed worldwide. Several of the company’s more recent deals include supplying remote or island grid projects, in Hawaii, South America, Japan as well as Canada. In most cases the business case for using battery-based storage is to support the integration of more solar into these remote grids.

“Globally, projects for renewables integration in island, weak or remote grids are key to our energy storage pipeline right now,” says Michael Lippert, marketing and business development manager of energy storage systems at Saft.

In its 2014 annual report, within Saft’s industrial battery group markets for batteries for stationary backup power, which mainly used nickel chemistry, and energy storage applications, which mainly use lithium ion, reached €243 million.

This represented a 10% growth in revenue. ■

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NEWS

Cellstrom supplies vanadium battery for University of New South Wales microgrid The University of New South Wales — birthplace of the vanadium redox flow battery (see our profile of Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, the driving figure in its creation, at the end of this magazine) — has ordered its own commercial system from Gildemeister subsidiary Cellstrom.

The 30 kW/120kWh vanadium redox battery will be installed in the new UNSW Tyree Energy Technologies building that also features a 120kW solar array on the roof and has been designed to showcase a range of energy technologies developed by the university.

The system will be connected to the building grid and will be used to demonstrate its performance in a range of applications including renewable energy storage, load shifting and power arbitrage.

The system should be fully tested and commissioned by mid-July.

“UNSW invited tenders from several companies that are producing commercial VRB systems based on the original UNSW technology, and selected Gildemeister because they have developed a proven product for the market and they were also prepared to custom-make a system

that could be installed in the basement of the Tyree building,” says professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos at the School of Chemical Engineering.

Skyllas-Kazacos has dedicated most of her research and career to developing a vanadium redox flow battery suitable for mass commercialization. The core technology that she and her team, which includes her husband Michael Kazacos, developed is being used in vanadium battery storage systems around the world — including China, Europe and the US — for renewables integration and also microgrids.

In Australia energy storage systems based on long-duration/energyintensive batteries such as vanadium redox flow have a huge potential to reduce electricity costs for users and consumers. The state of New South Wales time of usage tariffs can vary from around AS$0.15/kWh during off-peak times, to just under AS$0.60/kWh during peak times on weekdays.

By charging a battery using cheap off-peak electricity at night and discharging it to power appliances during the peak period, significant cost savings can be achieved using energy storage. ■

Fraunhofer microgrid to deploy flow battery A flow battery is being built as part of a microgrid project on Fraunhofer ICT’s campus in Germany.

The project is investigating developing an industrial-scale redox battery, demonstrating how this form of energy storage can be used to integrate renewables into the grid and will also gather experience about suitable power electronics and conversion for this type of application.

Installation of the

2MW/20MWh battery will start from mid-2015 with the battery expected to be fully operational by the end of 2016. Construction of the battery’s housing is almost complete.

However, tests will occur before then, as each module is installed. Each module has a capacity of about 250kW of power.

The battery will be operated in addition to a 2MW wind turbine, which will be installed inf 2017. Together

the turbine and battery will provide the campus’ electricity needs.

The project will cost about €16 million in total with some of the funding coming from the German research ministry (BMBF).

Industrial firm Schmalz, a supplier of automation technology, handling and clamping tools and technology is working on the stack design, which was originally developed by Fraunhofer ICT, to be mass

GE enters into lithium-ion first with Con Edison General Electric will supply Con Edison Development, the renewable and energy infrastructure project developer, with an 8MWh battery energy storage system based in Central Valley, California. The project should be completed by year-end.

This is GE’s first foray into lithium-ion batteries and Con Edison’s first energy storage project. GE said it is seeking to expand its energy storage portfolio.

The storage product,

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which will utilise GE’s Mark VIe-based plant control system, Brilliance MW Inverters, and packaged lithium ion battery modules, will provide 2MW of power over a four-hour period.

The deal will also deliver a complete energy storage system with associated longterm service agreements.

Jeff Wyatt, general manager of GE’s solar and energy storage units, said: “The recent addition of lithium ion technology comple-

ments our Durathon battery offering and gives customers more flexibility in meeting their specific site application needs.”

That said, this January, GE cut production of its Durathon battery which used molten sodium at the core of its product. Press reports later suggested that some 400 workers were reassigned from its manufacturing plant Schenectady, New York leaving just 50 behind. ■

produced. The company is also building a production line. ■

Methode secures independent certification for UPS Active Energy Solutions, a division of Methode Electronics, received certification for its lithium-ion uninterruptible power supply from UL, an independent safety science company, in April.

The company said its AC6000, designed for use by data centres, is the first lithium-ion, high density UPS available at this power level. It also supplements the AC grid during peak energy consumption.

“UL certification is a key milestone as it verifies the quality and integrity of the product. The AC6000’s certifications prove this new lithium solution delivers a safe, proven and reliable solution over the life of the battery,” said Emilie Stone, general manager of Methode Electronics’ Active Energy Solutions. ■

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 15

NEWS

TNG partners with VRB battery manufacturer TNG, an Australian company exploring the development of what could be the largest vanadium resource in the world, signed a memorandum of understanding in early May with an unnamed vanadium redox-flow battery manufacturer.

TNG is investigating a number of sites in the Northern Territory and

Western Australia. Specifically, it owns the so-called Mount Peake VanadiumTitanium-Iron Project, located in the Arunta Geological Province close to Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Discovered by TNG in early 2008, the company has claimed that the Mount Peake Project could be one

of the largest vanadium deposits in the world.

TNG said that the memorandum includes vanadium off-take, installation of a vanadium redox-flow battery unit at the Mount Peake mine site, product development and marketing cooperation.

The installation of the VRB unit could potentially

Flow batteries Alps test could lead to bigger things says Imergy A recent project where two vanadium-based flow batteries installed to help store and manager power at a restaurant in the Slovenian Alps could become the catalyst for many more similar deals if success, according to Imergy Power Systems, the developer of the batteries.

The two ESP4 series vanadium-based flow batteries were installed at a restaurant called Trojane

by Metronik Energija. The project was sponsored by the Slovenian Utility Elektro

American Vanadium closes private placement American Vanadium raised C$211,000 ($175,000) from a private placement in late April. It said the money would be used to cover operating costs. On April 23, the company issued 3,014,285 units at the price of C$0.07 per unit for gross proceeds of C$211,000. In December it closed another private placement for C$890,000.

The proceeds, which will be used for general operating costs, will also help towards the sales of its CellCube vanadium flow energy storage systems.

American Vanadium is the master sales agent in North America for Gildemeisters’ CellCube vanadium flow battery. ■

Ljubljana and supported by the Business Support Center Kranj.

The project was part of the European AlpStore programme, with partners from seven countries tasked with developing a long-term energy storage strategy for the Alpine regions. It will be evaluated to establish how energy storage systems incorporating vanadiumbased flow batteries manage the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources.

The vanadium-based flow batteries will manage multiple applications, such as renewable energy system integration, peak demand

reduction, backup power and EV charging. Energy storage systems that can support multiple applications deliver a higher return on investment than systems only used for a single application.

But the potential is much greater. More projects could be funded by a €200 million German fund dedicated to encouraging energy storage,” an Imergy spokesperson said.

“There is no other battery technology that can cycle as often in a day, continuously, in an outdoor environment without temperature controls, and at such deep

slash the operation’s power costs and become a showcase project for the use of VRBs in remote areas.

It also offers the option of a strategic cooperation for vanadium product development and, subject to satisfactory discussions, TNG may enter into binding agreements to sell vanadium product from its plant. ■ cycles. With the Imergy Vanadium Flow battery you can take it all the way to zero, recharge it fast, take it all the way to zero, recharge it fast, and keep going that way. This particular environment needed three to four cycles per day.”

The company will also target many other sectors including commercial and industrial where, the company says, customers are seeking ways of managing the ever-increasing cost of that energy; utilities, where grid-scale energy storage is transforming the world’s electricity systems; telecoms; and residential, where customers can store electricity when rates are low, and use that electricity to reduce peak-usage charges. ■

ZBB breakthrough battery validated Energy management solutions developer ZBB Energy has received third party validation of its agile flow battery. The battery has been designed for behind the meter energy storage applications in the commercial and industrial building market.

According to ZBB, the battery allows a large amount of energy to be deployed from a relatively small footprint. “It is designed for the lowest lifecycle cost available for applications requiring more than two hours of discharged energy,” the firm said.

16 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

The commercial validation of the Agile Flow Battery by an independent third party was performed at a battery and grid power control products testing facility in Beijing, China. It followed a product development programme that began in July 2014 and utilised concurrent engineering, procurement, assembly and testing between ZBB Energy and Meineng Energy.

A number of performance parameters were measured and, according to ZBB, the battery met or exceeded performance targets.

“The Agile Flow Battery was designed for commercial and industrial building applications requiring two to eight hours of time, so excellent performance, reliability, repeatability and safety are a must,” said Brad Hansen, president and chief operating officer of ZBB Energy. “We went from start of design, to completion of first system assembly, in less than five months. This rapid time to first article completion allowed us to spend three months in round the clock testing of the product leading up to this third party validation test.” ■

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NEWS

Electrovaya completes acquisition of Evonik Litarion Electrovaya, a developer of lithium-ion super polymer batteries, completed its acquisition of Evonik Litarion in April in a deal that means it secures the licensing and intellectual property of Separion, a unique ceramic composite separator.

Electrovaya described the deal as a transformational move for it partly because it includes one of the most advanced and automated production plants for lithium-ion electrodes and ceramic composite separators in the world.

Separion is a ceramic

composite separator for ultra-safe lithium ion battery applications. The acquisition includes an exclusive licence to distribute as well as the ability to sub-license, form joint ventures, expand production within Germany, and establish additional plants in Asia and elsewhere.

Litarion owns numerous patents concerning chemical cell components for lithium ion batteries. The portfolio contains more than 70 protective rights.

Collectively, this portfolio of intellectual property and patents accompanies the

purchase of Litarion.

Sankar Das Gupta, CEO of Electrovaya, said: “Conventional manufacturing of lithium ion employs a toxic NMP (n-methyl-pyrrolidone) process, which is prohibitively expensive and energy intensive. Regulations are becoming more stringent in Japan, Europe and North America. Electrovaya’s unique non-toxic manufacturing technology will enable this best-inclass plant to become one of the lowest cost producers and one of the largest manufacturers globally. We are delighted to be working

with an exceptional team at Litarion.

“We also intend to make the ceramic composite separator available to all producers of lithium ion batteries and make it an industry standard. All lithium ion applications where safety is important such as energy storage, electric vehicles, aerospace and utilities, should, in our opinion, utilise this separator which gives vastly improved safety performance to lithium ion batteries and cells. Electrovaya’s proprietary green process provides low cost lithium ion batteries and this ceramic composite separator affords the highest safety, two critical challenges in the energy storage industry.” ■

Reliance Jio places €7m battery order with Saft High-tech battery manufacturer Saft received a €7 million order in April from Indian telecom operator Reliance Jio Infocomm to support the next phase of India’s 4G/LTE (long term evolution) roll-out programme.

Saft will supply its Evolion lithium-ion battery

systems to Reliance, building on past orders in 2013 and 2014, which amounted to €50 million.

The batteries have been rolled out in more than 16,000 4G/LTE base transceiver station sites across India, providing backup power in case of interruption of the main power

supply.

In addition, Saft is also providing a dedicated service for Reliance for life cycle support across the entire installed base. Deliveries are scheduled to take place during the second quarter of 2015.

Xavier Delacroix, general manager of Saft’s industrial

battery group, said: “Our backup battery systems play a key role in guaranteeing the reliability of telecom networks at all times, which is crucial to the successful expansion of 4G/LTE services.”

RJIL is currently the only Pan-Indian 4G/LTE operator. ■

ViZn supplies advanced flow battery to US college Randolph-Macon College, an arts and sciences college in Richmond, Virginia, installed an advanced flow battery system supplied by ViZn Energy Systems, a provider of energy storage for microgrid and utilityscale applications, to test utility integration with renewable generation in April.

Randolph-Macon College is working in partnership on a solar energy project with Dominion Resources, an East Coast utility provider and one of the largest producers and transporters of energy in the US. The Z20 redox flow battery uses a non-toxic, nonflammable and low cost zinc and iron chemistry.

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It has been designed with a water-based, two-phase flow system that consists of a zinc electrode and an iron redox counter electrode, a design that aids steady and safe operation.

“We are thrilled to work with Dominion and Randolph-Macon College to have our zinc-iron redox battery as one of the two battery technologies included in the project to

assess battery performance for both power and energy services,” said Ron Van Dell, president and CEO of ViZn Energy Systems. (See CEO interview earlier in this issue.) ■

SunEdison invests in vanadium for India Renewable energy development company SunEdison is set to purchase up to 1,000 vanadium flow batteries from Imergy Power Systems to bring electricity to villagers in rural India.

(See cover story for larger coverage of flow battery work in India.)

The vanadium flow batteries will be used to store

solar-generated electricity for SunEdison’s rural electrification and solar powered minigrid projects in India.

SunEdison will also increase its equity investment in the stationary energy storage solutions provider.

“Energy storage is the perfect complement to solar powered minigrids

because it enables us to provide dependable, 24/7 electricity,” said Ahmad Chatila, president and chief executive officer of SunEdison. “And Imergy’s technology is a great fit for rural electrification because their systems are high performance, low cost, ultradurable and need very little maintenance.” ■

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 17

NEWS

Younicos and Leclanché partner on Graciosa project Leclanché, the Swiss based battery manufacturing firm, is supplying an energy storage system for a project on the island of Graciosa in the Portuguese Azores.

The system is part of a project led by Younicos for Azorean utility EDA, which will enable the 4,500 inhabitants of Graciosa to use electricity that is mainly supplied by renewable sources on the island.

Leclanché will supply the 2.8MW battery energy storage system, which will be controlled by Younicos’ energy management software. “For the project

we have decided to use our lithium titanate batteries due to the timeline in which we have to realize the project. It is a wellestablished and proven technology,” says Joep Thomassen, vice president, distributed power generation, at Leclanché.

Leclanche announced in March that it has also developed lithium graphite batteries and these are going through the final stages of the release process for mass production.

An affiliate of Recharge, which is one of Leclanché’s largest shareholders,

will lend €3.5 million in convertible debt financing to the project’s company, Graciolica, which is a subsidiary of Younicos.

By stabilizing the grid without the rotating mass of a conventional thermal engine, the system will enable the grid to be fully powered by wind and solar photovoltaic energy.

The energy storage system will incorporate 4.5MW of wind capacity and 1MW of solar photovoltaics capacity as well as inverters. The renewable energy-powered island grid will boost the island’s

annual share of renewable energy generation, from a previous limit of 15% to as much as 65%, reducing the island’s dependence on fuel imports.

Leclanché’s battery energy storage system will be integrated into the intelligent energy management system developed

by Younicos. The system should start to go online by the end of 2015.

“Strategically speaking, this project, and Leclanché’s solution, starts to address the big unfulfilled promise of energy storage enabling greater integration of renewable energy sources that are intermittent,” says Joep Thomassen, VP distributed power generation at the company. ■

Aquion Enery declares Ideal Power PCS compatible Aquion Energy has validated Ideal Power’s patented transformerless power conversion systems (PCS) for compatibility with Aquion’s aqueous hybrid ion batteries (AHI).

Ideal Power’s PCS underwent testing and validation in Aquion Energy’s labs to verify the compatibility of the two companies’ products under typical operating conditions.

Ideal Power said that the results

demonstrated that its PCS is a good fit for Aquion Energy’s battery products, delivering exceptional efficiency and reliability.

AHI batteries are based around saltwater electrolyte battery technology. They are designed for storing solar energy for residential, off-grid and microgrid applications.

“After testing Ideal Power’s systems, we’ve determined that the perfor-

mance and flexibility of their PCS is a great match for our batteries,” said Ted Wiley, co-founder and vice president of product and corporate strategy at Aquion Energy.

Ryan O’Keefe, senior vice president of business development at Ideal Power, said that: “these batteries would prove to be a perfect match for our new microgrid-forming products.” ■

Drexel develops next gen lithium-sulphur component A new high performance cathode material for use in lithium-sulphur batteries has been developed by researchers from Drexel University and Aix-Marseille University in France.

Lithium-sulphur batteries have an energy density around four times higher than lithium-ion batteries used in mobile phones.

According to Drexel, one of the challenges for the

practical application of lithium-sulphur batteries is to find cathode materials that demonstrate longterm stability. The team has created a two-dimensional carbon/sulphur nan-

Boston-Power and Darfon team up for solar Lithium-ion battery maker Boston-Power and Darfon Electronics Corp, a precision components company and part of the BenQ Group, revealed at the end of April they had entered a three-year supply agreement to target the global residential solar storage market.

The companies have initially committed to sup-

plying 150 MWh of energy products. They will target the Australian and the UK residential markets with a 5kWh capacity product.

By using Boston-Power’s lithium-ion cell technology, Darfon is able to offer solutions, which will benefit both homeowners and installers, said the companies.

Rick Chamberlain, Boston-Power’s chief

18 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

technology officer, said: “Boston-Power’s development of long-life, highenergy density lithium-ion technology, combined with our commitment to expand high-volume production which leverages improving industry costs, enables us to deliver high-quality solutions with a clear value proposition for the residential storage market.” ■

olaminate that could be a viable candidate for use as a lithium-sulphur cathode.

The international research collaboration team was led by Drexel’s Yury Gogotsi, chair professor in the College of Engineering and director of its nanomaterials research group.

