ESJ, Issue 16: Spring 2017 by Jade Beevor

Issue 16: Spring 2017

Here come the money men UK finance models to set international template Pioneers of lithium Intercalation, Michel Armand and the space between worlds

Count your coulombs! A new generation of test machinery boosts product development

The first 60 days What the new Trump administration will mean for renewables

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CONTENTS COVER STORY

HERE COMES THE MONEY MEN … A new template for international business is proving an occasionally unlikely spin-off from the UK’s energy storage market. Be prepared to be surprised at some of the eventualities and cashflow variations being considered. EDITORIAL

NEWS 4

The rewards of success

US ENERGY POLICY: 60 DAYS INTO THE NEW ADMINISTRATION

Testing, testing ...

OPINION

TESTING, TESTING, TESTING

Maxwell to acquire Nesscap’s energy business • Saltwater battery firm Aquion Energy goes under • Black Diamond Structures opens battery-testing facility for nanomaterials technology • Lithium battery inventor Goodenough develops solid state batteries • Primus Power launches second-generation zinc bromine flow battery • A123 Systems opens Czech plant • Kentucky power plant becomes energy storage testing ground • Younicos to upgrade ESS on Kodiak Island, Alaska • UK firm to increase lead and lithium home storage devices 50-fold by 2020 • Advanced lead fights back as four major firms take stake in Gridtential • American Manganese in MOU with Ames for lithium recycling • ABB in first Denmark urban BESS • German utility buys UK lead acid/lithium firm for solar and storage • Moorehead takes over from Smith as Daramic president, firm expands in India • Greensmith, E.ON Climate and TEP work on 10MW storage project • Eight years on ARPA-E projects receive over $1.8bn in private follow-on funding • Advanced Battery Concepts signs licensing agreement with JCI • Open Energy, CES in collocated energy storage project • NEC Energy Solutions to build, operate 50MW of grid storage VLC Energy • EaglePicher Technologies acquires Lithiumstart • Indian deal signals advanced lead acid alternative for grid storage in massive boost for UltraBattery across Asia • ARENA awards Ecoult A$4.1 million for UltraBattery commercialization

US president Trump has made it clear he is pro-fossil fuels and less favourable on renewable energy research. But he is also pro-business making an interesting mix for the rapidly growing solar+storage market.

Towards a ‘2030 Battery Strategy for Europe’ — Alfons Westgeest, executive director of EUROBAT, argues that greater regulatory coherence is needed for the European battery industry.

Time is money in the battery industry, so high precision testing tools designed to cut development times, and bring about other benefits, are being commercialized

EVENT REVIEWS

BATTERY PIONEERS: MICHEL ARMAND

LAST WORD

Conference time: a moment to pause and regroup 50

Electricity Storage Network 8th Annual Symposium, London, UK , January 25 • Advanced Automotive Battery Conference, Mainz, Germany, January 30 – February 2 • IBRX India 2017, The Eighth International Battery Expo & Recycling Conference , Goa Marriott Resort & Spa, India, January 9-11

Michel Armand has been at the forefront of huge advances in electrochemical theory and practice — particularly our understanding of intercalation compounds.

Just kidding … • Something for the bookshelf • The world according to Maccor

Advertising manager: Jade Beevor jade@energystoragejournal,com +44 1 243 792 467 Supplements editor: Wyn Jenkins, wyn.jenkins@serenglobalmedia.com, +44 1 792 293 222 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 7792 852 337 Editor: Michael Halls, mike@energystoragejournal.com +44 1 243 782 275

Let cool heads prevail

Associate editor: Sara Verbruggen sara@energystoragejournal.com The lead-lithium storage debate steps up a notch +44 7981 256 908 The new titan of lead Ecoult’s UltraBattery, ready to take lithium on, head-to-head

The CEO interview Anil Srivastava and Leclanché’s bid for market dominance

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Next gen integrators Coming soon to a smart grid near you, the ideal middle man

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Armand: pioneer in lithium iron phosphate and more 60

Design: Antony Parselle aparselledesign@me.con International advertising representation: advertising@energystoragejournal.com The contents of this publication are protected by copyright. No unauthorized translation or reproduction is permitted. Every effort has been made to ensure that all the information in this publication is correct, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors, or opinion expressed, or omissions, for any loss or damage, cosequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material published. Any warranty to the correctness and actuality of this publication cannot be assumed. © 2017 HHA Limited UK company no: 09123491 Working with

Research editor: Jane Simpson jane@energystoragejournal.com

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 1

The Battery and Energy Storage

CONFERENCE WATCH MONTHLY The definitive guide to battery energy storage conferences and meetings for the year ahead

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE Contact Jade Beevor jade@energystoragejournal.com

EDITORIAL Mike Halls, editor • mike@energystoragejournal.com

Big is beautiful — but fragile all the same Scale. It’s now poised to be the defining feature of the energy storage market.

But meanwhile, of course, module costs plummeted. Adoption rates soared.

Elon Musk’s irritating term — the gigafactory — may have entered the English language, but even he would be surprised at the number of such factories springing up.

Forgetting for the moment the anti-dumping tariffs that were imposed — always a half-hearted slap on the knuckles and also the fact that a kind of monopoly had been placed on the market — what were the consequences for PV adoption?