“The researchers say that carbon/sulphur nanolaminates have a covalent bonding between carbon and sulphur in an extremely uniform distribution of sulfur between the atomically thin carbon layers.

“This structure is key to their potential for being used as electrode materials for lithium-sulphur batteries,” said Drexel. ■

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NEWS

Cheaper batteries to boost energy storage tech revenues Global revenues from energy storage technologies will exceed $21 billion by 2024, compared with just $605 million in 2015 driven partly by the falling cost of the batteries used by such technology, a report

by Navigant Research estimates.

Although battery prices have fallen anywhere from

40% to 60% in the past 18 months driven by manufacturing innovations and volumes, energy storage systems still vary wildly in terms of price.

“Now that battery prices have responded to cost pressures, the associated technologies including energy storage enabling technologies (ESET) are

starting to follow suit,” said Anissa Dehamna, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. “Still, the ESET portion of the value chain will average more than the total system cost across all applications over the next 10 years.”

Navigant said that once this happens more transparency in the price of ESS

is expected, allowing the industry to grow further.

Some of the technologies associated with energy storage systems include power conversion (primarily focused on inverters), systemlevel software and controls, and systems integration services. “Forming a critical component of the energy storage value chain, these technologies face intensive scrutiny, as vendors come under pressure to deliver more consistent pricing,” said the report. ■

Sumitomo buys stake in Willey, orders Toshiba batteries Japanese firm Sumitomo Corporation has invested in a battery energy storage system for a power frequency regulation project in Hamilton, Ohio. The project should start in December.

Recently, through its US subsidiary Perennial Power, Sumitomo acquired an interest in Willey Battery Util-

ity from Renewable Energy Systems Americas (RES), part of the RES Group, the US renewable energy developer and constructor.

This is the first time Sumitomo has invested in a large-scale stand-alone battery storage facility in the US. Willey will own the battery power storage system,

which will be supplied by Toshiba in November 2015.

The system, which integrates an array of 6MW2MWh SCiB lithium-ion batteries, will start operations in December.

Toshiba said its battery is distinguished by its long-life and excellent performance; it charges and discharges efficiently in a wide range

of temperatures.

“It has a lifetime of over 10,000 charge-discharge cycles, and operates with a high level of reliability and safety, including high resistance to external shock. The SCiB has found numerous applications, such as the power source for electric and hybrid vehicles,” said the firm. ■

VCs invest $69m in battery companies in first quarter Venture capital investors put $69 million in battery and energy storage companies in the first quarter of 2015, a leap from the $47 million raised in the same period a year earlier, according to Mercom Capital Group, a clean energy consulting firm.

One of the biggest deals completed in the first quarter was by Boston Power, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage, which raised $20 million. Sakti3, a developer of solid-state rechargeable lithium-ion battery technology, also raised $20 million. Eos Energy Storage, a developer and manufacturer of zinc hybrid cathode energy storage solutions for electric utilities, raised $15 million.

TAS Energy, an energy storage solutions provider that combines turbine chilling with thermal

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energy storage tanks, raised $10 million. ZAF Energy Systems, a developer of nickel-zinc and zinc-air battery technologies, raised $2.2 million.

There was only one debt

and public market financing deal announced for the battery and storage sector in the quarter: $130 million, which was raised by Bloom Energy, a manufacturer of solid oxide fuel cell technol-

ogy products.

There were also five M&A transactions in the battery and storage category.

Only two disclosed funding amounts totalling $2.3 billion. ■

Umicore sued for lithium-ion patent infringement German chemical firm BASF has sued Umicore, a Belgian materials technology company, for infringing patents related to its lithium-ion batteries. They were filed with the US International Trade Commission and a Delaware district court in February.

The filing said Umicore is being sued for infringement of BASF’s patents related to the chemical compositions of cathode active materials used in lithium-ion batteries. It is also suing Makita, a company that imports and sells products that incor-

porate Umicore’s cathode active materials.

The case alleged that patent infringement was just one example of the unlawful conduct that Umicore has used to maintain its position as a primary supplier of cathode active materials in the industry — at the expense of BASF. “Thus, this case is about Umicore’s willful and knowing infringement of patents as well as the anticompetitive, tortious, and deceptive conduct Umicore has used for its benefit and BASF’s detri-

ment,” said the filing.

It also alleged that Umicore threatened a potential customer of BASF, which the chemical firm had been in negotiations with.

“According to the potential customer’s representative, after Umicore learned that the potential customer was considering BASF as a supplier of NCM materials, Umicore made clear that if the potential consumer bought NCM materials from BASF, they would face legal action, suggesting a threat of suit based on the 3M patents,” said the filing. ■

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 19

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

Flow batteries: the economic logic starts to stack up

At the Energy Storage show in Düsseldorf this March, the highest profile battery technology in the exhibition hall was not lithium ion — as one might expect based on its popularity as the go-to option for containerized storage systems for grid services.

It wasn’t the all-rounder lead acid battery either.

It was vanadium redox flow battery technology.

That said it’s still too early to claim that this is a chemistry that has hit its stride commercially.

However, more competitive technology, better production processes and economies of scale are starting to happen across this sector of the global energy storage industry. And that is what is needed to make these batteries competitive with other,

20 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

more prevalent, technologies.

Four years ago a price of $1000 per kW was reckoned to be about standard but subsequently fell to around $500 per kWh. Last November Imergy Power Systems announced that it was ready to push it below $300 per kWh. However, economies of scale may > page 22

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

“

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Redox flow batteries provide benefits that no other battery is able to. These are a lowest cost ability to store very large quantities of energy without having to install costly battery capacity … this is because it allows the user to add duration without having to add capacity. So one can have a one kilowatt one hour battery or a one kilowatt eight hour battery.

”

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 21

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

At the 100MW Beizhen wind farm in China, vanadium redox flow battery storage is being tested along with lithium ion energy storage systems to provide various grid functions and services

push the cost of materials further but because of their size, they may sometimes have to be custom-built on site.

Some companies are in the process of scaling up, while others are still at the pilot stage. But, projects are growing in number and there is a sense that the redox flow battery — a technology that has been understood for some time but not reckoned to be commercial — may finally have found its market in energy storage.

“Flow batteries are a very interesting technology because they can be easily made in the size and shape that we want,” says one developer. “Their electrical storage is limited only by the capacity of the tanks.

“But they have two things working against them. One is their size, and the other is energy density and efficiency, which is comparable to lead acid batteries and nowhere near as high as lithium ion. They are also more complex, requiring pumps, sensors, control units and secondary containment vessels.”

Too much wind

Cookie-cutter approach: To reduce the costs associated with assembling and installing its redox flow battery systems, Rongke has developed containerized systems

A COOPERATIVE INVESTMENT MODEL

Bürger Speichern Energie, a cooperative established along the lines of those that have been the main form of investor in the majority of Germany’s wind farms.

Bürger Speichern Energie, headquartered in Erfurt, is setting up a network of storage systems across Germany using Gildemeister’s CellCube redox flow battery storage systems. Citizens can become co-

22 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

owners in the cooperative by buying a share.

The amount the members invest is between €500 ($560) and €3000.

Projected dividends are steady, at about 5% a year. The storage systems owned by the cooperative do tasks such as shaving the peak loads of wind and solar farms and storing surplus electricity then selling it to the grid later for a decent price.

One promising area is the use of flow batteries with wind farms. As the installed base of wind power has grown, regional utilities and grid operators the world over are left scratching their heads over the same problem, of what to do when there is too much wind and the imbalance this causes the grid.

The approach so far is one of curtailment, which means when the turbines are spinning the grid operator does not send the power into the grid. The producer, in other words, is paid not to dispatch power.

If new wind and solar farms continue to be built curtailment makes less and less sense as a long term fix. It means that no matter how many more wind turbines are installed, the share of this type of renewable electricity in the generation mix remains limited. For some markets — take Ireland for example which wants to build enough wind capacity to supply 40% or more of electricity demand — other options are needed.

One alternative is to expand the grid network. More high-voltage transmission lines would be able to transport excess wind. But such projects can come at immense cost to the taxpayer and usually take years to complete.

With most major global economies still nowhere near back on their feet after the 2008 crisis, utilities are cashstrapped. The situation is similar in China where the economy continues to slow (even if the pace of growth ex-

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES ceeds most of the developed Western world.)

China has now beaten the US as the world’s largest wind market by installed capacity, proving, just as Germany has managed to do, that renewables can flourish under the right combination of regulations, policy and incentives.

At the end of 2014, China boasted an installed capacity of over 100GW. But while this might be more than that of the US, wind accounts for a smaller share of China’s electricity supply compared to the US. Curtailment rather than network investment has been the strategy for China when there is too much wind electricity and not enough demand.

Historically, most of China’s wind farms were built in the northern and western regions while the demand for electricity comes from the industrial zones and mega-cities mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Getting the electricity across the vast country, from remote wind farms, to where the demand is remains a challenge.

China’s National Energy Administration says that, in 2012 and 2013 wind curtailment rates were 17%. But these rates have been reduced thanks to several billion dollars spent by China’s State Grid and other utilities on building long distance power lines.

However as China strives to hit future wind targets — including 200GW by the next decade — more costly transmission lines have to be approved by the state grid. At least five are in the works, running into billions of dollars each.

So, is there an alternative? To help the Chinese power sector exploit more wind generated electricity, reducing curtailment and help ensure more of China’s electricity comes from renewable resources energy storage systems using vanadium redox flow batteries look promising.

Where flow batteries fit Vanadium redox flow batteries have specific attributes that make them suitable for such a task. They work best as a long-duration storage tank, banking excess wind power and feeding it into the grid, smoothing and firming the supply, up to a few hours later.

“In other words they enable wind farms to act like base load generation,” says Lars Möllenhoff, managing director of Cellstrom, an Austrian subsidiary of energy storage developer Gildemeister. Cellstrom has developed and

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INDIA GOES OFFGRID, TELECOMS

In March Imergy announced a deal where it is to supply 1,000 of its vanadium flow battery systems for rural electrification and solar microgrid projects that SunEdison is developing in India.

SunEdison is positioning itself as a global renewable energy developer.

The company’s main business is solar PV, however its expansion into wind and also energy storage completes the portfolio.

Although SunEdison is technology agnostic it is an equity investor in several companies, one of which is Imergy and it recently bought smallscale solar and storage developer Solar Grid Storage.

The solar storage systems will be rolled out over about four years, with the first one recently completed in February in Rajasthan. By the end of 2015, Imergy will expect to ship over 100 of its battery systems for the project.

Imergy has already supplied its batteries in India, for a small number of evaluation projects and pilots where the batteries are used to provide power for mobile cell towers, instead of lead acid. Some have been running for two years.

But the market is competitive.

Even though the total cost of ownership is reduced with Imergy’s batteries, converting companies to flow batteries is challenging because the technology is newer and companies feel comfortable with lead acid.

Imergy is also looking at cell tower opportunities in Africa where the

Special chemistry: Imergy is supplying 1000 of its vanadium redox flow batteries to SunEdison as part of a project to roll out these batteries with solar as the basis of microgrids to provide rural communities in India with electricity

market has good growth prospects.

In India many of the batteries will be installed with cell towers, which will provide local communities with electricity, initially for lighting at night and also cell phone charging. In most cases for each project with SunEdison, Imergy will supply its battery systems in 15kW-20kW sizes, providing about eight to 10 hours of storage.

Many of the projects will be in Rajasthan. Omnigrid Micropower Company (OMC) is the local partner on the ground installing the projects.

Financing models will match the budgets and spending patterns the villages already use to buy fuel for lighting and cooking in the form of kerosene, with each village paying a central station to top its lighting and electricity.

The idea is that as the communities gain wealth, due to having access to electricity, in future more batteries can be added to meet demand for additional appliances and even electric bikes.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 23

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES FLOW BATTERIES GO NUCLEAR

“Energy storage systems using vanadium redox flow batteries enable wind farms to act like base load generation” — Lars Möllenhoff, Cellstrom Perhaps not economical but interesting all the same. The properties of Vanadium in a (atomic number 23) redox flow battery show that other periodic table elements have the potential to give higher charge-discharge performance.

One of the more interesting is the uranium redox flow battery which works on the basis of the quite unique feature that the single element possesses two redox couples with identical structures (UO2+/UO22+, U3+/ U4+).

Uranium satisfies the necessary condition for the active material for the redox flow battery — the two battery reactions are reversible.

Since the energy efficiency of charge-discharge cycles depends on the reversibility of the battery reactions, the uranium battery is expected to be of higher chargedischarge performance at a large current density even compared with the existing vanadium redox flow battery.

A battery containing uranium (atomic number 92) requires an aprotic system [one where hydrogen bonds cannot be donated] because of the disproportionation reaction of u(v) observed in protic media.

The battery is also effective to reuse the massive amount of depleted and recovered uranium.

24 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

“Our electrochemical investigation of uranium b-diketones, which show relatively high solubilities in aprotic solvents, reveals that (i) the large emf (>1v) is expected and (ii) their electrode reactions involve ligand dissociation reactions,” says a paper by the International Research Center for Nuclear Materials Science which is part of Tohoku University in Japan.

“Since the latter feature prevents the high energy efficiency of the battery, the development of new active materials without the ligand dissociation are now underway,” says the report.

A new uranium complex, prepared for preventing the ligand dissociation, shows a simple electrode reactions for both positive and negative electrodes in a single solvent. the research centre paper says further experiments including charge and discharge of the battery are planned by using the active materials.

Neptunium too Neptunium (atomic number 93) battery has already been already tested at Tohoku university in an aqueous system where neptunium also possesses two reversible redox couples like uranium.

In the small scale experiments the reduction of emf is smaller than the vanadium cell and thus the higher energy efficiency is expected.

commercialized containerized energy storage systems using vanadium redox flow chemistry.

This type of requirement is very different to using batteries for discharging power to meet grid signals for frequency control, for instance.

Rongke Power, headquartered in the seaport city of Dalian, was set up in 2008 by Dalian Bolong Holding Group and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dalian Bolong Holding is an investor and strategic partner in several companies worldwide that are involved in commercializing vanadium redox flow technology and energy storage systems based on these batteries. They include UniEnergy Technologies (UET) in Washington, Vanadis Power in Nuremburg, Germany and Bolong New Materials, which supplies the chemicals for making electrolytes.

Over the past seven years Rongke Power has been producing vanadium redox flow battery stacks and energy storage systems based on these kinds of batteries.

Initial projects using the company’s batteries have been for smaller applications. These include several off-grid buildings, remote and microgrid projects as well as for solar photovoltaics integration. Customers include Ningxia Electric Power, Chinese wind turbine maker and project developer Goldwind as well as research institutes.

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES More recent projects are proving how Rongke’s batteries are compatible with wind power generation. Rongke is trying to estimate the potential market size for flow battery-based energy storage to address wind curtailment in China. It could be in the hundreds of MW and MWh range.

If this seems a lot, in 2011 wind curtailments in China prevented over 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from reaching the grid. But the timeline of market ramp-up is harder to estimate since it depends on political decisions about investments. These projects could end up being rolled out over many years to come.

In 2013 the company installed its flow batteries at a wind farm owned

by Longyuan Group, the largest wind power producer in China and also the rest of the Asia-Pacific. Rongke shared results of the project during the Energy Storage show in Düsseldorf.

“Ireland is a promising market since it is targeting one of the highest penetrations of wind energy in a grid anywhere in Europe” — Andreas Luczak, Vanadis Power

Increasing wind farm capacity Co-locating flow batteries increases the generating capacity of Longyuan’s 50MW Woniushi wind farm in Liaoning, a province bordering North Korea.

It is the first demonstration of a vanadium redox flow battery with a wind farm in China. At 5MW/10MWh Woniushi is the largest operational vanadium redox flow energy storage installation, not just in China, but worldwide.

According to Rongke’s sales director John Zhang the 5MW/10MWh flow battery storage system has continuously operated with a stable output and timely responses, since it began operations in May 2013.

In 2012, before the battery was installed, Woniushi wind farm supplied about 71.5 million kWh of electricity to the grid. In 2013, with the battery, this amount increased to about 97.5 million kWh, translating to more than 500 hours more of effective generation time. The priority application has been to improve power quality for market trading — smoothing and firming.

Storing wind, instead of curtailment, is also a key advantage.

As well as Woniushi, Rongke has installed its redox flow systems at two other wind farms for output smoothing, power output optimization and to address curtailment.

One is 3MW/6MWh. The other is a 2MW/4MWh system installed at the 100MW Beizhen wind farm in Jinzhou City at the end of 2014.

In this project the flow battery is used with a 5MW/10MWh lithium ion battery. The hybrid energy storage system

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Something in the shed: Bosch has installed a hybrid energy system, harnessing two types of batteries: redox flow and lithium ion to provide a local community with wind power, stabilize the grid as well as other applications

Tanked up: Inside the Braderup energy storage installation, the tanks of electrolytes for the vanadium redox flow batteries supplied by Vanadis and Rongke can be seen

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 25

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES will be used for providing ancillary services in future. Both technologies will be tested side by side in terms of how they deliver all of these functions and services. Vanadis Power — Rongke’s strategic partner — has supplied a similar project in Braderup, northern Germany.

Since September 2014 a 0.3MWh/1MWh flow battery has been operating as part of a hybrid energy storage system, which also includes

lithium ion batteries, to provide several functions and services. These include frequency regulation, storage of excess energy for loads of local homes by the wind farm, energy trading and also grid stabilization.

Germany’s windswept north is where most of the country’s installed wind power capacity is to be found, while most of the demand is further south.