Recent estimates of lithium battery production capacity make this point. In 2016 this stood at 28GWh. But by 2020 capacity is going to grow by more than five times to 174GWh. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a company that focuses on price data collection for the lithium ion battery supply chain, takes that forecast further. It predicts that mass production of lithium ion batteries will be concentrated in just four countries — China with 62% (108GWh) of capacity, followed by the US with 22%, South Korea with 13% and Poland where LG Chem has set up shop with 3%. This is an astonishing forecast. And especially so when one realises that the big growth areas of lithium ion storage are set to occur in two areas: the grid and — perhaps incredibly given the change round in perceptions from just five years ago — in the automotive sector. One thing seems clear, however. And that is the successes and failures of the solar PV boom in 2011 will be replicated to some extent in our energy storage future. Few predicted a decade ago that China’s solar industry would grow from a few governmentbacked factories making PV cells and modules, on equipment designed and produced in Germany and Switzerland, into the world’s main source of solar panels. Doing so required concentrating on one type of cell technology: crystalline silicon. And it wasn’t the best, either. But it was one that could immediately be replicated on a huge scale in China. At that time many in the market saw China’s actions as reprehensible, destroying western businesses in North America and Europe.

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The answer was simple — manufacturing in scale created a rapid fall in the cost of renewable energy. Solar is now clearly cheaper than fossil fuels in many places across the world. It even threatens to compete with wind power generated electricity, a much more established renewable energy sector. The faster the technology is scalable — irrespective of whether there are better alternatives that are being developed — the faster costs come down. And the faster the investment comes in to keep things moving. With eight out of 10 grid-scale storage installations using lithium ion batteries, it would seem — at least to some — that the argument is over. Clearly, however, the world is slightly more complex than that. Standards in technology have a nasty habit of being overturned. Coming from the blind side, an unusual challenger is appearing. One that has been dismissed as old fashioned by many in the renewable sector. Step forward, the lead battery — the traditional workhorse of everything from stationary power to the car. Rapid progress in everything, from extending its cycle life to performance, is rapidly going on — think Ecoult’s UltraBattery, Hammond’s K2 expander, Johnson Controls’ licensing of ABC’s bipolar battery (and the huge reduction in price possible) and coming from nowhere, Gridtential’s silicon joule product. If the right product can be developed — one that slots into a regular battery manufacturing line — a simple licensing model could convert the huge production capacity of the lead battery industry into gigafactories. Overnight.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 3

NEWS

Saltwater battery firm Aquion Energy enters Chapter 11 Just over a week after announcing its biggest ever battery installation in Japan, the saltwater battery firm Aquion Energy on March 8 made an announcement of a rather different kind: Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The firm said in an statement that it had filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Delaware. “Immediately preceding the Chapter 11 filing, the company retrenched to a core R&D team by terminating approximately 80% of its personnel (several of whom have also entered into consulting agreements with the company to assist it in the sale of its assets), paused

all factory operations, and stopped the marketing and selling of the products,” the statement said. Aquion Energy officially began life in 2008 when Jay Whitacre, with support from Carnegie Mellon University, produced the first Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) battery. In its years of operation, Aquion spent a total of $190 million on honing its battery technology, which works with a saltwater electrolyte, manganese oxide cathode, carbon titanium phosphate composite anode and synthetic cotton separator. By 2011, low-volume production of the batteries had begun under chief executive Scott Pearson, and the ground was broken on a full-scale manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant,

“Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time-consuming, and very capitalintensive”

Pennsylvania. In mid-2014, Aquion began shipping its batteries commercially and had installations in Japan, South Africa, Northern Ireland and Australia, as well as California. The team travelled far and wide to spread the word about its technology, declaring on its website: “In 2016 we attended, presented or exhibited at more than 50 different solar, energy storage and other industry events around the world. If you didn’t catch us this year, there will be just as many opportunities (if not more) to say hello in 2017!” It had a string of well known investors, including Bill Gates, Shell, Total, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Bright Capital. So what went so wrong, so suddenly and so soon after the company on January 24 won the North American Company of the Year Award from the Cleantech Group, which included Aquion in its 2017 Global Cleantech 100?

“Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, timeconsuming, and very capital-intensive,” said Pearson. “Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern. “We believe that Aquion is the furthest along among emerging energy storage companies offering a new battery technology. Our world-class team was able to achieve tremendous results in the past several years. Therefore, we are optimistic that we can achieve the expected results and complete an asset sale under Chapter 11 in the coming months. “We have appreciated the tremendous support of our employees, investors, customers, and vendors throughout our history and look forward to maintaining positive relations during this important phase.”

Black Diamond Structures opens battery-testing facility for nanomaterials technology in Texas Black Diamond Structures, a developer and manufacturer of nanomaterial additives for lead-acid and lithium batteries, opened a new testing facility for advanced batteries at its plant in Austin, Texas in February, bringing total spending on analytical and testing equipment by the firm to $2 million. The testing will be carried out on its own products but the firm will also test control batteries that do not contain the additives

so that a valid comparison of performance benefits can be made, chief marketing officer Dru Kefalos told Energy Storage Journal. “The primary purpose of the investment in this enhanced testing capability is to support our product development process for new nanomaterial-based solutions and the rapidly growing application developments with our customers around the globe,” said Kefalos.

4 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

“Our facility is used to test a wide range of leadacid batteries. For example, we specifically added 16-300A circuits so that we could support startstop testing like the SBAS0101 and other high current testing. “This facility is strictly used by us and our customers to support our nanomaterial development process and our customers’ need to develop higher performing batteries.”

Black Diamond Structures is a joint venture between Molecular Rebar Design, whose technology uses carbon nanotube additives in a battery’s active material, and the global chemical company SABIC. Black Diamond Structures was created in 2014 to research, develop and promote the Molecular Rebar technology for use in the energy storage, coatings and composites industries.

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NEWS

Maxwell to acquire Nesscap’s energy business for $23m Maxwell Technologies announced in February that it planned to buy the operational assets of supercap firm Nesscap Energy for $23 million. The deal has been approved by the boards of the two firms but has yet to be agreed by Maxwell shareholders who vote at the annual general meeting on the acquisition and Nesscap stakeholders when a special meeting will be held in Q2 this year. Nesscap, which was set up in 1999, provides research, development and manufacturing of energy storage and power delivery solutions that complement Maxwell’s large cell format ultracapacitor product portfolio, with operations in Korea, Germany, and China. Maxwell says it expects to capitalize on synergies between the two companies that will accelerate top-line growth and earnings, increase the innovation rate, and create an expanded and strengthened product portfolio.

Positive EBITDA

Maxwell says it expects the Nesscap business to deliver positive adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) in 2017. “With the acquisition of the Nesscap business, Maxwell will be stronger and better equipped to address the growing demand for ultracapacitor solutions to improve energy efficiency and meet government mandates for reduced emissions,” said Franz Fink, Maxwell’s president and CEO. “Our highly complementary product portfolio and development pipeline will address these challenges

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and likewise enable our customers to continuously innovate and deliver in their key markets over the years to come.” A Maxwell statement said: “With a strengthened sales channel, increased R&D capabilities, and improved manufacturing efficiencies, Maxwell will be able to deliver more products, faster into target markets thereby benefitting customers and other technology adopters. “Key benefits include: an expanded and solidified opportunity in wind, automotive, and industrial markets. In wind pitch control, the transaction creates a leading-edge product portfolio including a full range of competitive small cell and large cell offerings. With respect to the automotive market, the acquisition brings pre-existing design wins and revenue in back-up power and extends Maxwell’s reach in the market. “Moreover, small cellbased product solutions also broaden opportunities in the rapidly growing industrials market. Nesscap already has a solid position in this market with a strong base in Europe, which adds revenue diversity and creates further opportunities for growth.” Maxwell says it will provide “accelerated innovation and product time to market with an expanded portfolio … improved small-cell competitiveness through cost structure improvement … and accretive growth with positive financials and product/customer synergies. Maxwell will purchase the operating entities of Nesscap for a total purchase price of $23.175 million, or about 1.1 times

annualized revenue based on Nesscap’s nine-month revenue ended September 30, 2016. The purchase price will be paid by the issuance of approximately 4.6 million Maxwell shares, subject to a 10% upward or downward adjustment based on the average closing price of Maxwell shares for the 10 consecutive trading days ending two days before closing.

Valuations

In approving the transaction, Nesscap’s board received a verbal fairness opinion from its financial adviser, Paradigm Capital stating that the consideration to be received by Nesscap is fair from a financial point of view to Nesscap and it expects to receive the written fairness opinion in connection with the mailing of a circular to its shareholders. Based on recent share price ranges and subject to the payment by Nesscap of outstanding indebtedness owed by Nesscap to I2BF Energy and Arbat Capital Group in an aggregate principal amount of $4.5 million (plus accrued and unpaid interest) and of certain other outstanding liabilities, Nesscap shareholders and debt holders are expected to own approximately 12% of Maxwell’s total outstanding common shares following completion of the Transaction. Maxwell has entered into a principal shareholders agreement with I2BF and Arbat, which together own approximately 80% of the common shares of Nesscap, and will represent approximately 10% of the ownership of Maxwell following closing, subject to

any adjustment based on Maxwell’s share price. Pursuant to the terms of the principal shareholders agreement, Maxwell has agreed to appoint a representative of I2BF and Arbat to Maxwell’s board of directors, which such representative shall initially be Ilya Golubovich. Such appointment is subject to the closing of the transaction and is intended to be no later than one business day following Maxwell’s 2017 annual general meeting of shareholders. The transaction must be approved by two-thirds of Nesscap shareholders. In addition, I2BF and Arbat are both a related party to the company, meaning the deal will also be conditional upon the approval of a simple majority of the Nesscap shareholders, excluding I2BF and Arbat. The deal is also conditional upon customary terms for transactions of this nature including the approval of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List). Further particulars of the meeting, the arrangement, the dissolution and the arrangement agreement will be included in the information circular for the meeting. If all approvals are obtained and other conditions met, it is expected that the arrangement will be completed by the second quarter of 2017, says the firm. I2BF, Arbat as well as all the directors and officers of Nesscap have entered into voting agreements with Maxwell in support of the deal, and Nesscap has agreed to use its best efforts to obtain voting agreements from other key shareholders in advance of the Meeting.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 5