For Germany to maximize its use of installed wind power capacity while

HYBRID FLOW BATTERIES Similar to a conventional battery, the hybrid flow battery (where the electro-active component is deposited as a solid layer) is limited in energy to the amount of solid material that can be accommodated within the reactor.

In practical terms this means that the discharge time of a redox flow battery at full power can be varied, as required, from several minutes to many days, whereas a hybrid flow battery may be typically varied from several minutes to a few hours.

Types include: zinc bromide, zinccerium and lead acid flow.

Zinc-bromine is a type of redox flow battery that uses zinc and bromine in solution to store energy as charged ions in tanks of electrolytes. As in vanadium redox systems, the Zn/Br battery is charged and discharged in

a reversible process as the electrolytes are pumped through a reactor vessel. In the early stages of field deployment and demonstration, these batteries are still developmentally immature.

While field experience is currently limited, vendors claim estimated lifetimes of 20 years, long cycle lives, and operational AC-to-AC efficiencies of approximately 65% to 70%.

Still in laboratory R&D stages, zincair batteries represent another next generation technology that offers high potential for higher energy densities and lower costs than even Li-ion. Zinc-air shares the same path to scale as lithium — with initial application in portable electronics, where cost is barely an issue.

Volume production may bring costs down.

avoiding upsetting the grid, the alternative options to curtailment are investing in new transmission lines and grid network infrastructure or using more batteries.

The Braderup project means network investments can be delayed.

Reducing costs More recently Rongke’s efforts have focused on reducing the costs associated with its vanadium redox flow batteries and energy storage systems based on the experience of the projects that it has executed so far.

A second generation flow battery energy storage system developed the by company is containerized, to shorten onsite works and lower labour costs as most of the assembly can be done in the factory rather than onsite. The containerized system can be transported in one go rather than as separate components.

Andreas Luczak, managing director of Rongke’s sister company Vanadis Power says other areas are being addressed too: “We are working on reducing the cost for expensive materials required for the stack production, such as the membranes. In addition, we are further optimizing the design of the stacks to get more power out of them.

Finally, we are constantly optimizing the design of the balance-of-plant, which is about 30% of the total costs.”

In 2016 Rongke will expand stack production at its factory in China from 50MW to 300MW. These will supply

LIFETIME EXPECTATIONS

The lifespan of flow-type batteries is not strongly affected by cycling.

Their energy density is low — about 40Wh per kilogram — though recent research indicates that a modified electrolyte solution can produce a 70% improvement in energy density.

Suppliers of vanadium redox systems estimate that the lifespan of the cell stacks to be 15 or more years, while the balance of plant and electrolyte can have life-times of

26 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

over 25 years.

System suppliers report achieving cycling capability of 10,000 or more cycles at 100% depth of discharge.

The physical scale of vanadium redox systems tends to be large due to the large volumes of electrolyte required when sized for megawatthour utility-scale projects.

Types include: vanadium redox flow, polysulfide bromide, uranium redox flow.

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES global as well as domestic demand.

“Obviously economies of scale with higher production volumes will also bring down the cost similar to that what we have seen happen in the PV industry,” he says.

The company’s containerized second generation system, which incorporates full integration of stacks, electrolyte, balance-of-plant, battery management and support systems comes in two sizes, 60kW/400kWh and 125kW/650kWh. For large-scale longer duration applications, such as those for wind farms, Rongke has also developed a MWclass containerized energy storage system, which has been installed at the Beizhen wind farm. The system can be supplied with the electrolyte tanks on the outside.

“This is because with bigger tanks it is often more economic to use standard tanks outside of the power containers and they are more flexible to size the capacity exactly according to customer needs,” says Luczak. Vanadis Power’s sister company UET also recently launched a 500kWh fully containerized system.

With 60kW and 125kW systems the company is targeting microgrids, the commercial and industrial market and also off-grid demand. The 60kW system will be launched in Europe by mid-2015, coinciding with installation for a specific project in Germany.

“The application is the optimization of decentralized electricity generation by an industrial customer (increase of

INCREDIBLE HULKS Spend time around people who work in the energy storage industry and an often repeated phrase can be heard. There is no one single electrochemical storage technology.

It is a case of horses for courses, as the saying goes.

Depending on what the system will be used for, as well as other factors, indicates what type of battery and size of battery will be needed for the asset to carry out its various tasks most cost-effectively over the system’s expected lifetime.

A promising weapon in the energy storage industry’s armoury of battery hardware is vanadium redox flow chemistry. The technology is particularly useful for longduration storage requirements. It complements wind as well as solar, storing surplus amounts of excess energy for bridging the gap to feed into the grid several hours later when there is demand.

Here are some of the technology’s benefits for energy storage: autarchy) and for providing grid support for the distribution grid operator,” says Luczak. The 125kW system is also available for similar applications.

In Germany Vanadis is not the only company that has commercialized vanadium redox flow batteries. Gildemeister has supplied a number of

• The electrochemical reaction takes place at normal pressure and temperatures. The battery is nonflammable • Independently rated energy and power capacity. This means better scalability and flexibility •Batteries can be cycled for up to 20 years and can be discharged up to 100% without degradation that occurs in other types of batteries • Real-time monitoring of the state of charge of flow batteries with active thermal management is possible • Flow battery electrolytes are recyclable, whereas lithium ion batteries are not. This makes the long-term economics more favourable • Flow battery benefits and value streams are stackable. For example a single installation can provide renewables Integration, ancillary services and other market revenue services, T&D system capacity and reliability support and isolated loads. customers in Germany and also the Benelux.

Gildemeister is also supplying a wind farm project in northern Germany, which will be operational in September. Möllenhoff sees potential for the technology to be installed with every wind farm in future in Germany.

Moody but magnificent: EnerFlow 320 is a modular type small size VRFB(5kW/20kWh) with power stack, eletrolyte, BMS and PCS fully integrated into a single enclosure for simple installation. Here installed in a pilot project in Sejong province in South Korea.

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Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 27

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES Such a vision is a long way off and requires the technology to be more competitive. “It already is getting there.

The more aggressive end of pricing for lithium ion batteries predicts about €200/kWh. Prices for vanadium redox flow batteries are already around €350/kWh,” says Möllenhoff.

Unlike lithium ion batteries, which require expensive high-tech production tools and lines, the tanks of electrolytes

A 60+ YEAR LEARNING CURVE Mid-20th century First redox flow technology patented in Germany The 1970s NASA investigates flow batteries.

This is followed by research in Japan, by the Electro-Technical Laboratory The 1980s R&D proliferates. In the mid-1980s Maria Skyllas-Kazacos and coworkers at the University of New South Wales develop and patent the first true vanadium redox flow battery in its modern form (using sulphuric acid electrolytes in each half) and follow up with the demonstration of the first operational vanadium redox flow battery. Other proof-of-concept systems follow

that are the heart of a vanadium redox flow battery are not so cost-intensive to make. “At the system level, that is where the focus needs to be on reducing costs. We have a plan over the next four to five years to reduce our system costs by over 50%,” he says.

Newer players The flow battery market unfolding in Germany is attracting other industrial players too. As part of a microgrid project on Fraunhofer ICT’s campus a flow battery is being built and should be running by 2016.

The main thrust of the project is to investigate the feasibility of an industrial-scale flow battery as well as suitable applications. Schmalz, a supplier of automation technology and handling tools, is working on the stack design, developed by Fraunhofer ICT, and will build a production line.

Schmid Group, a German equipment manufacturer specializing in wet process systems for industries including photovoltaics, is building a production line for making redox flow batteries and energy storage systems.

The company expects to start manufacturing in 2016. Schmid is mainly targeting resident opportunities where the batteries can be installed to enable the customer to use more of their selfgenerated solar photovoltaic electricity.

Germany has the biggest installed capacity of photovoltaic systems of any country in Europe.

Schmid has been testing one of its flow battery systems, at a residen-

tial home in Germany, since January 2014 in a joint project with local utility Stadtwerken Freudenstadt. The 24kW/120kWh system saves surplus electricity produced by a diesel generator on site, enabling savings.

While Germany is obviously showing demand for the technology, Luczak says: “Ireland is a promising market since it is targeting one of the highest penetrations of wind energy in a grid anywhere in Europe.”

US developments But outside of China, in the shorter term it is the US market that is moving along more quickly. “This is due partly to the 1.3GW storage mandate in California.

The most important application in the state is grid support especially for the afternoon when in the future there will be a very steep ramp of generation demand increase with solar generation going down and electricity demand going up in the afternoon, known as the duck curve,” says Luczak.

But he also sees other opportunities elsewhere in the US. “States like New York are also targeting black start capabilities potentially required during hurricanes.”

Since 2014 UET has supplied four flow battery systems in the US together totalling 16MWh. The largest of these, which is 2MW/8MWh, is installed at a utility substation for providing grid support. Other installations are at industrial manufacturing sites for providing peak shaving and load shifting.

The 1990s Many of the IP rights from early research are transferred to industrial companies

ESS Performance Planed capacity

The 2000s Pilot projects, such as microgrids with vanadium redox flow batteries, start to be built worldwide, especially from 2008 onwards, driven by increased uptake in renewables The 2010s Focus switches to reducing costs of the technology and on mass manufacturing of vanadium redox flow batteries The future As costs come down and more renewables are installed flow batteries will become more prominent both in grid-tied as well as off-grid markets

28 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Real capacity

ESS operation start

At 2013, the generating capacity of WONIUSHI wind farm is much larger than that of 2012, with 97.435 million kWhs of 2013 and 71.569 million kWhs of 2012, about 500h+ extra effective generation time 1.

Priority market trade(improved power quality)

2.

Wind storing while curtailment condition

The chart (on the right) shows how the battery installation at Woniushi wind farm in China has increased the generating capacity of the wind farm. This is because more power can be sent to the grid, as opposed to curtailed, prior to the battery being installed

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

The cost of EU grid integration Growing amounts of renewables — wind and solar — have exacerbated the need for investment in expanding the grid network all over Europe.

In some countries the situation is more serious than others. In Sweden, for example, where wind accounts for about 8% of the country’s electricity generation supply, new wind power projects have been put on hold.

This is partly because the country lacks the infrastructure to transport surplus wind energy from where the majority of wind farms are built to capture the resource in its abundance, to places where the demand is. Building new transmission lines is seen as one of the main options to overcome this bottleneck.

Interconnectors are transmission cables for supplying electricity from one region or country to another.

One country might be experiencing an oversupply of wind power but with an interconnector it could send the surplus to its neighbours.

The European Commission wants to have many more of these crossborder transmission cables linking up the various 28 member states, effectively pooling Europe’s electricity supply. To achieve this a new EU target sets out that all member states must achieve interconnection of at least 10% of their installed electricity production capacity by 2020.

While an admirable big-picture approach, the cost of dissolving Europe’s electricity borders by crisscrossing the continent with more long

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The cost of dissolving Europe’s electricity borders by criss-crossing the continent with more long distance power lines is expected to be in the region of €40 billion conservatively. Think how many storage systems that could buy with plenty of change left over. distance power lines is expected to be in the region of €40 billion ($44 billion) conservatively.

Think how many storage systems that could be bought — with plenty of change left over — which could expand the capacities of grids and, if planned well, provide a raft of ancillary services and benefits too.

An example of how expensive, as well as contentious, investments in new transmission lines can be is hap-

pening between France and Spain.

The two countries already share an interconnector. France, heavily reliant on nuclear power-supplied electric heating, imports excess power from Spain in the winter and exports fairly cheap nuclear energy to Spain at other times.

After a number of years of backand-forthing, the French and Spanish power grid operators have recently completed a second power line that will allow Spain to export some of its excess electricity generated from wind and solar to France rather than resort to building more thermal power stations to cover demand.

When it goes live in June, the cable, which crosses the Pyrenees mountains, where the two countries border, will double French-Spanish interconnection capacity to just under 3GW. But to keep the Pyrenees unmarred by unsightly pylons the new DC interconnector, 65km in total, has had to be buried, at a cost of €700 million.

It’s an extreme case but goes to show that preparing and constructing miles of transmission cables can be an extravagantly expensive way to integrate more renewables into the grid.

Europe does need new interconnectors to help accommodate more wind and solar being built across the continent. But it raises the question of whether there should be a case made for an EU-wide policy that views energy storage as part of the bigger picture also. ■

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COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

“Redox flow batteries provide benefits that no other battery is able to. These are a lowest cost ability to store very large quantities of energy without having to install costly battery capacity” — Jack Stark, Imergy UET produces large-scale energy storage systems for utility, micro-grid, commercial and industrial customers. Its premises near Seattle include a 67,000 sq ft factory which is being scaled up to produce 100MW annually.

As well as a strategic partnership with Rongke Power to manufacture stacks, Rongke’s partner Bolong New Materials supplies UET with chemicals to make its electrolytes.

While they are not as compact as lithium ion batteries or able to release power as rapidly, flow batteries make sense where there is the need to release power over several hours. The sweet spot for flow batteries is in the range of four to six or even eight hours. This is what is making them interesting for a wide range of applications and markets.

The mining industry, for example would be able to make good use of this type of profile, where a flow battery can store power generated by some on-site solar panels and then inject this into the mining operation’s own microgrid power supply, helping to reduce heavy reliance on diesel power.

Californian company Imergy, which supplies vanadium redox flow batteries and storage systems, is targeting offgrid and related applications in fields such as mining. The company’s recently launched 250kW system — a scalable containerized offering — was developed with large off-grid and microgrid uses in mind as well as for grid-tied utility markets.

“Redox flow batteries provide benefits that no other battery is able to.

These are a lowest cost ability to store very large quantities of energy without

30 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

having to install costly battery capacity,” says Imergy’s chief financial officer Jack Stark.

“This is because it allows the user to add duration without having to add capacity. So one can have a one kilowatt one hour battery or a one kilowatt eight hour battery.”

Unlike lithium ion and lead acid batteries flow batteries can be charged and then discharged to a level of 100% many times over. Most other battery technologies become damaged if discharged more than 50%-60%.

One potential downside levelled at redox flow batteries is their size and weight compared with other batteries, dues to the big tanks of electrolytes, making them harder to transport. But Stark counters this. “Wherever there is a road, you can transport redox flow batteries and because of their size and weight they can are hard to steal, which can be an issue with other battery technologies, especially in remote locations.”

DC microgrids In the US, Imergy has also been chosen to partner with Bosch to provide its flow batteries for a $2.8 million DC renewables microgrid demonstration project funded by the California Energy Commission.

Bosch’s microgrid platform enables buildings to use DC electronics and loads, such as lighting powered directly by on-site solar photovoltaic electricity generation, also DC augmented by Imergy’s batteries and ultracapacitors from Maxwell Technologies, which also produce electricity as direct current.

The project will demonstrate the feasi-

bility and benefits of a commercial-scale DC building grid that integrates various advanced technologies to provide reliable power to the loads on the DC grid, resilience during grid outages, increased energy efficiencies and high renewable energy use.

Once the project is installed and commissioned, performance data will be collected to validate cost savings in electricity, gains in energy efficiency, which should occur as the power does not need to be converted back and forth and the various capabilities of the microgrid’s energy management system.

In the project the redox flow batteries will provide long duration and high power, whereas competing technologies are able to support high power and short duration. The Bosch microgrid will need long duration power, eight to 10 hours but also quick power.

Imergy’s flow batteries are cost significantly less to produce because the company has developed a proprietary formulation that yields batteries with twice the density of other technologies. The company has also developed a method that allows it to reuse waste vanadium as the material does not need to have a 99.9% purity like other vanadium chemistries.

These combined mean the company’s batteries use substantially less vanadium, so reducing the cost of the batteries.

The batteries are also able to perform well in temperature extremes without the need for air cooling or warming equipment. Results from the batteries in India are showing good performance even in conditions above 40°C. The company’s latest series — 250kW modules — are part of Imergy’s aim to supply modules for large grid scale projects.

Its portfolio is now complete, spanning small, for cell masts, medium, for commercial and industrial and also batteries for multi-MW projects. The company is in talks to supply projects of up to 10MW in size, which would use multiple 250kW units strung together to work as one large bank.

Imergy is also going after grid storage projects in the US and also Europe, competing with gas turbines and demand or load management in places such as Germany.

“There is no single incumbent battery or storage technology we are claiming to replace. It depends on application and location. In India and cell masts it is lead acid, but in the industrialized grids of the US and western Europe, it could be gas turbines or demand side management,” says Stark. ■

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SOLARUNITED

One voice The need for one unifying solar photovoltaic group is arguably becoming more important, as the industry prepares to make the transition from niche renewables technology to a mainstream source of electricity generation in more markets worldwide.

New business models are emerging — such as solar and storage — and some big technology players have now entered the industry, including Solarcity, Tesla and Google.

Save the date!

This is creating new challenges for the solar industry, such as an increasing focus on quality.

Intersolar Europe, Munich In addition, the tapering off of subsidies also SOLARUNITED members will be meeting at the places the industry under greater pressure to Intersolar Europe Conference and Exhibition! Date: June 11. Time: 9am–11:00am. Meeting place: Messe deliver solar projects at a competitive cost and München GmbH, Room 12A first floor of the ICM, this is making itself felt along the entire value Messegelände, 81823 München, Germany. Stay chain — from BOS component suppliers, to tuned for more information! ■ inverter makers as well as solar cell and module producers.

EUPVSEC

“It’s a question of being in a position both to lead and consolidate the entire solar value chain for the years ahead.”

However, a challenge for the global solar industry has been to unify many industry associations representing its various factions and segments.

These include regional and national solar and renewables associations, as well as various technology-focused groups, resulting which is making it difficult for the solar industry to organize a single, cohesive international business platform, something that the wind industry, for instance, has managed to achieve through its own Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

At the board meeting, it was decided that SOLARUNITED would temporarily host national and regional associations seeking to develop its own global council, following GWEC’s example.

Bryan Ekus SOLARUNITED Executive director www.energystoragejournal.com

Solar PV Production Technology Forum — 2015 SOLARUNITED is pleased to announce that is organizing again the Solar PV Production Technology Forum that will be held as a co-located event during EUPVSEC exposition, September 15-17 in Hamburg, Germany. The forum will feature presentations on production technologies including PV production market, silicon and thin film production, and will be led by industry experts from manufacturers and suppliers of PV fabrication, equipment and related raw materials. ■

WFES 2015 WFES panel discussion at Solar & Energy Storage Forum The Solar GCC Alliance, Saudi Arabia Solar Industry Association (SASIA), SOLARUNITED, and the Energy Storage Journal organized a successful panel discussion on January 19 during the first day of the WFES 2015. The Energy Storage Supply Chain Forum session was broadcast by Solar.PV.TV. The Energy Storage Supply Chain Forum consisted of a half-day, intensive conference program. Sessions tackled a competitive solar energy model; the developing GCC (Cooperation Council for the Arab nations of the Gulf); replacement strategies for GCC; building integrated PV applications; project development; and project financing. ■

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2015 • 31

Linking the Solar Power Generation and Energy Storage Technology Value Chain Are you ready to be connected?

www.solar-united.org

SOLARUNITED MEMBER NEWS

Manz receives order for pilot system for laser welding lithium ion batteries Manz AG, the high-tech equipment manufacturer, said in March it had received a strategically important order from one of the leading companies of the e-mobility industry in the US. The order is for a pilot system in which an innovative laser welding process will be used for the manufacture of lithium-ion battery systems.

With the help of this procedure, the quality and performance of the batteries can be further increased at reduced production costs. While the

order volume for this system is only in the six-figure range, Manz says its sees outstanding opportunities for significant follow-up orders in the coming years once the new process has been successfully qualified for series production.

Alongside the increase in the performance parameters of lithium-ion battery systems, the sustained lowering of their production costs, in particular, will be critical for the success of e-mobility.

With the newly developed process for

the electrical connection of the individual battery cells into a battery system through laser welding, Manz AG is driving this development forward.

Dieter Manz, founder of Manz, says: “This trailblazing order opens up immense opportunities for us in the e-mobility industry and, in addition, documents our outstanding growth potential in the battery segment. Currently, the growth momentum is essentially coming from the Consumer Electronics segment.” ■

Meyer Burger Technology appoints Kipfer as new COO and board member

fiscal year. The company accordingly is anticipating an increase in revenues and earnings again in the current year.

Specifically, Manz is expecting revenues between €320 million and €340 million for the current 2015 fiscal year with clearly positive earnings before interest and tax, known as EBIT. Of the orders around €40 million are in Manz’s business segment known as Battery.

MB PERC process. The mass production capability of the MB PERC technology on the MAiA system platform is industrially proven with the continued market demand for the technology further underlining the industry-leading position of the MAiA 2.1 system platform,” says Meyer Burger.

Meyer Burger Technology announced at the end of March that Thomas Kipfer would take over as the new chief operating officer and member of the executive board from October 1. “This is a strategically important position for the leadership, direction and organization of the overall global operational processes and performance,” the firm said.

“Kipfer has proven international experience in an industrial environment, and has previously worked for a number of years for the globally active Franke Holding (Water Systems Division and Kitchen Systems Division) as a chief operating officer.”

New orders underscore the positive prospects for Manz in 2015 First quarter growth for Manz, the high tech engineering firm, should result in a strong 2015 says the firm with revenues set to come in around the low €300 millions. “Since the beginning of the year, we have received orders with a total volume of more than €75 million,” says Dieter Manz, the firm’s founder. “These orders for the most part will begin impacting revenues and earnings from the second quarter onwards. Accordingly we are expecting significant growth beginning with the second quarter of 2015 following a rather sound first quarter.

“At the same time, the special depreciations taken in the previous fiscal year have a positive effect on the operating result in the current 2015

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Meyer Burger selected as technology partner by SolarWorld Meyer Burgerhas been selected as a leading technology partner by SolarWorld which has placed an order with a value in the upper single-digit million Swiss francs range.

SolarWorld, a European manufacturer of high tech solar power products, has chosen Meyer Burger’s MAiA 2.1 equipment platform with the mass production scalable MB PERC technology to upgrade and expand its production of high quality solar cells.

“During the in-depth testing and evaluation phase, Meyer Burger’s high efficiency upgrade technology delivered top performance to substantially increase the manufacturing output of existing cell production lines,” Meyer Burger said in March.

“Delivery and commissioning of the upgrade equipment will be completed by late 2015.

The total annual capacity of the advanced MB PERC upgrade technology is about 400 MW. “The MB PERC upgrade cell technology is deployed on the MAiA 2.1 system platform. This platform is the key equipment for cell coating within the

Singulus CEO Stefan Rinck appointed conference general chairman of EU PVSEC The 31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition — better known as EU PVSEC 2015 — taking place between September 14-18 at the Hamburg Conference Centre will be chaired by Stefan Rinck, chief executive officer of Singulus Technologies. Rinck is also a member of the main executive board of the German Engineering Association (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau — VDMA) and chairman of the Committee for Research and Innovation of the VDMA. The five-day conference is complemented by the three-day exhibition, held from September 15-17.

Rinck was chosen by the International Scientific Advisory Committee which is part of EU PVSEC. Rinck said: “In Europe the good news is that we’ve now already passed the 88GW the member states originally committed to do by 2020. So the question is how much more can we bring into the system, looking not just at 2020 but beyond to 2030. R&D has a big role to play in this and we expect many presentations during the EU PVSEC 2015 addressing the science and technology developments needed to further increase the competiveness.” ■

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2015 • 33

ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS Energy storage lets island and other types of remote grids use more wind and solar, lowering electricity costs, while building a better understanding of the technology’s role within mainland grids

Reaping the benefits of replacing diesel generation with renewables The frozen wastes of the Arctic and the sun drenched archipelagos of the Pacific have one thing in common. The need for power. And, for communities in remote places with no or limited grid connection, diesel power generation has been the only — and expensive — way to produce electricity.

According to Reiner Lemoine, a Berlin-based non-profit renewables research institute, diesel power units for providing primary power, situated over 100km from any form of transmission grid, can be found on almost every continent and on many islands.

These range from under a megawatt in size up to 250MW. However, most

34 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

are between 2.5MW to 45MW and are to be found mainly in eastern Africa, Chile, Peru, the Caribbean, Alaska, south-east Asia and western and central Australia.

In 2012 the annual market for new generators for continuous services was 20GW and is predicted to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 21% until 2017.

A sizeable portion of this market can be converted to solar photovoltaics. However, securing financing for these types of off-grid projects can be difficult. Often, investors lack the upfront capital to invest outright.

OneShore, which was set up two

years ago by founders who had spent many years in the solar industry, works with local, mainly private, investors to convert part of their existing diesel generation capacity to solar photovoltaics. The company’s focus is in east Africa, where its potential customers are businesses and communities in tourism, agriculture and industry.

OneShore’s transparent approach to customer load measurement and system design enables its clients to finance the system over the long term and benefit by paying less for electricity at a fixed rate, usually in the form of power purchase agreements.

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ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS The company has produced data that shows how integrating solar into a diesel generation operation can reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The LCOE takes into account all costs associated with building a power plant, including construction and installation as well as operational expenditure such as fuel and maintenance.

OneShore also shows how greater LCOE savings are possible when batteries are also integrated into the hybrid microgrid, optimizing the share of solar-generated electricity. This can be attractive once investors and financiers feel comfortable with providing financing for storage systems in remote locations.

OneShore is adapting modelling methods commonplace in the solar industry to help de-risk investments in hybridizing diesel generation into microgrids using solar and, potentially, energy storage.

In collaboration with GIZ, the German development agency, and VDE the German Association of Electrical Engineers which has established many relevant standards around the world, OneShore has co-developed an application guide. This allows investors and their developer partners for off-grid projects to validate input data used to simulate PV-diesel and also energy storage projects. (See case study box.)

What is clear is that over the operational lifetime of a hybrid microgrid using diesel-solar-storage significant savings on the cost of electricity are possible, even when considering the downward trend in oil pricing. While this has had an impact on the cost of diesel, this is not as much as one might think.

Crude oil is only part of the pricing picture. For remote communities, hundreds of kilometres from a mainland grid, once factors such as transportation costs are taken into account it all adds up.

OneShore is adapting modelling methods commonplace in the solar industry to help de-risk investments in hybridizing diesel generation into microgrids using solar and, potentially, energy storage.

Storage keeps the grid stable OneShore’s analysis shows the introduction of renewable resources into an island or remote grid reliant on diesel quickly creates savings on electricity. However there is a limit to how much renewables an island grid

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can absorb with before the intermittent nature of solar or wind starts to destabilize the grid.

Integrating energy storage has a critical part to play in increasing the renewables quotient in a remote grid application otherwise excess power is not sent to the grid.

The opportunity is attracting some established players from the battery industry.

Paris-headquartered Saft is one of these. The company has supplied its energy storage systems to remote and island grid projects in several regions and countries, including Hawaii, Spain and Bolivia, and has more projects in the pipeline, including a remote community in the Arctic Circle and an island off the coast of Japan.

Saft’s lithium ion batteries, based on technology commercialized for over 15 years, are mainly used in the systems.

Last year the company led a consortium to develop a 9MW solar farm and a 4.5MW/9MWh energy storage plant on La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Saft was awarded the contract by renewables developer Akuo Energy. Partners included Ingeteam, a Spanish supplier of power electronics and energy management systems. Co-

rex Solar built the solar farm and the energy storage facility.

“While renewable energy represents about 30% of the island’s electricity, any further increase of solar power in La Réunion’s energy mix, without smoothing or curtailment, affects grid stability. The battery supports the integration of more solar,” says Michael Lippert, business development manager, energy storage systems, at Saft.

As solar has become more competitive against the price of diesel, remote areas are using more solar to reduce diesel.

But it is not a case of simply just coupling both together.

“If you have, say, a 10MW diesel generation capacity then you can complement 50% of this with solar PV, or 5MW. But in this case solar only accounts for about 20% of the generation supply, because of the intermittent character of solar generation and the fact that the generator has to run at night,” L:ippert says.

When storage is added solar penetration is increased. “In our case, a 10MW diesel generation capacity can accommodate 10MW or more of solar PV. The storage system isn’t only storing energy for use when the sun sets but also provides other criti-

Island grids can be viewed as microcosms of mainland grids. Knowledge gathered from them can be useful and relevant to prepare for the coming years when increasing amounts of renewables demand more flexible approaches to keeping those big extensive mainland grids in balance.

Comparision between fuel savings and energy storage Fuel save concept

Energy storage concept

Energy consumption

450,936kWh/a

450,936kWh/a

Solar installation size

100kWp

180kWp

Solar energy contribution

150,605kWh

269,191kwh/a

Solar energy share

33%

60%

Solar excess energy

11%

9%

Generator runtime

8,760hrs/a

5,324hrs/a

Battery size

n/a

100kWh/200kWh

Overall investment cost

€240,000

€700,000

Annual savings

€91,991

€162,337

Payback in years

2.6

4.3

LCOE (diesel only: $0.60/kWh) $0.40/kWh

$0.24/kWh

Remote solar and energy storage projects developer OneShore shows LCOE savings of a solar-diesel (fuel save concept) and a solar-diesel-storage microgrid, compared with diesel-only systems.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 35

ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS Tiny Ventotene: a potential model for the huge island microgrid market

EU island grids: a still-untapped market opportunity In the coastal waters around EU member states, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, there are hundreds of islands, offering a huge market to the still small island grid market. The reason is simple: most of their electricity supply is generated from oil, which must be shipped in.

As many of these islands are reliant on one type of economy – tourism – their electricity demand fluctuates with the peaks and the lows of the tourist season.

One such island is Ventotene, part of the small Pontine archipelago, lying off the coast between Rome and Naples. Just a few kilometres long, Ventotene has about 750 residents, which swells to several thousand in the summer months.

Siemens is supplying Italian utility Enel Group with a 0.3MW/0.6MWh lithium ion battery storage system.

The installation should be operational in the summer.

The energy storage system will allow the inhabitants of Ventotene to reduce fuel consumption and lower the risk of blackouts, while also increasing the security of supply and energy efficiency, as well as integrat-

36 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

ing renewable energy into the local electricity grid.

The battery system is installed next to the generators and will store electricity for use when there are peaks in demand. The system has several functions.

• Modulating generators, to stabilize the entire distribution system • Makes electricity supply more secure; • Limits the island’s annual fossil fuel consumption by 25% • Cuts greenhouse gases emissions • Integrates already operational renewable energy power plants, so that the island’s inhabitants can install new ones without unbalancing the network Philip Hiersemenzel, at energy storage system integrator Younicos, sees many opportunities for such is-

lands throughout Europe. He sees the Greek islands as just one sort of example. They have plenty of natural resources and are heavily reliant on shipping in fuel for electricity, especially for peak tourism periods. With some renewables installed and a battery their reliance on fossil fuels can be significantly reduced.

“Storage systems provide many other benefits too and they do not have to be that big in terms of capacity to achieve these,” he says.

Endesa, Spain’s largest utility in which Enel holds a stake, has also invested in energy storage for the Canary islands, as part of the Store project, which also received funding from the Spanish government.

The project includes a 1MW/3MWh lithium ion energy storage system supplied by Saft, installed on Gran Canaria used to test its capabilities to offer ancillary services in the same way as a conventional generation unit, to manage demand, provide inertia and active power to the system, regulate voltage and play a role in secondary voltage regulation. ■

The energy storage system will allow the inhabitants of Ventotene to reduce fuel consumption and lower the risk of blackouts, while also increasing the security of supply and energy efficiency, as well as integrating renewable energy into the local electricity grid. www.energystoragejournal.com

ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS cal functions, such as smoothing the intermittency of solar and stabilizing the grid which allows to run the diesel at a stable, optimum power rate and even to shut off of the diesel generator for periods of time,” says Lippert.

In South America, Saft has supplied its lithium ion battery systems for a hybrid solar and diesel microgrid project, which became operational at the end of 2014.

Pando is in the remote tropical northern part of Bolivia in the Amazonian rain forest, on the border of Brazil and also Peru. It is not connected to the country’s national grid, so electricity coverage is 65%, with the 37GWh of demand met exclusively by diesel generation.

Like other parts of central and South America, Bolivia has a high degree of solar irradiation.

Isotron, part of Spain’s Isastur Group, built a hybrid power plant that uses both solar photovoltaics and diesel generation and includes an energy storage system from Saft. Germany’s SMA provided the power conversion equipment.

The 2MW of battery capacity supplied by Saft enables the diesel-solarstorage plant to meet around half the energy demand in the Pando department’s capital city of Cobija and neighbouring towns, equal to a total peak load of around 9MW. With a total output of 21MW, the hybrid plant increases the overall production of electricity in the Pando department, bringing it in line with the rest of Bolivia, which has electricity coverage of 80%.

Saft in Japan its supplying its energy storage system for a remote island microgrid project run by Takaoka Toko Company, a subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on the island of NiiJima in the Philippine Sea. Niijima, south-east of Tokyo, takes over two hours to reach by jet boat.

The microgrid will also include diesel generators, solar panels and wind power turbines. The 520 kWh/1MW battery will operate in combination with Takaoka-Toko’s intelligent control systems that enable large amounts of wind and other renewables to be integrated into diesel powered grids, ensuring system stability and smooth control of the gen-sets.

The project will see how the energy storage system performs tasks such as ramping and frequency smoothing.

Saft has been developing energy storage technology and systems for a number of years but it was in 2012

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“The profile of wind generation is very demanding on battery energy storage systems, unlike photovoltaics which tends to be relatively simpler. Our system can accommodate two different load profiles simultaneously” — Anil Srivastava, Leclanché when the company started commercializing its containerized lithium ion energy storage system.

The company has shipped and installed about 70 containers worldwide. While a number of installations are connected to mainland grids in Europe and North America, the company has supplied several island or remote grids.

Lippert says such projects are a significant part of the company’s energy storage pipeline at present.

Partnerships Leclanché, another well established European battery firm, is also drawn

to island and remote grid projects.

The company is partnering with Younicos, a Berlin-based start-up that provides intelligent software controls that interface between energy storage systems and grids. Its customers are mainly utilities, small and large.

The company’s core focus is software development and integration so Younicos works with some big, established global suppliers of batteries and other hardware, including Samsung and now Leclanché.

The Swiss battery maker is building a battery energy storage system, based on its lithium titanate chemistry, for a microgrid project on the island of

Solar at the top of the world: Northwest Territories Power Corporation has revamped the Colville Lake power station with what could be one of the most northerly microgrids in the world. The installation includes solar photovoltaics and an energy storage system integrated with diesel generation to create a hybrid microgrid that will deliver cleaner, more reliable and less expensive power to Colville Lake’s 150 residents living 50 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 37

June 02-04, 2015, Beijing, China www.escexpo.cn

ENERGY STORAGE CHINA 2015 Energy Storage China 2015, supervised by the National Energy Administration (China) and organized by China Energy Storage Alliance and Messe Düsseldorf (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, will be held from June 2-4 in Beijing, China. Its theme is: “Driving Energy Storage Commercialization: Policy Interpretation, Technology Application and Financial Innovation”. It is the top networking event synchronizing energy storage business in China with a global reach.