NEWS

Lithium battery inventor Goodenough develops solid state batteries John Goodenough, the 94-year-old co-inventor of the lithium ion battery, and his research team at the University of Texas’ Cockrell School of Engineering have developed the first solid-state lithium battery. The research is likely to mean a step-change in the potential of lithium as an energy storage medium. Writing in the journal Energy and Environmental Science on March 4, Goodenough says the new battery cells use a solid glass electrolyte instead of a liquid one, using an alkali metal anode which means dendrites do not form. Senior research fellow at Cockrell School Maria

Helena Braga, who began developing solid glass electrolytes with colleagues at the University of Porto in Portugal, was also on the team. “The glass electrolytes allow for the substitution of low-cost sodium for lithium. Sodium is extracted from seawater that is widely available,” said Braga. Goodenough says the team has developed cells that would lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for electric cars and stationary energy storage. “Cost, safety, energy density, rates of charge and discharge and cycle life are critical for battery-driven

“We believe our discovery solves many of the problems that are inherent in today’s batteries.”

Primus Power launches second generation zinc bromine flow battery Zinc bromine flow battery producer Primus Power has launched its second-generation battery, the EnergyPod 2, the US firm announced on February 21. Paul Ferrera, a business development official at Primus Power, said the new model was being tested by corporates including Microsoft and utilities such as Samruk Energy in Kazakhstan. “The EnergyPod represents a breakthrough in energy storage technology due to its long life — 20 years — long duration and fade-free performance (no loss of capacity for the life of the battery),” said Ferrera. Other flow battery manufacturers also point to the long duration and fade-free performance as being a characteristic of their batteries, but Ferrera says the EnergyPod2 offers fewer maintenance costs because it does not have a membrane. “The membrane in a typi-

cal flow battery degrades over time, which causes capacity degradation and the eventual need for replacement,” said Ferrera. “So, while other flow batteries may quote a 20-year life, those batteries will not offer full capacity for all those years and will require replacements. Without a membrane, our battery can offer

6 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

a 20-year life with no loss of capacity and low operating and maintenance expenses. Also, due to our single flow, single tank design, we only have one set of pipes and pumps, again cutting down on costs.” The EnergyPod 2 differs from its predecessor, the EnergyPod, in being modular, which means it can scale

cars to be more widely adopted,” writes Goodenough. “We believe our discovery solves many of the problems that are inherent in today’s batteries. “The result is a battery with much greater energy density that can be recharged in minutes instead of hours and performs well at low temperatures. Best of all, it won’t ignite or explode the way a conventional lithium-ion battery can.” According to the university, Goodenough and Braga are working on several patents and hope to collaborate with battery manufacturers to develop and test their new materials. from 25kW to more than 25MW, depending on application, Ferrera told Energy Storage Journal. “When looking at the long-term economics of a battery storage project, as many utilities and corporations do, our battery has an industry-leading levelized cost of ownership,” said Ferrera. “EnergyPods also have a single-loop, single tank, membrane-less design that is unique and allows for the 20-year fade-free life.”

A123 Systems opens Czech plant A123 Systems, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, hosted an opening ceremony in March to celebrate its new manufacturing facility in Ostrava, Czech Republic. A123 will produce more than 600,000 units of its low voltage automotive systems annually for European customers. A123 plans to build its

12V lithium-ion starter battery and what it calls “next generation 48V” batteries which deliver lower emissions and increased fuel economy in low voltage hybrid systems. The ceremonial opening followed the first customer shipments in March of its starter batteries and the installation of a second

production line. Later this year, A123 will begin production of its 48V units at the facility. A123 operates manufacturing facilities in China and the US. The Ostrava facility gives the firm direct accessto the European market. A123 is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wanxiang Group.

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NEWS Younicos to upgrade ESS on Kodiak Island, Alaska Younicos signed an agreement earlier this year with Kodiak Electric Association in Alaska to design, install and commission an upgraded 3MW battery-based energy storage system on Kodiak Island that will replace a lead acid battery system installed by the company in 2012. “The implementation of li-on batteries will increase the operational lifetime of the storage resource,” said the firm. The project should be completed by mid-August in time to support increased seasonal levels of wind power on the island.

“Our main goal has always been to bring more renewables to the island” The agreement calls for Younicos to replace earlier-generation leadacid batteries and battery racks with advanced lithium-ion batteries. Darron Scott, chief executive of Kodiak Electric Association said: “Our main goal has always been to bring more renewables to the island and reduce the cost of using diesel fuel. We realized early on that battery storage is the best solution to help us achieve these goals.” In 2007, KEA set a goal to produce 95% of Kodiak’s energy from renewable sources by 2020, to reduce reliance on diesel fuel and lower the cost of generation to customers.