Over 700 top industry experts from over 10 countries worldwide will be present at Energy Storage China 2015, with talks from over 60 speakers in highly attractive sessions, including an opening ceremony and a plenary meeting, 2 parallel sub forums and 5 focused seminars. Conference participants can also visit the Zhangbei Renewable Energy Demonstration Project (Second Phase) or Beijing Yanqing New Energy Demonstration Base and Energy Storage Project

after the conference on June 5, taking a closer look at the latest project progress and technology applications.

Energy Storage China 2015 will focus on the integration of energy storage applications, projects and solutions in decentralized power supply systems, centralized renewable integration, financial innovation and business models, smart grid, micro-grid and off-grid, and e- mobility. We synchronize the world energy storage business in China!

SESSION CHAIRS / MODERATORS / KEYNOTES ENERGY STORAGE CHINA

Mr. Li Ye

Mr. Shi Dinghuan

Mr. Xu Dingming

Mr. Zhou Xiaoxin

Mr. Wang Zhongying

Prof. Dr. Eicke R. Weber

Chairman, China Renewable Energy Society & Counselor of the State Council

Counselor of the State Council

General Engineer, China Electric Power Research Institute & China Academy of Sciences

Director, Center for Renewable Energy Development, Energy Research Institute, National Development and Reform Commission

President, German Energy Storage Association (BVES); Director, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE)

Mr. Kane Thornton

Mr. Thomas J. Timmins

Mr. Wang Sicheng

Dr. Liang Hao,

Mr. Dong Yang

Mr. Chen Haisheng

Mr. Lai Xiaokang

Board Member of the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA)

Senior Researcher, Energy Research Institute, NDRC

Vice Chairman, Society of Automotive Engineers of China

Mr. Wang Zidong

Chief Executive, Clean Energy Council

Associate Professor, CSTC of Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development

Director, Power Battery Laboratory of China North Vehicle Research Institute & Director, National 863 Electric Vehicle Key Power Battery Testing Center

Director, Energy Storage Research Center, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Director, Electrical Engineering and New Material Department, China Electric Power Research Institute (CEPRI)

Chief Economist, National Energy Administration

Mr. Johnson Yu Chairman, China Energy Storage Alliance

Dr. Rahul Walawalkar Founder & Executive Director, India Energy Storage Alliance

June 02-04, 2015, Beijing, China www.escexpo.cn

THE ENERGY STORAGE MARKET IN CHINA Since 2009, the global electric energy storage market has been growing rapidly as has the technology surrounding its capture and storage.

According to the China Energy Storage Alliance, the compound annual growth rate of global cumulative installed capacity from 2000 to 2014 has reached 135%. Moreover, the growth of China’s energy storage market in 2014 has been yet higher than the global market, over 50%!

From power generation and distribution to consumption, business opportunities are constantly emerging in the energy storage market in China, with technological innovation to be found in each part of the value chain.

Multiple policies have been introduced to gear up the energy storage market by the Chinese government, including the “National Energy Development Strategy 2014-2020”, “The 12th Five-year Plan on Renewable Energy”, “New Electric Power System Reform”, “National New Urbanization Development Plan”, “Guide for the Pilot Project Construction of Low Carbon Communities”, “Policy Support of the Development of New Energy Vehicles”, as well SPONSORS ENERGY STORAGE CHINA

as the upcoming “Micro-grid Electricity Price and Subsidy Scheme”, etc.

These policies will boost the short, mid and long term development of energy storage and provide outstanding opportunities for industrial development.

So how to analyze the next steps to take these given policies? How to reform energy storage technology in China’s power market? How can investors identify the investment value of energy storage projects? The answers to these questions will come from policy makers from the State Council, National Energy Administration, Ministry of Science and Technology, National

Development and Reform Committee, and Ministry of Housing and UrbanRural Development at Energy Storage China 2015.

2000-2014 Cumulative Installed Capacity Ratio of Energy Storage Technology

ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS “While renewable energy represents about 30% of the island’s electricity, any further increase of solar power in La Réunion’s energy mix, without smoothing or curtailment affects grid stability. The battery supports the integration of more solar” — Michael Lippert, Saft

Graciosa, in the Azores, an archipelago about 1500km from the coast of Portugal.

The Azorean utility Electricidade dos Açores (EDA) has wanted to make renewables the main source of electricity for Graciosa, harnessing a

40 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

4.5MW wind farm and a 1MW solar farm to increase the share of renewables to 65%. This would allow the island to save the diesel generators only for when the weather gets really bad.

Without energy storage renewables penetration would remain at less than 20%, even if the wind and solar capacity was increased.

The battery energy storage system developed by Leclanché can integrate wind and solar photovoltaics. “The profile of wind generation is very demanding on battery energy storage systems, unlike photovoltaics which

tends to be relatively simpler. Our system can accommodate two different load profiles simultaneously,” says Anil Srivastava, chief executive of Leclanché.

Other island projects that Younicos has supplied include a 3MW storage system on Kodiak off the southern coast of Alaska to improve grid stability as local utility KEC expanded its wind farm. The storage system allows the island to use more wind-generated electricity at the expense of diesel, without making the grid unstable.

Younicos has also installed a 3MW

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ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS “One example of island grids providing learning curves for mainland grids is that you do not need long duration…It is about counteracting the intermittency and even small batteries can do that well — Philip Hiersemenzel, Younicos storage system to firm solar on Kauai one of the largest islands in the Hawaiian archipelago and provides frequency response for Kaua’i’s 70MW grid.

The company has further island projects in the pipeline. One of these will be used to replace thermal generation capacity on another island in the Atlantic, but can be used to integrate renewables should the island decide to build wind or solar capacity in future.

Just as Saft is seeing, such projects are a substantial part of Younicos’ business at present, about 50%.

Philip Hiersemenzel, spokesman for Younicos, says: “Our experience from these projects has told us that the storage capacity can be relatively small to enable significant reductions in diesel consumption on an island. As well as storing energy, the system can be used to provide grid services, instead of using the gen-set for these.

“The main ones are for providing grid stability and enhance the grid’s resilience. Frequency regulation, or control, voltage control, black-start capability, short circuit power, functions such as these and more, all of which are required for a mainland grid installation, can all be condensed into an island system.”

Sayonara nuclear: The volcanic island of Niijima, in the Philippine Sea, two and a half hours by jet boat from the mainland has been chosen for a five year experimental project that will simulate the Japanese grid in 2030, when wind and solar will account for at

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Learning curve As such, island grids can be viewed as microcosms of mainland grids, knowledge gathered from doing them can be useful and relevant to prepare for the coming years when increasing amounts of renewables demand more flexible approaches to keeping those big extensive mainland grids in balance.

“In 2020-2030, the challenge will be how we manage the residual load, which is the load minus renewable generation. Demand side management addresses some of this issue, but on the generation side storage is going to be key for providing flexibility, but systems will also need to perform many different functions such as grid ancillary services,” says Lippert.

Niijima island has about three thousand inhabitants. It has been chosen as the perfect miniature model of Japan in anticipation of the grid in 2030.

Having embarked on a programme to close down its nuclear plants after Fukushima, the Japanese government is pushing ahead with a goal to generate 13.5% of Japan’s electricity from renewables by 2020, rising to 20% by 2030.

Running for five years, the Niijima project will highlight the technical

least 20% of the electricity mix as Japan scales back on nuclear and fossil fuel power generation.

On the island, solar, wind, diesel and a 1MWh lithium ion battery system, provided by Saft, will provide the 3000 residents with electricity. The different sources

challenges that need addressing when renewable energies – especially wind generation – are fed into the grid and will see how tools such as energy storage can alleviate some of these challenges.

Hiersemenzel says: “One example of island grids providing learning curves for mainland grids is that you do not need long duration. Day does not need to be pushed into night.

“Nightfall is predictable so thermal generation can be programmed to cover it. It is about counteracting the intermittency and even small batteries can do that well.”

In the short to mid-term, remote grids are not only a lucrative opportunity for companies supplying or integrating energy storage systems they are providing valuable lessons for the future. ■

will be managed and operated by an intelligent control system developed by local utility TakaokaToko, ensuring system stability and smooth control of the gen-sets and renewable sources. The batteries will perform tasks such as ramping and frequency smoothing.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 41

BATTERY BASICS In the first of a series Isidor Buchmann, founder and CEO of Cadex and creator of the online Battery University explains some of the fundamentals behind the choice of lithium as a battery chemistry.

Essential lithium Lithium is the lightest of all metals, has the greatest electrochemical potential and provides the largest specific energy per weight.

It was not until the early 1970s that the first non-rechargeable lithium batteries became commercially available.

Attempts to develop rechargeable lithium batteries followed in the 1980s but the endeavour failed because of instabilities in the metallic lithium used as anode material.

Rechargeable batteries with lithium metal on the anode (negative electrodes) can provide extraordinarily high energy densities, however, cycling produces unwanted dendrites on the anode that can penetrate the separator and cause an electrical short. The cell temperature then rises quickly and approaches the melting point of lithium, causing thermal runaway, also known as “venting with flame”.

The inherent instability of lithium metal, especially during charging, shifted research to a non-metallic solution using lithium ions. Although lower in specific energy than lithiummetal, Li-ion is safe, provided cell manufacturers and battery packers follow safety measures in keeping voltage and currents to secure levels.

In 1991, Sony commercialized the first Li-ion battery, and today this chemistry has become the most promising and fastest growing on the mar-

ket. Meanwhile, research continues to develop a safe metallic lithium battery in the hope to make it safe.

In 1994, it cost more than $10 to manufacture Li-ion in the 18650 cylindrical cell delivering a capacity of 1,100mAh. In 2001, the price dropped to $2 and the capacity rose to 1,900mAh. Today, high energy-dense 18650 cells deliver over 3,000mAh and the costs have dropped further.

Cost reductions, the increase in specific energy and the absence of toxic materials have paved the road to make Li-ion the universally acceptable battery for portable applications, first in the consumer industry and now increasingly also in heavy industry, including electric powertrains for vehicles.

In 2009, roughly 38% of all batteries by revenue were Li ion. Li-ion is a low-maintenance battery, an advantage many other chemistries cannot claim. The battery has no memory and does not need exercising to keep in shape.

Self-discharge is less than half com-

pared to nickel-based systems. This makes Li ion well suited for fuel gauge applications. The nominal cell voltage of 3.6V can power cell phones and digital cameras directly, offering simplifications and cost reductions over multi-cell designs. The drawback has been the high price, but this is levelling out, especially in the consumer market.

Types of Lithium-ion batteries Li ion batteries come in many varieties but all have one thing in common — the catchword “lithium-ion.”

Although strikingly similar at first glance, these batteries vary in performance, and it’s mostly the cathode material that gives then their unique personality.

Table 1 gives six of the most common lithium-ion batteries with examples of typical uses. Their full chemical names and colloquial short names are also given.

To learn more about the unique characters and limitations of the six

Never was the competition to find an ideal battery more intense than it is today. Manufacturers see huge potential for automotive propulsion systems, as well as stationary and grid storage applications, also known as load levelling.

Table 1: Summary of names given to Li-ion batteries. The article will use the short form when appropriate. * Cathode material

** Anode material

Chemical name

Material

Abbreviation

Short form

Applications

Lithium cobalt oxide* Also Lithium Cobalate or lithium-ion-cobalt)

LiCoO2 (60% Co)

LCO

Li-cobalt

Cell phone laptop, camera

Lithium manganese oxide* Also Lithium Manganate or lithium-ion-manganese

LiMn2O4

LMO

Li-manganese, or spinel

Lithium iron phosphate*

LiFePO4

LFP

Li-phosphate

Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide* also lithium-manganese-cobalt-oxide

LiNiMnCoO2 (10–20% Co)

NMC

NMC

Lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide*

LiNiCoAlO2 (10–20% Co)

NCA

NCA

Lithium titanate**

Li4Ti5O12

LTO

Li-titanate

42 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Power tools, e-bikes, EV, medical, hobbyist.

Gaining importance in electric powertrain and grid storage

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ENERGY STORAGE INDIA

EXPO AND CONFERENCE

08 – 09 December, 2015 India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

05

ENERGY STORAGE INDIA 2015

700+

16+

70+

35+

30+

30+

Industry Experts

Countries

Speakers

Exhibitors

Media Partners

Supporting Partners

ESI 2015 will be the perfect platform to showcase innovative and commercially available solutions as various segments start exploring commercial deployments. ESI 2015 will also bring all the key decision makers and

policy makers involved in renewable, smart grid and rural electrification area to the table and demonstrate the advances in technology that needs to be supported by policy changes for accelerated deployment in India.

WHY INDIA, WHY NOW? VISITOR PROFILE 2014

India is poised for rapid adoption of energy storage and microgrid technologies in the coming decade. Energy storage technologies are gaining recognition as the key enabler for key priorities for Indian policy makers such as smart cities, renewable integration and energy access. Government of India has announced series of initiatives in past 6 months that have a direct impact on opportunities for this sector.

20% Other

17% CEO / Managing Director

8% Vice President / Senior Director

THESE INCLUDE: Ţ Enhancing the target for National Solar Mission from 20 GW to 100 GW Ţ Accelerating wind energy adoption to 10 GW / year Ţ Plans to supply electricity 24/7 to all parts of India in five years Ţ Launch of Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) for rural electrification Ţ Plan to build 100 Smart Cities and over 1000 microgrids Ţ Creation of National Standing Committee on Energy Storage and Hybrid systems by Ministry of new and Renewable Energy To support all these initiatives MNRE is currently working on developing policy framework and is expected to launch a “National Energy Storage Mission” later this year. Focus of these initiatives is not only on accelerating adoption of the energy storage and microgrid technologies, but also to attract investments in India, to develop a global manufacturing hub for advanced storage and microgrid solutions. “Make in India” campaign of Indian Government has introduced series of incentives that are resulting in interest from global leaders on setting up or expanding existing manufacturing in India through partnerships with Indian Industry.

6% Entrepreneur / Owner

21% Director 28% Manager / Scientist

SECTOR PARTICIPATION 2014 9% Government Authorities & Associations 6%

23%

Instituitions / Energy Consultancy / Research & Teaching / Press

Manufacturers of Energy Storage & Energy Consumers

16% Manufacturers of Plants for the Production Of Renewable Energy

36% Energy Generation and Supply / Services

10% Manufacturers of Accessories & Components

BATTERY BASICS lithium-ion families, it is helpful to examine the batteries in the form of spider charts. We begin with Li-cobalt, the most common variety used in cellular phones and laptops. We then move to Li-manganese and Li-phosphate, batteries deployed in power tools, and finally address the newer players such as NME, NCA and Li-titanate.

Figure 4: Li-manganese structure The cathode crystalline formation of lithium manganese oxide has a threedimensional framework structure that appears after initial formation. Spinel provides low resistance but has a more moderate specific energy than cobalt.

Lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) Li-cobalt is the most popular consumer battery. Its high specific energy provides satisfactory runtime for cell phones, laptops and digital cameras.

The battery consists of a cobalt oxide cathode and a graphite carbon anode.

The cathode has a layered structure and during discharge lithium ions move from the anode to the cathode. The flow reverses on charge. The drawback of Li-cobalt is a relatively short life span and limited load capabilities (specific power).

Figure 2 illustrates the structure.

Figure 2: Li-cobalt structure The cathode has a layered structure. During discharge the lithium ions move from the anode to the cathode; on charge the flow is from cathode to anode.

Li-cobalt cannot be charged and discharged at a current higher than its rating. This means that an 18650 cell with 2,400mAh can only be charged and discharged at 2,400mA. Forcing a fast charge or applying a load higher than 2,400mA causes overheating and undue stress.

For optimal fast charge, the manufacturer recommends a C-rate of 0.8C or 1920mA. The mandatory battery protection circuit limits the charge and discharge rate to a safe level of about 1C. Figure 3 summarizes the performance of Li-cobalt in terms of specific energy, or capacity; specific power, or the ability to deliver high current; safety; performance at hot and cold temperatures; life span reflecting cycle life and longevity; and cost. The hexagonal spider web provides a quick and easy performance analysis of the battery characteristics.

44 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Figure 3: Snapshot of an average Li-cobalt battery Li-cobalt excels on high specific energy but offers only moderate specific power, safety and life span.

Lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4) Lithium insertion in manganese spinels was first published in the Materials Research Bulletin in 1983. In 1996, Moli Energy commercialized a Li-ion cell with lithium manganese oxide as a cathode material.

The architecture forms a threedimensional spinel structure that improves ion flow on the electrode, which results in lower internal resistance and improves current handling.

A further advantage of spinel is high thermal stability and enhanced safety, but the cycle and calendar life is limited.

Low internal cell resistance is key to fast charging and high-current discharging. In an 18650 package, Li-manganese can be discharged at currents of 20A–30A with moderate heat buildup. It is also possible to apply one-second load pulses of up to 50A. A continuous high load at this current would cause heat buildup and the cell temperature cannot exceed 80°C (176°F). Li-manganese is used for power tools, medical instruments, as well as hybrid and electric vehicles.

Figure 4 shows the crystalline formation of the cathode in a threedimensional framework. This spinel structure, which is usually composed of diamond shapes connected into a lattice, appears after initial formation.

Li-manganese has a capacity that is roughly one-third lower compared to Li-cobalt but the battery still offers about 50% more energy than nickel-based chemistries. Design flexibility allows engineers to maximize the battery for either optimal longevity (life span), maximum load current (specific power) or high capacity (specific energy).

For example, the long-life version in the 18650 cell has a moderate capacity of 1,100mAh; the high-capacity version is 1,500mAh but has a reduced service life. Laptop manufacturers would likely choose the high-capacity version for maximum runtime; whereas the maker of cars with the electric powertrain would take the long-life version with high specific power and sacrifice on runtime.

Figure 5 shows the spider web of a typical Li-manganese battery. In this chart, all characteristics shown appear marginal, however, newer designs have improved in terms of specific power, safety and life span.

Figure 5: A typical Li-manganese battery Although moderate in overall performance, newer designs of Li-manganese offer improvements in specific power, safety and life span.

Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) In 1996, the University of Texas (and other contributors) discovered phosphate as cathode material for rechargeable lithium batteries. Liphosphate offers good electrochemical performance with low resistance.

This is made possible with nano-scale

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BATTERY BASICS

The secret of NMC lies in combining nickel and manganese. Nickel is known for its high specific energy but low stability; manganese has the benefit of forming a spinel structure to achieve very low internal resistance but offers a low specific energy. Combining the metals brings out the best in each. phosphate cathode material.

The key benefits are enhanced safety, good thermal stability, tolerant to abuse, high current rating and long cycle life. Storing a fully charged battery has minimal impact on the life span. As trade-off, the lower voltage of 3.3V/cell reduces the specific energy to slightly less than Li-manganese. In addition, cold temperature reduces performance, and elevated storage temperature shortens the service life (better than lead acid, NiCd or NiMH). Li-phosphate has a higher self-discharge than other Li-ion batteries, which can cause balancing issues with aging.

Figure 6 summarizes the attributes of Li-phosphate.

go to 4,000mAh; however, the specific power and the cycle life may be compromised.

The secret of NMC lies in combining nickel and manganese. An analogy of this is table salt in which the main ingredients of sodium and chloride are toxic on their own but mixing them serves as seasoning salt and food preserver.

Nickel is known for its high specific energy but low stability; manganese has the benefit of forming a spinel structure to achieve very low internal resistance but offers a low specific energy. Combining the metals brings out the best in each.

NMC is the battery of choice for power tools and powertrains for vehicles.

The cathode combination of onethird nickel, one-third manganese and one-third cobalt offers a unique blend that also lowers raw material cost due to reduced cobalt content. Striking the right balance is important and manufacturers keep their recipes a well guarded secret.

Figure 7 demonstrates the characteristics of the NMC.

Figure 6: Snapshot of a typical Liphosphate battery Li-phosphate has excellent safety and long life span but moderate specific energy and elevated self-discharge.

Courtesy of BCG research

cific power, as well as a long life span, get the attention of the automotive industry. Less flattering are safety and cost.

Figure 8 demonstrates the strong points against areas for further development.

Figure 8: Snapshot of NCA High energy and power densities, as well as good life span, make the NCA a candidate for EV powertrains. High cost and marginal safety are negatives.

Lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12) Batteries with lithium titanate anodes have been known since the 1980s. Lititanate replaces the graphite in the anode of a typical lithium-ion battery and the material forms into a spinel structure. Li-titanate has a nominal cell voltage of 2.40V, can be fastcharged and delivers a high discharge current of 10C, or 10 times the rated capacity.

The cycle count is said to be higher than that of a regular Li-ion; the battery is safe, has excellent low-temperature discharge characteristics and obtains a capacity of 80% at -30°C (-22°F). At 65Wh/kg, the specific energy is low. Li-titanate charges to 2.80V/ cell, and the end of discharge is 1.80V/ cell.

Figure 9 illustrates the characteristics of the Li-titanate battery.

Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) Leading battery manufacturers focus on a cathode combination of nickelmanganese-cobalt (NMC). Similar to Li-manganese, these systems can also be tailored to high specific energy or high specific power, but not both.

For example, NMC in an 18650 cell for consumer use can be tweaked to 2,250mAh, but the specific power is moderate. NMC in the same cell optimized for high specific power has a capacity of only 1,500mAh. A silicon-based anode will be able to

46 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Figure 7: Snapshot of NMC NMC has good overall performance and excels on specific energy. This battery is the preferred candidate for the electric vehicle.

Lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (LiNiCoAlO2) The lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide battery, or NCA, is less commonly used in the consumer market, however high specific energy and spe-

Figure 9: Snapshot of Li-titanate Li-titanate excels in safety, low-temper-

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BATTERY BASICS ature performance and life span. Efforts are being made to improve the specific energy and lower cost.

Cross-chemistry comparisons

Figure 10: Typical energy densities of lead, nickel- and lithium-based batteries

Figure 10 compares the specific energy of lead, nickel- and lithiumbased systems. While Li-cobalt is the clear winner by being able to store more capacity than other systems, this only applies to specific energy.

In terms of load characteristics and thermal stability, Li-manganese and Li-phosphate are superior.

As we move towards electric powertrains, safety and cycle life will become more important than capacity.

IN FOCUS: THE LITHIUM ION CATHODE Similar to the lead- and nickelbased architecture, lithiumion uses a cathode (positive electrode), an anode (negative electrode) and electrolyte as conductor. The cathode is a metal oxide and the anode consists of porous carbon.

During discharge, the ions flow from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte and separator; charge reverses the direction and the ions flow from the cathode to the anode.

Figure 11 illustrates the process.

When the cell charges and discharges, ions shuttle between cathode (positive electrode) and anode (negative electrode). On discharge, the anode undergoes oxidation, or loss of electrons, and the cathode sees a reduction, or a gain of electrons.

Charge reverses the movement.

All materials in a battery possess a theoretical specific energy, and the key to high capacity and superior power delivery lies primarily in the cathode. For the last 10 years or so, the cathode has characterized the Li-ion battery.

Sony’s original lithium-ion battery used coke as the anode (coal product), and since 1997 most Li ion batteries use graphite to attain a flatter discharge curve.

Developments also occur on the anode and several additives are being tried, including siliconbased alloys. Silicon achieves a 20% to 30% increase in specific energy at the cost of lower load currents and reduced cycle life.

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Nano-structured lithium-titanate as anode additive shows a promising cycle life, good load capabilities, excellent lowtemperature performance and superior safety, but the specific energy is low.

Mixing cathode and anode material allows manufacturers to strengthen its intrinsic qualities; however, enhancing one attribute may compromise another. Battery makers can, for example, optimize the specific energy (capacity) to achieve extended runtime, increase the specific power for improved current loading, extend service life for better longevity, and enhance safety to endure environmental stresses.

But there are drawbacks. A higher capacity reduces the current loading; optimizing current loading lowers the specific energy; and ruggedizing

a cell for long life and improved safety increases battery size and adds to cost due to a thicker separator. The separator is said to be the most expensive part of a battery.

Table 2 (next page) summarizes the characteristics of Li-ion with different cathode materials. The table limits the chemistries to the four most commonly used lithium-ion systems and applies the short form to describe them. NMC stands for nickelmanganese-cobalt, a chemistry that is relatively new and can be tailored for high capacity or high current loading.

Lithium-ion-polymer is not mentioned as this is not a unique chemistry and only differs in construction. Li-polymer can be made in various chemistries and the most widely used format is Li-cobalt.

Figure 11: Ion flow in lithium-ion battery

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 47

BATTERY BASICS Never was the competition to find an ideal battery more intense than it is today. Manufacturers see huge potential for automotive propulsion systems, as well as stationary and grid storage applications, also known as load leveling. At time of writing, the

battery industry speculates that the Li-manganese or NMC might be the winners for the electric powertrain.

The long-term suitability of batteries for automotive use is still unknown.

A clear assessment of the cycle life, performance and long-term operating

cost will only be known after having gone through a few generations of batteries for vehicles with electric powertrains, and more is known about customer’s behavior and climate conditions under which the batteries are exposed. ■

Table 2: Characteristics of the four most commonly used lithium-ion batteries Specific energy refers to capacity (energy storage); specific power denotes load capability.

Specifications

Li-cobalt LiCoO2

Li-manganese LiMn2O4

Li-phosphate LiFePO4

NMC1 LiNiMnCoO2

Voltage

3.60V

3.70V

3.30V

3.60/3.70V

Charge limit

4.20V

4.20V

3.60V

4.20V

Cycle life2

500

500–1,000

1,000–2,000

1,000–2,000

Operating temperature

Average

Average

Good

Good

Specific energy

150–190Wh/kg

100–135Wh/kg

90–120Wh/kg

140-180Wh/kg

Specific power

1C

10C, 40C pulse

35C continuous

10C

Average. Requires protection circuit and cell balancing of multi cell pack. Requirements for small formats with 1 or 2 cells can be relaxed

Very safe, needs cell balancing and V protection.

Safer than Li-cobalt.

Needs cell balancing and protection.

Thermal. runaway3

150°C (302°F)

250°C (482°F)

270°C (518°F)

210°C (410°F)

Cost

Raw material high

Material 30% less than cobalt

High

High

In use since

1994

2002

1999

2003

Researchers, manufacturers

Sony, Sanyo, FDK, Saft

NEC, Samsung, Hitachi

UT, QH, MIT A123, Valence

Sony, Sanyo, Nissan Motor

Notes Very high specific energy, limited power; cell phones, laptops

Very high specific energy, limited power; cell phones, laptops

High power, good to high specific energy; power tools, medical, EVs

High power, average specific energy, elevated self-discharge

Very high specific energy, high power; tools, medical, EVs

Safety

1. NMC, NCM, CMN, CNM, MNC and MCN are basically the same. The stoichiometry is usually Li[Ni(1/3)Co(1/3)Mn(1/3)]O2. The order of Ni, Mn and Co does not matter much.

2 Application and environment govern cycle life; the numbers do not always apply correctly.

3. A fully charged battery raises the thermal runaway temperature, a partial charge lowers it.

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CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES & LITHIUM Energy storage systems able to use more than one type of battery chemistry can address both power- as well as energy-intensive applications, to broaden the range of benefits and services possible with one asset, says Jasim Ahmed, director of engineering, Bosch Energy Storage Solutions, Robert Bosch.

Two battery technologies, one storage system — the shape of things to come The transformation of the energy system is an enormous challenge facing utilities. The shift from conventional energy resources to more intermittent renewables creates the need for changes throughout the system.

Storage technology will play a key role in stabilizing and enhancing the modern grid. Furthermore, storing clean electricity is no longer a theoretical idea but can be shown to provide benefits for grid operators and other stakeholders.

One energy storage system that has been operating since mid-2014 in northern Germany has been developed to provide a number of benefits and services, for the grid and also a local community. This is possible be-

cause of an energy storage system designed to operate two different battery chemistries as one system, extending the range of benefits beyond those that only one type of battery might be able to provide, cost-effectively.

The joint venture and Bosch are the sole source of finance for the project. It is neither state-subsidized, nor does it receive any tax subsidies.

Which battery to use? Depending on the wind’s strength and the batteries’ state-of-charge, the control unit developed by Bosch distributes the power generated by the turbines to the most suitable battery type, either energy-intensive vanadium redox flow or more power-intensive lithium ion. With its overall peak power output of 2.3MW, the Braderup hybrid battery is capable of storing enough power to cover the electricity needs of 40 single-family homes for a week.

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Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 49

CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES & LITHIUM

While bottlenecks in the grid due to renewable energy production cannot be compensated 100% yet, further improvements will enable the balancing system loads intelligently.

Germany’s total installed wind capacity stands at about 40GW, which is roughly 10% of the country’s electricity supply. Germany’s wind market has been able to grow to this size — the largest in Europe and also one of the largest in the world by installed capacity — thanks to favourable policies, regulatory frameworks and incentives under the government’s Energiewende.

Unlike other wind power markets where utilities and independent power producers have been responsible for investing in renewable energy capacity, Germany’s has been largely driven by the people. Cooperatives and enterprises in which local citizens have stakes account for over half of Germany’s wind market, whereas utilities account for a small fraction.

The people’s wind power

Trapped wind: via a 10km underground cable, the hybrid storage facility is connected to the power grid run by Schleswig-Holstein Netz. Whenever the power grid on Germany’s windy North Sea coast is unable to absorb any more electricity from the wind turbines, the batteries store the electricity ready for it to be released later, when the wind has dropped, instead of shutting down the wind farm or turn its turbines out of the wind’s path when the grid is overloaded.

50 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

One such typical community in Braderup-Tinningstedt, a village in Schleswig-Holstein, came together to build an 18MW wind farm. Braderup is one of Germany’s northernmost communities. Across the state, turbines are common sights, turning with strong winds that blow in from the North Sea on either side of the strip of land where Germany ends and Denmark begins. The wind farm‘s owner is the cooperative BWP Braderup-Tinningstedt GmbH & Co, which has over 200 private investors.

However, the high density of wind power capacity has brought with it problems for the grid, with high fluctuations in electricity supply. The 18MW wind farm in Braderup has contributed to the grid’s stresses, especially when the wind blows strongest and has not been able to provide reliable power supply at times when there is no wind resource.

To keep the grid frequency under control, Germany has set legal obligations that restrict the feed-in of wind and other types of intermittent renewable energy electricity, such as solar, in times of low demand and high supply.

There are times where a wind farm, such as Braderup, is able to generate electricity but is not allowed to feedin. This obligation hampers the full exploitation of the wind energy’s full potential in particular.

In the summer of 2012 Bosch began working on an energy storage system that would overcome this challenge and two years later the company completed the project. The system uses a 2.25MW/3.4MWh hybrid

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CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES & LITHIUM

With a power output of over 2.2MW, the hybrid storage system is capable of storing enough power to cover the electricity needs of about 40 homes for a week. storage system based on two battery technologies, lithium-ion and vanadium redox flow.

This system helps to increase the efficiency of the wind farm, increase local consumption and improve power grid stability.

The energy storage facility, situated by the wind farm, comprises several containers holding the lithium ion battery modules and battery management systems, while one of the sheds contains the vanadium redox flow batteries, including their tanks.

There is also a visitors building on the site. Below ground, a 10km cable has been laid, connecting to the local utility’s power grid.

While the 200 private investors in the community wind farm financed its wind turbines, the hybrid storage facility is financed and operated by the joint venture Energiespeicher Nord GmbH & Co.

System integration Besides the batteries and control electronics, Bosch is also responsible for system integration and for testing different operating variants in Braderup.

These include using part of the stored power for the wind farm’s own consumption and to stabilize power grids, as well as marketing the power in the frequency regulation market and trading on the electricity exchange.

The joint venture and Bosch are the sole source of finance for the project.

It is neither state-subsidized, nor does it receive any tax subsidies.

As well as providing grid congestion relief and generating revenues through power trading, the storage system enables avoidance of further investment in the power grid expansion that would have become unavoidable due to the increasing share of wind. There is scope in future for Bosch to further optimize the system’s performance and efficiency using new advances based on forecasting techniques.

The Braderup project initially started with lithium ion battery technology. However, a detailed audit was performed to investigate the best technology and also to size the system and demonstrate different possible applications. The analysis was done using Bosch’s own modelling tools. As

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a result, lithium-ion and a vanadium redox flow battery were chosen.

Flow v lithium ion Each battery type has different key performance benefits. The flow battery can store electricity for long discharge times — ideal for selfconsumption — cost-effectively. The lithium ion batteries can optimally store electricity for short-to-medium discharge times, and with a high efficiency, making it suitable for applications such as frequency control.

The combined system can operate effectively from short to long discharge times, and thus cover a wide range of application cases.

The size of the lithium ion battery system determined by the Bosch’s audit was 2MW/2.4MWh and 0.25MW/1MWh for the flow battery.

Bosch bought the lithium ion batteries from Sony. Nuremberg-based Vanadis Power and its affiliate in the US, UniEnergy Technologies, supplied the vanadium redox flow battery system.

Bosch chose the components and their suppliers based on high quality standards, safety, recyclability and cost effectiveness.

With a power output of over 2.2MW, the hybrid storage system is capable of storing enough power to cover the electricity needs of about 40 homes for a week. The sizes of the batteries ensure the system is suitable for a variety of applications such as wind curtailment reduction and energy trading, in addition to frequency regulation and also enabling self-consumption.

Depending on the strength of the wind and the battery’s state-ofcharge, the control unit developed by Bosch distributes the power generated by the turbines among the different batteries.

While bottlenecks in the grid due to renewable energy production cannot be compensated for 100% yet,

further improvements in time will enable the balancing system loads intelligently.

Since installation in July 2014, Bosch has conducted various performance-related tests. Initially, each battery was characterized to measure important parameters such as efficiency, energy at different power levels, response time, accuracy, selfdischarge rates and auxiliary losses, for instance. The combined system was then characterized. In addition, periodic visual on-site inspection of the different electrical, mechanical and safety subsystems has been performed to ensure the highest quality.

Challenges One of the biggest challenges in terms of getting the project completed concerned overcoming the official regulations required to build and operate an energy storage system. Permissions from the different local authorities concerning fire protection, building permission, and so on, were required which proved time- and also cost-intensive.

Other challenges included the development of an energy management system which operates a combination of two battery systems, integration of more than two thousand battery modules and reliable operation of the system.

However, the system has achieved the primary objective of gaining experience with large stationary storage systems and characterizing their abilities.

The core concepts from Braderup are already being replicated and applied in other projects. From Bosch’s point of view, the biggest challenge is the further development of the market, especially the regulatory framework.

As the hybrid battery energy storage installation at Braderup demonstrates, a range of possible technologies for deployment in energy storage systems are commercially available.