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Kentucky power plant becomes energy storage testing ground Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities — a utility based in Louisville, Kentucky — has launched a new research and demonstration site near Harrodsburg in Kentucky. The project, which was developed in collaboration with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), became operational in January and will allow the utilities to develop, test, and evaluate the potential benefits of utility-scale battery technologies, and investigate operating needs and associated costs. Additionally, researchers will be able to use the site to advance control technologies, increase value gained from storage, and determine solutions to integration challenges for energy storage on the electric grid. The site includes three testing bays for energy storage technologies, each able to house up to 1MW of storage, resulting in a total

hosting capacity of up to 3MW of energy storage. The first energy storage system installed on the site consists of a 1MW lithiumion battery system, a 1MW smart power inverter and an advanced control system. This storage system was custom-engineered for the site and can support a number of advanced control functions and use cases during testing. “Our Energy Storage Research and Demonstration Site is unique among other sites in the utility industry because it provides us with a testbed for evaluating multiple utility-scale energy storage technologies at the same time,” said David Link, research and development manager for LG&E and KU. Testing multiple storage technologies at one time will allow researchers to assess how the individual systems operate and any potential grid integration challenges as the systems work togeth-

er, simulating these technologies operating at the same time on the electric grid. The site is also designed to be collaborative, creating a virtual lab for use by other utilities working with EPRI to address potential gaps associated with utility-scale energy storage, while also providing a platform to share knowledge gained across the utility industry. The testbed is part of EPRI’s Integrated Grid Initiative Pilot Projects, through which utilities across the US are collaborating in R&D projects to understand the benefits, costs, and technical challenges of integrating new, distributed energy resources, with more traditional, centralized generation. The team expects research and development on the LG&E and KU testbed to last about three years. Equipment suppliers for the project include LG Chem, Dynapower and Greensmith Energy.

UK firm plans increase lead and lithium home storage devices 50-fold by 2020 Powervault, a UK energy storage company which makes home energy storage devices that are suitable for both lead and lithium batteries, announced in March that it was preparing to increase its production of units 50-fold by 2020. Managing director Joe Warren told Energy Storage Journal that the device was compatible with all kinds of battery chemistry and would be rolled out according to demand. “Although our first product in 2014 was a lead acid device, we are battery agnostic,” he said. “Different customers have different

demands and when we are specifying a system we explain the pros and cons of each. “Historically lead has had much lower upfront costs, but its energy density and lifetime is lower. We believe there’s a lot of research suggesting that lithium ion batteries are going to come down by 75% in price, but the reduction hasn’t happened yet.” Because the Powervault’s basic unit is the same, it will always be compatible for whichever battery chemistry a customer selects, said Warren. “Different batteries have

different voltages and control systems to allow the energy storage device to interact,” he said. Warren said there were a million homes in the UK with solar panels on their roofs, and while that was a key market, it was not going to be the future focus: that would lie in smart meters. Ofgem, the UK government regulatory body for gas and electricity, says millions of homes and small businesses will have smart meters installed by the end of 2020. It means that it will be much easier to store energy from the grid at cheaper times and use it at peak times instead.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 7

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NEWS

Indian deal signals advanced lead acid alternative for grid storage in massive boost for UltraBattery across Asia In early February, India’s Exide Industries announced an agreement with Ecoult, owned by East Penn, to manufacture UltraBattery for the Asian market. It’s a landmark agreement. Energy Storage Journal spoke to John Wood, Ecoult chief executive, to get the details. John, what sort of production capacity are we looking at?

Production of UltraBattery entails a very high overlap of process with manufacture of standard lead acid batteries with some additional processes. Production capacity can be scaled very quickly. East Penn Manufacturing will be transferring know how around the manufacturing process and collaborating with Exide Industries to get initial production capability established and then Exide Industries will be able to grow their capacity with the market.

What are the technical differences between this UltraBattery and the original one?

Since the earliest UltraBattery, devices were implemented we have enhanced the capabilities of the product both in terms of lifetime throughput and power handling capabilities. Our newest formats also utilize the active material more effectively, supporting effective power and energy density when running higher rate applications. For example our first generation UltraBattery devices were used for continuous variability management at around 0.8C1 against the PJM regulation services signal, whereas our latest version is used at up to 1.4C1. As well as the battery technology a lot of work has been done by Ecoult around the monitoring, management and control framework to

support UltraBattery. This work makes the product easily adaptable to use for the provision of grid ancillary services, micro grid applications, renewable integration, and applications that reduce diesel emissions by increasing efficiency of use. A key capability of UltraBattery is its ability to operate in partial state of charge with very limited rates of sulfation. Operation in partial state of charge also has a number of advantages in reducing secondary degradation factors which are typically accelerated with higher temperature. Most recently we have been enhancing the capability for UltraBattery to operate partial state of charge in higher ambient temperature conditions. Lead acid technology generally has an advantage over many alternative tech-

nologies in its ability to handle temperature variation and variations in power requests readily with the only effect being marginal change in the rate of background degradation. Operating in partial state of charge, UltraBattery takes this to the next level.

How will it integrate into Exide Industries’ production lines — will part of the lines have to be changed, or the whole line overhauled?

The primary change entails the addition of equipment for the new processes connected with the UltraBattery technology. The rest of the production can be done using existing production lines.

When is the production going to start?