The benefits they bring and services they provide are clear. Their application, however, depends on the market framework that determines clear-cut business cases for using these technologies and their profitability for investors. ■

The core concepts from Braderup are already being replicated and applied in other projects. The biggest challenge is the further development of the market, especially the regulatory framework.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 51

EVENT REVIEW: ENERGY STORAGE 2015 Energy Storage 2015 March 9-11, Dusseldorf, Germany

Looking for that breakthrough moment

The theme of energy storage as a conference and event has taken off in Europe reflecting the increasing importance of the subject and the meetings.

The two largest annual conferences/ events are held in Dusseldorf in the spring — catering mostly to a professional, business audience — and Munich in the summer, which is more to end users.

This year’s Dusseldorf meeting signalled a coming of age for the event which almost doubled in size from the year before. “The last time I came here this was a fraction of the size, this event seems to be growing exponentially,” one delegate told Energy Storage Journal. The conference organizer’s figures back this up and the conference and trade fair attracted some 1,800 specialists from 48 nations. There were over 80 speakers and almost 100 exhibitors.

Talk of a breakthrough in the energy storage industry tends to be a generalization and cliché that is bandied around too much — we’ve had far too many brave new worlds of futures

52 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

dominated by fuel cells, electric vehicles and the like.

That said the underlying theme of the conference — energy storage at the verge of a breakthrough — certainly sounded as being more than plausible. Many speakers made the point that energy storage at the grid level was now clearly way beyond the pilot programme or test project stage and that government and research finding was giving way to full commercial projects.

“This has to be why a breakthrough is possible,” said one delegate. “What’s gone in in Germany, and parts of the US for that matter, is now going on around the world — the rapid uptake in renewables, particularly solar power, means that we’re living with an increasingly decentralized energy industry, energy storage is needed for the stabilization of networks. The alternative, say gas-fired peaker plants, is cumbersome, expensive and inflexible.”

The issues of cost and profitability were never far away from discussions

at the conference. “Many studies that question the cost-benefit ratio of energy storage units, ignore their double use,” said Dirk Uwe Sauer, professor at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives at the RWTH Aachen University.

“They only take into consideration the advantages of energy storage for one’s own consumption or only the stabilizing effect of storage units for networks, in the form of voltage regulation for example.

“However, if it is possible to implement both functions simultaneously in a profitable manner, energy storage will spread more rapidly than many experts are predicting.”

There was a call in some of the sessions for creating the right political framework conditions — as well as new business models — that can take the multiple uses of storage units into consideration. “Tasks that are technical in nature, such as standardization, would still have to be continuously worked on, but are no longer a crucial obstacle with regard to market

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EVENT REVIEW: ENERGY STORAGE 2015 growth,” said one speaker.

Hildegard Müller, chair of the German Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) said: “We are moving from being a centralized energy industry to a strongly decentralized one — even though we’re not replacing the centralized energy industry completely.

This will make us heavily reliant upon the system-supporting characteristics of energy storage units. To use these for the energy transition however, storage units also have to be capable of efficient operation. The BDEW is calling upon the government to implement measures to remove the obstacles that are standing in the way of energy storage.

“For example, the current network charge controls results in storage unit operators having to still pay for the system services made available by them. A contradiction in itself.”

Peter Röttgen, manager of E.ON Innovation Center Energy Storage, said: “The prognoses for long-term market development of energy units are fluctuating considerably. But all the studies are in agreement concerning a single thing: over the medium to long term, storage units for restructuring our energy system are essential and reduce costs. However, this won’t happen overnight. Installing them will require a decade or more.

We cannot wait but have to introduce the technology now and build up the required knowledge piece by piece in the process.

Another important message of the conference came from an animated discussion following a keynote speech

by Anil Srivastava, CEO of Leclanché. His point, very simply, was that too much focus was being put on the advantages and disadvantages of individual storage technologies and not enough on grasping the broad picture.

Realism was needed.

“Different storage applications often require different capabilities.

While some areas of application need high output and quick reaction, others demand inexpensive storage technologies with a high capacity. Frequently these various features need to be combined seamlessly with each other.

“These days, many people are on the lookout for a kind of miracle system that fulfils all their requirements equally as well,” says Srivastava.

“Until such a concept exists, batteries, for example, will continue to be used in devices to which they are not ideally suited and oversized stor-

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“We are moving from being a centralized energy industry to a strongly decentralized one — even though we’re not replacing the centralized energy industry completely. This will make us heavily reliant upon the system-supporting characteristics of energy storage units.” age systems or a reduced service life will continue to be endured. During my more than 20 years’ experience of working in the energy industry, I have never come across any miracle technology. This is why I am convinced that we should no longer invest merely in making certain types of storage devices stand out from their competitors.”

Instead, he proposed that we would achieve more by using smart software to integrate the strengths of different storage technologies seamlessly into hybrid systems. This applies to both stationary applications and e-mobility.

The search for the best possible system design does not merely extend to solutions developed for use in vehicles or homes.

Srivastava argued that if we are to develop an efficient, flexible grid architecture able to manage large quantities of fluctuating renewable energy, a package of measures is actually needed: “Instead of trying to manage fluctuations in electricity demand and supply by continuously increasing power line capacity, we must tackle the problem at its source.

“On the supply side, this involves using storage systems as an intelligent network resource, a practice that is

more economical than equipping each individual generator of renewable energy with their own storage option.

On the demand side, major energy consumers must be given more financial incentives from the government to reduce peak loads.

“This would lead to a grid and storage system architecture that overall is more beneficial to the economy than an uncoordinated set of yet more intertwined networks and a plethora of privately owned storage solutions.”

The conference was also a success in other ways, Hans Werner Reinhard, managing director of Messe Düsseldorf said: “For the first time, five professional conferences and a trade fair took place in Düsseldorf at a single location. Together, the Energy Storage Europe, the IRES Conference, the OTTI Conference Power-to-Gas, the VDE Financial Dialogue Europe and the Storageday covered the entire range of energy storage topics.

“The meeting point for the energy storage industry has ultimately been established in Düsseldorf, the heart of the largest energy region in Germany.” ■ The next Energy Storage Europe is in Düsseldorf from March 15-17, 2016.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 53

FORTHCOMING EVENTS ESA’s 25th Annual Conference and Expo Dallas, Texas, USA • May 27-29 For more than two decades, the ESA has hosted the forum for industry engagement and advancement, and the annual conference has drawn rapidly increasing attendance in recent years.

Due to this growing interest, ESA’s 25th Annual Conference and Technology Expo is set to be on May 27-29, in Dallas, TX at the Hyatt Regency — opening up more space for the expanding exhibition hall and even more room for keynote sessions and panels.

Oncor Electric Delivery Company will be the host utility for this year’s event, giving attendees the added benefit of visiting sites to see energy storage systems in action and learn about the company’s bold proposal for as much as 5GW of energy storage to be deployed across the state.

Contact http://annual-conference.energystorage.org/about

2015 Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition Sydney, Australia • June 3-4 Changes in the clean energy industry and the growing importance of NSW to the market have prompted Exhibitions & Trade Fairs (ETF) to bring the event to Sydney.

The event will focus on the energy storage industry at all levels — for utilities, energy businesses, building management and the emerging electric vehicle markets. Following the successful 2014 event in Melbourne, Australian Energy Storage Exhibition will continue its focus on the latest state-ofthe-art energy storage technologies, but also expand to incorporate ‘Lighting & Building Automation’ and ‘Emergent Business Technologies’ zones to offer trade visitors the most comprehensive energy solutions for their businesses.

We are pleased to confirm our association with the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), which is a

group committed to advancing the role of energy storage through policy, education, and research. Although Australia shares many traits with California, we are being left behind by technology, so there are many things we can learn from California’s experiences and the progress and knowledge of the CESA. The two day conference will feature over 40 speakers who will discuss the most recent trends and developments in energy storage. This is the only event of its kind in Australia and we invite everyone involved in the energy storage and allied industries to attend.

Contact www.australianenergystorage.com.au/ conference

EES — International Exhibition for Batteries, Energy Storage Systems and Innovative Production (co-located with Intersolar 2015) Munich, Germany • June 10-12 Electrical Energy Storage, the international exhibition for batteries, energy storage systems and innovative production, is the industry hotspot for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and users of stationary and mobile electrical energy storage solutions. It takes place annually with Intersolar Europe, the world’s largest exhibition for the solar industry, in Munich, Germany.

Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies — from components and production to specific user applications — EES is the ideal platform for all kinds of stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market. The focus at EES is on energy storage solutions suited to energy systems with increasing shares of renewable energy sources.

A conference track of several days, coorganized with Intersolar Europe Conference, is accompanying EES 2015. The energy storage sessions cover the entire spectrum of energy storage related aspects stretching from global market analysis, to technologies, from small and large-scale applications, to secondhand use concepts and the recycling of batteries. In addition, issues related to safety and battery production technologies are presented.

Contact Sabine Kloos Tel: +49 7231 58598-13 kloos@ees-europe.com

Sydney, home to 2015 Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition

54 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

www.energystoragejournal.com

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Advanced Automotive & Industrial/Stationary Battery Conference Detroit, Michigan, USA • June 15-19 Join us at the leading international forum where automakers and energy storage system developers discuss the recent progress in advanced battery technology and its implementation in automotive, stationary, and industrial applications.

The 2015 Advanced Automotive & Stationary Battery Conference will feature two parallel technology focused symposia and two parallel application focused symposia.

Technology focused symposia: Large Lithium Ion Battery Technology & Application (LLIBTA) • Chemistry track: cell materials and chemistry • A thorough examination of material development and advanced high-energy cell chemistries • Engineering track: cell and battery engineering • An inside look at cell, module, and battery design, as well as electrical, mechanical, and thermal components and integration for modules and packs Application focused symposia • Automotive symposium • A review of the expanding xEV and xEV-battery technology and markets and of competing technologies • Industrial/stationary symposium • A focused look at the emerging market for advanced batteries in utility, telecom and industrial applications Contact +1 (530) 692-0140 registration@advancedautobat.com

International Flow Battery Forum Glasgow, Scotland • June 16-17 The meeting place for flow battery developers, suppliers and users.

Our next planned IFBF 2015 will be the sixth conference in this series.

It always is a great opportunity for all those interested in flow battery research, development, manufacture, operation and commercialization to meet and discuss almost everything about flow batteries.

The 2015 programme and other information will be available soon at: www. flowbatteryforum.com/

Glasgow, next meeting point for the International Flow Battery Forum

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Energy Storage China 2015 Beijing, China • June 2-5

Energy Storage China 2015 will be the unique energy storage conference and expos in China not only to motivate and influence policy makers, experts, decision makers and a and manufacturers in the renewable energy and energy storage industry in China, but also serve as a deal making and business development platform.

Energy Storage China will be the top class networking event to synchronize the energy storage business in China with a global reach. The event will focus on applications, solutions and projects for renewable energy integration, power transmission and distributions, smart grids, microgrids, off grid and decentralized energy, cost efficiency and bankability etc Face-to-face networking to explore your demands on advanced technology from China will be your key to localize the business with onsite Chinese solution providers.

Energy Storage China 2015 will welcome more than 700 visitors enjoying presentations from over 60 speakers from home and abroad.

• NETWORK– the Energy Storage China provides the perfect platform to network during the conference, the accompanying trade fair and the exclusive networking dinner • LEARN from the key stakeholders how your company can gain competitive advantage from recent industry and market developments in China and globally • MEET top decision makers from the energy storage and renewable energy industries, policy makers and other key stakeholders including leading research institutions • DISCUSS the important issues related to the advancement of energy storage in China and globally

Key reasons to attend • Get INSIGHTS into all relevant areas of energy storage: Applications including grid integration of renewable energy, energy storage solutions including chemical, thermal, mechanical and power to gas, political scenarios, future energy supply, global energy storage market trends and issues concerning the financial and economical framework

Contact Ted He, Messe Düsseldorf (Shanghai) Unit 1209, Landmark Tower I 8 North Dongsanhuan Road, Beijing 100026, People’s Republic of China

Energy Storage China 2015 will think globally and break industry boundaries to exploit the commercial potential of energy storage applications. We will invite leading experts in energy storage from home and abroad in a bid to present a fantastic Energy Storage China 2015 for you!

Tel: +86-10-6590-7101 Mobile: +86-18500-288-499 Email: energystorage@mds.cn/ted.he@ mds.cn www.mds.cn

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 55

SEPTEMBER 15 – 17, 2015 THE EXPO FOR ADVANCED BATTERIES RETURNS TO NOVI, MI, USA IN 2015

JOIN THE INDUSTRY’S LEADING EXHIBITION AND CONFERENCE!

4 EXH 50+ IB AND ITORS ATT 5000+ E EXP NDEES ECT ED!

“There was constant traffic and bandwidth from both the domestic and international customers at our booth. I found this an excellent platform for networking, evaluating options and gaining a sound insight for future development. And…yes we are committed with a larger booth and additional staff next year!”

CONTACT US TODAY TO SECURE YOUR PRIME EXHIBITION BOOTH LOCATION

Peter J. Gunia, BD & Sales Manager - Americas, Saft Batteries, Vehicle Business Unit

Follow us @thebatteryshow Join the groups on LinkedIn

Co-located with

Watch us - TheBatteryShow

WWW.THEBATTERYSHOW.COM

INFO@THEBATTERYSHOW.COM

EVENTS: AUTUMN PREVIEW World of Energy Solutions Stuttgart, Germany October 12-14 The World of Energy Solutions is an international trade fair and conference – and thus an important platform for speeding up the change to alternative energy sources. It addresses all players involved in the manufacturing of battery and energy storage systems for mobile and stationary implementation.

All areas are dealt with, from raw materials to turnkey battery systems.

Be a part of our network and use our innovative platform to promote your research approaches, products, technologies and applications.

The three exhibition areas are: • BATTERY+STORAGE: Battery and energy-storage technologies • f-cell: Fuel cell and hydrogen technology • Future mobility solutions: Mobility technologies, applications and concepts The World of Energy Solutions conference, which takes place parallel to the trade fair, is not only a basic component of the overall event, but also a who’s who from research and industry. In over 100 presentations German and international experts will report about current developments in hydrogen and fuel cells, battery and energy storage technology, as well as about future mobility solutions.

Both conferences also place a strong emphasis on successful case studies and specific issues of a practical nature.

Contact www.messe-stuttgart.de/en/wes/

Interbattery, The Battery Conference Seoul, South Korea October 20-22

The biggest international conference in Korea, The Battery Conference, will be held as a concurrent event alongside InterBattery. The Battery Conference will present optimal opportunity for sharing information and technology with global opinion leaders from all over the world.

Get a unique insight into the latest global corporate trends and policies relating to the cell industry, and experience in-depth analysis of technologies, policies and market trends home and abroad.

The battery conference attracts top industry players from countries around the world. Hear from and mingle with secondary cell industry leaders from corporations like Samsung SDI, and international energy policymakers.

Achieve multiple goals at one event – expand business opportunity at InterBattery 2014 while grasping worldwide market trends at The Battery Conference.

Contact InterBattery Secretariat Office Tel: 82-2-6000-1087/8241 Fax: 82-2-6944-8309 interbattery@coex.co.kr

Energy Storage North America San Diego, California • October 13-15

Energy Storage Summit Japan Tokyo, Japan November 12

The Energy Storage Summit Japan 2014 brought together leading international researchers from Europe and the US with experts from India, China and Japan to discuss energy market deregulation and the opportunities this presents for Japan.

Additional topics covered included energy storage applications and solutions for renewable energy integration, power transmission and distribution, smart grid, micro grid, off grid and decentralized energy supply, as well as the cost efficiency and bankability of energy storage solutions.

Details about the event will be published at: http://www.worldenergystorage.com/

3rd Dresden conference ‘Energy in the Future’ Dresden, Germany November 10-11 Innovations in energy research become more and more important to secure the future of economy and society. Energy resources have to be used in a most efficient and cost-saving way.

The 3rd Dresden conference ‘Energy in Future’ will present the latest research results in the field of energy storage and energy efficiency.

We are happy to invite you to participate in this conference, to meet renowned scientists and economic experts and to take part in the accompanying exhibition.

Contact www.zukunftenergie-dresden.de/en.html

3rd Annual Energy Storage India Conference and Expo December 2015

This is the largest grid energy storage event in North America. It will provide” • Critical insights into market developments and technology integration • 1500+ leading customers, technology providers, and partners • 40+ conference sessions, hands-on workshops, and site tours in the Silicon Valley

www.energystoragejournal.com

Our 2014 programme focused on the convergence of transportation, distributed, and utility-scale applications.

Contact Daniela Knoll – director, Messe Düsseldorf North America E-mail: dknoll@mdna.com Tel: +1 312 621-5838

The 2nd annual Energy Storage India Conference and Expo, hosted by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) from December 3-5, 2014, in New Delhi, was a successful event that brought together 532 industry professionals and 65 speakers from 15+ countries.

It was the largest such gathering ever held in India, and highlighted the many opportunities available in a fast-growing market.

The 3rd such conference and expo should be held again in December.

Visit www.worldenergystorage.com/ for more information about the 2015 event.

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 57

EUROPE’S LARGEST ENERGY STORAGE EVENT CONNECTS WITH THE WORLD’S LEADING SOLAR EVENT IN MUNICH! 290 ENERGY STORAGE EXHIBITORS | 40,000 VISITORS | 150 NATIONS

EES EUROPE | INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES, ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS AND INNOVATIVE PRODUCTION

JUNE 10–12, 2015 MESSE MÜNCHEN

EXCERPT OF THE EXHIBITOR LIST STATUS FEBRUARY 12, 2015.

MEET THE LEADING ENERGY STORAGE COMPANIES

Supporters

Organizers

www.ees-europe.com

HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS The vanadium redox flow battery is proving an invaluable storage technology underpinning the increased use of renewable energy. Its remarkable inventor is Maria Skyllas-Kazacos.

Lady Vanadium: Maria Skyllas-Kazacos Troubled times. That’s probably the only way to describe the Greece that Maria Skyllas was born into in 1951.

The aftershocks of the country’s civil war, which had cost some 100,000 lives and displaced almost a million people, had left the country in chaos.

Her father, George Skyllas, decided to head for the freedom of Australia and in 1954, Sydney became the family’s new home. In an age when it was uncommon for girls to go to university Maria Skyllas’ intelligence shone through. At the University of New South Wales and she enrolled to study Chemical Engineering, later switching to Industrial Chemistry (which still turned out to be predominantly Chemical Engineering).

Maria graduated with a first class degree and the University Medal in In-

dustrial Chemistry in 1974.

While at university, Maria’s parents decided to send her to Greece to see her grandparents in Kalymnos. To her surprise, Maria fell in love with the country. On her return she urged her parents to move back to Greece once she and her sister had graduated.

However, the move back home proved to be just a brief interlude.

Political turmoil caused by friction with Turkey over the division of Cyprus sent the family back to Australia after just eight months. In that time, however, Maria had got a job as a chemist at E R Squibb and Sons Pharmaceuticals in Athens and she stayed on for a few more months to complete work while at the chemicals firm.

The return to Sydney left Maria at a loose end. She knew she wanted more

In the V-Fuel lab in 2008 with husband Michael and son George

Preliminary results were promising, but further longterm testing would still be needed before a practical 3M vanadium electrolyte with energy density of over 35 Wh/kg would be available for commercial application www.energystoragejournal.com

intellectual stimulation than dealing with day-to-day problems of production and personnel matters. One of her professors, her eventual lifelong friend and mentor, Barry Welch, encouraged her to do a PhD, researching the electrochemistry of molten salts.

Then, she fell in love. Maria met Michael Kazacos, a graduate in analytical chemistry, at a local Greek club near the university. They married soon after, in early 1976, while Maria was in her second year of her doctorate.

Their first son Nicholas was born in October 1977, just days after she had completed her last experiment for her PhD. In 1978, PhD in hand — and with a prestigious CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Skyllas-Kazacos family moved to America, where both Maria

To demonstrate the vanadium battery in a mobile application, a 36V vanadium battery prototype was installed in a commercially available electric golf cart at UNSW in 1994 where it was subjected to two and a half years of off-road testing by the development team. Here, Michael Kazacos demonstrating the VRB powered golf cart at the UNSW campus in 1997

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 59

HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS and Michael began working in different departments within Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey. Both grandmothers each joined the family for several month-long stints to help look after Nicholas.

Working in John Broadhead’s battery group, Maria gained valuable experience in lead acid batteries and identified a new ionic species that forms as an intermediate during the charge-discharge reactions at the positive electrode. The result: her first single author paper published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society that was to later earn her the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Bloom-Guttmann Prize for the best young author under 30.

Despite a permanent position at Bell Labs on offer, in 1980 the family moved back to Australia after Maria won the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II fellowship. This enabled her to continue her research in liquid junction solar cells in the School of Physics and the University of New South Wales.

The birth of her second son George followed. In 1982 Skyllas became a lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry at the university.

Meanwhile, professor Bob Robins invited her to join a research project on lead acid batteries funded by a National Energy Research Development and Demonstration Council of Australia grant.

Then she had her eureka moment with vanadium.

Chlorides of vanadium were generated in 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström.

He named the new element vanadium after the Germanic goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadis.

The use of vanadium in batteries had been suggested earlier by NASA researchers and by others in 1978, but no one had previously used vanadium redox couples in a working flow battery. A reason for this was the low solubility of pentavalent vanadium compounds in acidic solutions that would limit the practical energy density of such a system.

The fact that vanadium exists in several oxidation states however, made it an excellent candidate for a single element flow battery that might overcome the problem of cross contamination observed with the Fe/Cr battery

by NASA researchers in the 1970s and 80s.

“The early NASA work on the Fe/Cr system that drew my attention to the new flow battery concept,” says Ma-

60 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Her preliminary studies with VCl3 solutions in H2SO4 showed good reversibility for the V(II)/V(III) and V(IV)/ V(V) couples but further research was needed to optimize the solution chemistry to achieve a practical system

Top: Expo 88, family with vanadium redox battery display Below: Early team photo shows postgraduate student Maria, Franz Grossmith, Michael Kazacos and Miron Rychcik

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HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS Maria was keen to explore new electrolytes for a high energy density VRB and in 2001, filed the first patent on a new vanadium polyhalide flow battery that led to the Generation 2 vanadium bromide flow battery with almost double the energy density of the original vanadium sulphate system

The Thai Solar Demonstration House showing researcher Rui Hong in front of the vanadium redox battery room in 1994

ria. It all began with a MSc student, Robert Brand, who was working on the Fe/Cr flow battery with professor Martin Green, a world leader in silicon solar cells at the University of New South Wales.

She continues, “Bob asked me to co-supervise him for his thesis and it became quickly obvious that crosscontamination was an inherent problem for all flow batteries that use a different element in the two half-cells.

“This could only be overcome by using the same element in the two halfcells, so a quick examination of the periodic table and the electrochemical series produced a short list of potential candidates. My colleague, Bob Robins, had been working on the extraction of vanadium from various minerals at the time, so vanadium seemed a good starting point.”

Maria began some preliminary electrochemical studies on vanadium electrolytes to confirm its viability. Her preliminary studies with VCl3 solutions in H2SO4 showed good reversibility for the V(II)/V(III) and V(IV)/V(V) couples. However, further research was needed to optimize the solution chemistry to achieve a practical system. Her fourth year honours project student, Elaine Sum, screened a num-

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ber of supporting electrolytes during 1984 and confirmed that sulphuric acid gave the best results, although the low solubility of V(V) compounds still appeared a limitation.

She says: “In parallel with this, with my colleagues Robert Robins, Martin Green and Anthony Fane, we jointly applied for a grant under the Australian National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Council (NERDDC) to further investigate the feasibility of an all-vanadium redox flow battery for remote area power systems.”

The application was initially unsuccessful, but was granted the following year. With new funding, Maria set out to explore the possibility of producing concentrated V(V) solutions by oxidizing 2M VOSO4 {Vanadyl sulphate) a much more soluble form of vanadium. Together with the newly appointed research fellow, Miron Rychcik, a 2M vanadium electrolyte was produced and tested, the results giving rise to the filing of the first all-vanadium redox flow battery patent in 1986.

This was the start of a 25 year programme that continues to this day.

During the early years, development efforts were hampered by the lack of suitable off-the shelf membranes and

other cell components. In particular the use of VOSO4 for electrolyte production was found to be uneconomical from the outset.

One of the first tasks was to develop a process that would allow the use of the much cheaper V2O5 compound for electrolyte production ($5/kg compared with more than $400/kg for VOSO4).

Her pioneering work thus saw her rolling up her sleeves to personally take charge of tasks such as producing electrolytes, novel plastic electrodes, and new modified membranes, as well as developing mathematical models and designs for battery technology and components, through to prototype testing and manufacturing trials in conjunction with industrial licences.

From early on in her research career, Maria had a particular concern with the environment: “As a physical scientist and engineer, I suppose the most important social contribution you can make is to the environment — particularly from my own area of expertise as distinct from the medical or other social areas.”

Her battery has the lowest ecological footprint because it doesn’t use toxic metals.

She became a senior lecturer in 1986, associate professor in 1988 and professor in 1993. In 1987, a small feature article on her battery in the university magazine attracted the interest of the local media in Australia and almost overnight, the vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery was featured in newspaper articles around the world.

Around that time Maria had also given birth to a third son, Anthony. At that point her husband, Michael, decided to leave his job in the Analytical Laboratories of the State Department of Health to join the research team at the university and also provide more support with the family. The partnership provided valuable continuity to the research team, which can be difficult in universities where there is a heavy reliance on fixed term grants and research contracts.

In the wake of the media attention, Australian vanadium mining company Agnew Clough acquired an exclusive international licence to the VRF battery technology that led to three years of industrial funding to further develop the battery technology at the University of New South Wales.

But, financial problems in the company led to the return of the technology to the University in 1991. Two years later, construction firm Thai

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 61

HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS Gypsum Products was granted a licence to the technology for south-east Asia.

Around the same time, Kashima-Kita Electric Power Corporation, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, was drawn to the technology as a way to use vanadium waste extracted from power station soot.

Using orimulsion produced from vanadium-rich Venezuelan pitch as the fuel for the power station, large quantities of vanadium waste from the soot could be recycled into an electrolyte for vanadium redox flow batteries that could be used for load-levelling at the power station.

This valuable synergy led to the granting of a licence to Kashima-Kita Electric Power Corporation and Mitsubishi Chemicals in 1993 that was followed by a five year R&D collaboration programme between the Japanese companies and the University of New South Wales research team, leading to further advances in stack design, improved materials and control systems.

She continued at the university and since 1993 has been professor at the School of Chemical Engineering and industrial chemistry director of the Centre for Electrochemical and Minerals Processing, which she founded.

From 1993 a number of field trials of the vanadium battery were undertaken both by UNSW and the university’s licensees in Thailand and Japan.

As part of the R&D collaboration programmes with the licensees, regular trips between Sydney, Bangkok and Japan maintained a close relationship that culminated in several field trials, the first of which was the installation of a 5kW/15kWh battery in the first vanadium-powered solar demonstration house just outside of Bangkok.

The battery was made at UNSW by members of the development group that included Michael Kazacos, Rui Hong, Chris Menictas, John Chieng, Jim Wilson and Rod McDermott. Integration into the Solar House was done with the assistance of Rob Largent from the School of Electrical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, who was also responsible for the design and fabrication of the battery controller that managed the pumps and battery operation.

To demonstrate the vanadium battery in a mobile application, a 36V prototype was installed in an electric golf cart at UNSW in 1994 where it was subjected to over two and a half years of off-road testing by the devel-

62 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Family photo in 1999 when she became a member at the Order of Australia Awards: with husband Michael, sons Anthony, Nick and George, and parents George and Kaliopi Skyllas

opment team. A new improved 3M vanadium solution had been undergoing bench-testing since late 1997 and was subsequently evaluated in the golf cart battery.

Preliminary results were promising, but further long-term testing would still be needed before a practical 3M vanadium electrolyte with energy density of over 35Wh/kg would be available for commercial application.

Further research into air regeneration of the positive electrolyte was also explored as a means of doubling this to over 70 kW/kg.

In 1998 however, the vanadium battery patents were sold by the University of New South Wales to the Australian listed company Pinnacle VRB, but rather than speeding up the commercial development of the battery, corporate restructurings and take-overs followed that ended with the patents being acquired by the Canadian company VRB Power and later Prudent Energy in China, with no further involvement of the UNSW team in its commercialization.

In the meantime, however, Maria was keen to explore new electrolytes for a high energy density vanadium redox flow battery and in 2001, filed the first patent on a new vanadium polyhalide flow battery that led to the second generation vanadium bromide flow battery with almost double the energy density of the original vanadium sulphate system.

The technology was licensed to the Australian company V-Fuel, however difficulties in attracting investment

income in Australia saw the company folding in 2010 with the patent rights returned to the University. Further development of the G2 V/Br is continuing as part of an R&D collaboration between UNSW and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and progress has been made with new low cost bromine complexing agents and membranes.

Maria Skyllas-Kazacos’s contribution to the development off flow batteries is widely recognized.

She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a fellow of the Royal Australia Chemical Institute and of the Institution of Engineers, Australia.

She is a chartered professional engineer, a member of the Electrochemical Society of the USA and has been a member of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association.

In 1999 she was made a member of the Order of Australia. Her research has gained her many honours including the R K Murphy Medal in 2000, again from the Royal Australia Chemical Institute, the Chemeca Medal of the Institution of Engineers Australia and the Castner Medal that was awarded by the UK Society for the Chemical Industry in 2011.

In 2009 she was also invested as Grand Lady of the Byzantine Order of Saint Eugene of Trebizond, reconnecting her to her Greek Byzantine heritage.

More than 20 medium to large-scale VRB systems had been installed by Sumitomo Electric Industries in Japan,

www.energystoragejournal.com

HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS

Her particular concern with the environment found its research counterpart: her battery is the most eco-friendly battery in the world having the smallest ecological footprint as well as providing an excellent fit with renewable energy sources US, Europe and Australia for the storage of wind and solar energy and for load levelling at power stations and back-up power. The largest of these was a 4MW/6MWh vanadium battery integrated with a wind farm on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Several companies are manufacturing or are in the process of setting up production of vanadium redox flow batteries in China and Europe, while a grant from the US Department of Energy was awarded in 2010 for the installation of a 6MWh VRB installation at the Painesville Municipal Power Plant in Ohio using the UNSW technology.

Several other companies, including Cellstrom, a subsidiary of the German company Gildemeister, Cellenium in Thailand and Rongke Power in China, have already implemented vanadium

redox battery technology over the past decade.

Chinese corporation Prudent Energy recently bought patents and assets of Canadian company VRB Power Systems as part of plans to develop and commercialize vanadium batteries throughout China and North America, while other groups have also been developing vanadium redox flow batteries using original UNSW patents that expired in 2006.

Since that time, Maria and her team have developed and patented some improved designs that will help to achieve significant cost reduction to make the battery economically viable for a wider range of grid-connected applications.

In 2013 the University of New South Wales licensed these improvements to another Chinese company, Vanadis

Today, Maria is a professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales where she continues to supervise up to 10 PhD and honours students in aluminium smelting and flow battery projects. www.energystoragejournal.com

Energy, which has set up a factory to produce vanadium redox battery systems for global markets.

Maria has over 250 publications including more than 40 patents and patent applications and is professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales where she continues to supervise up to 10 PhD and honours students in aluminium smelting and flow battery projects. She is also continuing to assist the university with new licensing enquiries for the improved VRB technology developed at UNSW over the last few years.

With several companies commercializing the vanadium redox flow battery, she is being sought after for technical advice and personnel training for engineers and scientists to help them develop, install, commission, operate and maintain vanadium battery installations for a wide range of energy storage applications.

A recent project could be seen as full-circle progress of the vanadium redox flow battery that Maria has played such an instrumental role in developing. In the coming months a 30kW/120kWh commercial vanadium redox flow battery storage system will be installed at the new UNSW Tyree Energy Technologies Building that features a 120kW solar array on the roof, funded by a Solar Flagship research infrastructure grant, awarded to professor Vassilios Agelidis.

The building showcases a range of energy technologies developed at the university. The battery — supplied by Cellstrom — will be connected to the building grid and used to demonstrate its performance in a range of energy storage applications including renewable energy storage and load shifting.

One area she believes the technology as having real benefit is within remote microgrids in conjunction with renewables, in Australia where there are plenty of remote communities and mining towns, and also the thousands of island grids worldwide, most of which rely heavily on expensive diesel fuel for generating electricity.

Despite the success of the vanadium redox flow battery around the world, Maria is little changed — a generous open person, quick to acknowledge the names of those who have helped her. She regards her role as mother and more recently as grandmother, to be the greatest blessings and her life’s greatest achievements. Each week she says she looks forward to babysitting her grand-daughters Eliana and Kristyn. ■

Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 63

It’s publicity Jim, but not as we know it In all the media jabber about Tesla’s giga-factory and the excitement about where it was going to be located — was it to be California, Nevada, Southend-on-Sea or Paris (Texas, France, Brazil etc? ) — a little known fact escaped us.

For while the Great Debate was raging, complete with hints and mysterious utterances coming from the great Musk himself, work started on May 19 last year on a plot at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Nevada where brush and vegetation were being cleared.

Oddly enough it turns out to be the new location of a giga factory. Just fancy that while the Media Debate aka Free Publicity raged on and on ...

Something for the bookshelf … or the littlest room Steve Levine’s latest book “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” tells the story of a race among top US scientists to develop a battery that could change the face of the car forever. Even if you don’t believe lithium ion variants will be that solution, the book provides a great insight into the challenges of scientific advancement — particularly the difficulty of translatingg victories in the lab to the manufacturing line.

When the going gets tough

Brace, brace, bang, bang.

Another day, another lithium fire.

If it wasn’t a home going up in flames in New Zealand (lithium battery charger in the garage), it was one of those pesky lithium batteries catching fire in a plane.

Again. Nobody hurt, thank heavens, but it felt like a close call to those on KLM 675 after it landed at Bangkok in March. So too for two other aircraft emergencies reported in April.

With lithium batteries everywhere in the cabins of international jets — think mobile phones, tablets and ipads — surely there’s a greater chance of a fire than ever before?

So step forward two problem solvers — Highwater Innovations’

George Brilmyer and Mike Gilchrist, hrir sstt, pioneers of the PlaneGard.

Unlike the existing product that at looks a lot like a doggie pooper-scooper, PlaneGard resembles aann executive briefcase. It uses toxicc ggas aass filters to keep the flames, heat, sm smok smoke mok oke and flammable solvent fumes out ut of of the airplane cabin.

Sorted? Kind of. But what about outt tthe hhee hold? ld? ld

64 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015

Energy Storage Journal gives a warm welcome to our new sales executive, Jade Beevor.

Jade, who’s been in sales for the past five years, says she’s well prepared to deal with the hardbitten energy storage industry. “My university experiences in drama and English will stand me in good stead when some of the guys want to talk mean about solar, inverters, electrolytes and those electron thingies.”

w www www.energystoragejournal.com ww ww. w.energystoragejournal.com

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