It is everyone’s intention to

ARENA awards Ecoult A$4.1 million for UltraBattery commercialization Just days after signing a deal with Exide Industries, on February 14 Ecoult secured another boost with a funding pledge from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which has pledged A$4.1 million ($3.1 million) to commercialize the UltraBattery technology. It is not the first time ARENA, the government agency, has lent support to Ecoult. In 2013 it provided the Sydney-based East Penn subsidiary with

10 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

A$600,000 ($450,000) in the early stages of development of the technology, and this led to the UltraFlex product, a smaller 20 kW hybrid storage device. “Our support for Ecoult demonstrates how ARENA works across the innovation chain to support research and development and build a vital bridge between commercial adoption and uptake,” said Ivor Frischknecht, the chief executive of ARENA.

get going quickly but it will take a number of months to transfer the capability into the Exide Industries factory. In the intervening period we will be implementing a limited number of sites using UltraBattery, produced by East Penn Manufacturing, to build the level of UltraBattery solution and system experience at Exide Industries and its subsidiary Chloride Power Systems and Solutions Limited.

Where is the greatest demand?

UltraBattery contributes most readily wherever there is a need to support variability in power needs matching supply to utilization. In particular, in India and Asia this is needed in systems which utilize diesel generation with or without integration of renewable energy generation and where there are unreliable grid services. Applications such as local power, microgrid, power for remote cell towers and ancillary services. Geographically the demand is widespread. “Storage is critical for increasing the reliability of our on-grid and offgrid power systems. It can give customers more control over their energy by storing solar through the day to use during the evening peak. “This latest funding supports a A$10.6 million effort by Ecoult to improve its technology and pursue large-scale commercialization. It will enhance the battery’s performance and improve its ability to support both grid and offgrid applications.”

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NEWS

American Manganese in MOU with Ames Laboratory for lithium recycling American Manganese announced in March it had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Ames Laboratory, a US Department of Energy National Laboratory. American Manganese will be working with the Critical Materials Institute a so-called Innovation Hub led by Ames Laboratory and operated by Iowa State University.

The CMI seeks ways to eliminate and reduce reliance on rare-earth metals and other materials critical to the success of clean energy technologies. The MOU aim is to advance the recovery and reclamation of metals and minerals from spent lithium-ion batteries with cathode chemistries such as: lithium-cobalt, lithium-

cobalt-nickel-Manganese and lithium-manganese. The MOU follows a recent award to American Manganese from the Canadian Government’s National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program for the continued development of the company’s spent electric vehicle battery cathode materials recycling technology.

American Manganese describes itself as a diversified specialty and critical metal company. It says that the firm is focused on capitalizing on its patented intellectual property through low cost production or recovery of electrolytic manganese products and recycling of spent electric vehicle lithium ion rechargeable batteries.

German utility buys UK lead acid/lithium firm for solar and storage Innogy SE, the new name of German utility RWE, confirmed on January 3 that it had completed the purchase of UK-based leadacid battery manufacturer Belectric. A change of name for Belectric is likely in the future. The deal, said to be in the high, double-digit million euro range, was agreed at the end of August 2016, but was only completed just after the new year. “Belectric will be working together with Innogy to design, install and operate utility-scale photovoltaic power plants,” said Innogy spokesperson Vera Bücker. “At the same time, Belectric will continue to provide services in the fields of engineering, procuring and construction, and operation and maintenance for third parties. The company will also remain active in regions that are not among Innogy’s target markets for project development.” Belectric was selected by the UK National Grid last year as one of seven battery firms to provide sub-second enhanced frequency response support to the grid. It was the first time battery technology had been chosen for grid-scale energy storage in the UK. Belectric’s flagship product is its Energy Buffer Unit, which it makes with

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either lead acid or lithium ion batteries according to customer specifications. The EBU can store 10MW of power. Innogy is looking to move, it says, “right to the forefront as a global player” in the utility-scale solar and battery storage market, it says, and expects the UK firm to help it in its move towards decentralized power. “While Innogy is a pioneer for efficient, climatefriendly and intelligent energy solutions, we were still lagging behind in the field of utility-scale photovoltaic power plants,” said Innogy

CEO Peter Terium. “We’ve now closed this gap and are in an ideal position to successfully implement large-scale photovoltaic projects in Europe and our growth regions. “Also, the combination of expertise in renewable energy and battery storage technology solutions will help us keep our energy system stable, despite the increasing influx of fluctuating renewables.” “Our Energy Buffer Unit is already in use at solar power plants, including the Alt Daber solar power plant in Germany,” said a Belectric company state-

ABB in first Denmark urban BESS ABB announced in March the successful commissioning of Denmark’s first urban battery energy storage system. The lithium ion BESS will be integrated with the local electricity grid in the new harbour district of Nordhavn, Copenhagen. The system has been commissioned for Radius, DONG Energy’s electrical grid division. Giandomenico Rivetti, managing director of ABB’s High Voltage Products business unit, said. “The battery storage

solution will account for a significant part of the energy system, in which solar and wind energy will provide the majority of electricity production. “Since renewable energy production is less predictable, the storage system will be a key element of energy supply. ABB’s flexible and modular system can be used for different functionalities such as peak load shaving and frequency response,” he said. “By integrating battery storage in Nordhavn we

ment. “There it delivers power flexibly at any time of day to actively stabilize the national power grid.” The company says its EBU can be scaled to almost any required size and has an output of 750kW per 40 minutes for grid stability, peak shaving and ramp rate control. The take-over means that Innogy SE now owns all of Belectric’s PV and battery business, with the brand also becoming Innogy SE’s. Belectric, however, will be renamed and still own its real estate, automotive suppliers and electric mobility capabilities. have the opportunity to learn more about how new technological solutions and market mechanisms interact with the grid,” said Knud Pedersen, chairman of Radius. The new BESS is part of the EnergyLab Nordhavn four year project implemented in the Nordhavn district of Copenhagen. The project, which ends in 2019, aims to develop and demonstrate energy solutions of the future and is part of the country’s ambitious goal of turning Copenhagen into the world’s first carbon neutral capital in 2025.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 11

NEWS

Moorehead takes over from Smith as Daramic president, firm expands in India For the record, Pete Smith, the president of Daramic, the battery separator manufacturer, has stepped down following a reshuffle announced on January 6. Bryan Moorehead, vice president and managing director of the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa for more than two years takes over. Moorehead previously spent eight years as a vice president of global operations with Celgard, a subsidiary like Daramic of Polypore. Smith had been president of energy storage, transportation and industrial at Daramic, which was bought by the Japanese Asehi Kasei group – since October 2013. “This move surprised us,” said one commentator, “as Pete combine an unusual commercial flair — he had a masters in business administration — and a deep technological understanding with a doctorate and 10 patents to boot.” The appointment came

shortly after the company announced a new manufacturing plant in Gujarat, India, which will produce separators for all kinds of lead acid batteries. “We have a long-term commitment to India and south Asia,” incoming president Bryan Moorehead, said. “Our new plant will play a strategic role in our plans to meet the rapidly growing demand for high quality lead acid battery separators in the region. The investment increases our global production capacity, while providing flexibility to more efficiently and effectively meet the needs of our customers around the globe.” The Gujarat plant marks the first major PE separator supplier to open a dedicated manufacturing facility in India. “Local production allows us to significantly shorten lead times, improve supply chain efficiency and develop industry-leading products that meet local

customer needs,” said Ahila Krishnamoorthy, managing director of the south Asia region. “Part of our approach to what we intend to do in Asia,” said Krishnamoorthy,” is to add what in India is called ‘Kosuru’ — that extra bit that keeps customers coming back for more.” The Gujarat plant will be Daramic’s sixth manufacturing site in Asia, bringing the number of global facilities to 10. The company did not want to discuss how much investment had been made but, spokesperson Dawn Heng, said that local demand was a major factor in the plant’s creation. “There is a special application in India — the inverter — which has maintained an 8% growth in the last decade,” said Heng. “Previous practice was to use either automotive or industrial products which are standard in other regions, while there was no specific R&D or production in India.

Eight years on ARPA-E projects receive over $1.8bn in private follow-on funding The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPAE) announced that a group of 74 project teams has attracted more than $1.8 billion in private sector followon funding since the agency’s founding in 2009. The announcement was made at the eighth annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit. In addition, ARPA-E, tasked with supporting transformative innovation in the energy sector, announced that 56 projects have formed new companies, 68 projects have partnered with other government agencies for further development, and an ever-increasing number

of technologies have been incorporated into products sold on the market today. ARPA-E has provided approximately $1.5 billion in R&D funding across more

than 580 projects through 36 programs and three open funding solicitations. The agency is charged by the US Congress to maintain US competitiveness in the en-

Greensmith, E.ON Climate and TEP work on 10MW storage project Greensmith Energy, an energy storage software provider, announced in March it is working with E.ON Climate and Renewables and Arizona utility Tucson Electric Power to design and deliver a grid-scale energy storage system located at

12 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park southeast of Tucson. The 10MW site will provide frequency response and voltage control in addition to solar integration for a new 2MW array. Greensmith will provide design, installation and

“With our local end-toend production and local R&D centre in India, we can really deliver the ad hoc products for local customer needs and support their innovation and growth.” Daramic says it is the world’s largest manufacturer of lead acid battery separators, and its sister companies within the Asahi Kasei group make separators for lithium-ion batteries. “By leveraging that capability, we are able to deliver full solutions to automotive applications from basic SLI to start-stop to hybrid and electric vehicles,” said Heng. “There is a huge number of aftermarket vehicles – more than 1.1 billion – equipped with lead-acid batteries and they will continue to need the same technology. We are also seeing innovations in lead-acid in new applications such as startstop to expand its scope. We still see bright future of lead-acid. ergy space, which it achieves through targeted support of projects that, if successful, could, it says, transform how Americans generate, store and use energy. Despite the success, its budget was set to be cut in this year’s so-called “skinny budget”. commissioning services, along with its GEMS software control platform. Arizona’s Renewable Energy Standard requires regulated electric utilities to increase their use of renewable power each year until it accounts for 15% by 2025. Greensmith is part owned by E.ON.

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NEWS

Advanced Battery Concepts signs licensing agreement with JCI Bipolar lead battery firm Advanced Battery Concepts signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Johnson Controls in December for its GreenSeal bipolar lead acid battery. The firm, which announced the deal earlier in January, claims its technology heralds the next revolution for lead acid batteries. Speaking to Energy Storage Journal, CEO and founder Ed Shaffer said the battery world would be transformed with the technology, which he said would more than double profit margins and offer vast improvements like bet-

ter vibration durability and greater cycle-life performance. As well as JCI, Shaffer says another licensee is about to come on board and the firm is in talks with several others. “The materials used are much cheaper — the plastics, polypropylene, gradually reduce the cost,” he said. “It lasts longer because the construction is more robust and rugged. There’s no cast-on strap, no wells,” he said. “This is the next revolution for lead. We are going to change how lead batteries are made. They’re much

Shaffer: “This is the next revolution for lead”

more attractive financially, and we are offering a margin of 50% where it used to be 22%, simply because they are cheaper to make

and they last longer. “We don’t want to be a large battery producer. Our job is to get this technology into the production process within the next eight years so that lead can remain a viable part of our battery industry.” Shaffer said savings were made because of the reduction in the amount of lead needed in each battery, for example in golf cart batteries, which he said use 46% less than in traditional lead batteries. The company was opening a small pilot plant at its base in Clare, Michigan, Shaffer said.

Open Energy, CES in collocated EaglePicher Technologies energy storage project acquires Lithiumstart Open Energi is working with Camborne Energy Storage (CES) to deliver revenues from CES’s first co-located energy storage project. Open Energi’s technology has been integrated with a 500kWh Tesla Powerpack to enable it to provide balancing services to National Grid. The battery energy storage system will automatically charge and discharge in response to second-bysecond changes in electricity supply and demand UKwide. The system — which is co-located with a solar PV plant in Somerset –— the capacity to provide power for over 500 homes. In addition to generating revenue from balancing services it is also making money from time of use discharging; storing electricity generated during periods of low demand and releasing it when demand peaks. Open Energi’s Dynamic Demand technology optimises the system’s operating profile to maximise revenue

opportunities throughout the day, applying designed state of charge management techniques, while limiting the degradation of the battery lifetime to the lowest value possible. CES is developing energy storage systems throughout the UK and starts 2017 with around 50MW of consented sites ready for construction.

EaglePicher Technologies announced in February that it had acquired San Francisco based Lithiumstart Inc. The firm has been renamed EaglePicher Lithiumstart. Jim Voss, chief executive of Vectra, EaglePicher’s parent said “By combining Lithiumstart’s expertise with our earlier investment in Yardney and our lithium ion Center of Excellence in

Joplin, we are well positioned to become the world leader in mission critical lithium ion energy storage systems.” EaglePicher said: “Lithiumstart’s proven lithium ion battery management, safety, and power conversion technology is highly complementary with EaglePicher’s suite of existing products.”

NEC Energy Solutions to build, operate 50MW of grid storage with new JV firm VLC Energy NEC Energy Solutions announced at the end of February that it had signed a contract to build and operate a total of 50MW of energy storage projects with VLC Energy, a new joint venture company created by Low Carbon, a renewable energy investment company, and VPI Immingham, the owner of one of the largest combined heat and power plants in Europe and part of the Vitol Group.

14 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

The projects, which include a 40 MW facility in Glassenbury, UK and a 10 MW installation in Cleator, UK will be the largest portfolio of battery sites connected to the UK grid once operational later this year. The Cleator and Glassenbury sites secured two contracts with National Grid in August 2016 for battery energy storage systems to provide Enhanced Frequency Response

(EFR) to the UK system operator. NEC ES will provide turnkey EPC and O&M services which includes its GSS grid storage solution, installation and commissioning, and 10 years of operations and maintenance services for each project. Project execution is already underway and the systems are expected to be installed and operational by November.

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NEWS

Advanced lead fights back as four major firms take stake in Gridtential For the record, tead battery start-up Gridtential announced on January 12 that four major battery companies — East Penn Manufacturing, Crown Battery Manufacturing, Power-Sonic and Leoch International — had invested a total of $6 million in the company. The four now have a combined equity stake of around a quarter in Gridtential, according to Ray Kubis, chairman of the company. Other firms are also evaluating the technology, he says. The firm says that its advanced lead batteries using its Silicon Joule technology can provide a product that is capable of matching lithium ion batteries in terms of product but at a more attractive price. Given the volume of batteries that three of these firms manufacture — and their strong balance sheets — large companies buying the batteries should be happier to accept warranties on the product. “A start-up company cannot replicate such a capability in the energy storage industry,” says Kubis. The extra finance will translate into a faster release of the product to the lead market — equating, as one battery commentator called it, the creation of the equivalent of a lead gigafactory for the battery market. “The added investments in Gridtential by battery companies, the founders, myself and the Roda Group, which specializes in CleanTech investments, will allow Gridtential to better support its manufacturing partners, further reduce the cost of the silicon bi-plate and broaden the application window for our technology,” Kubis told Energy Storage Journal. “We believe this strategy is efficient in many ways, enabling the existing bat-

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tery leaders to apply their application and production knowledge and capacity, which has developed over decades. They can choose to convert an existing production line or factory where well over half the installed capability (oxide conversion, pasting, charging, et al) can be utilized. “They can integrate outsourced silicon bi-plates, and adapt assembly to sustain high volume output with modest capital expenditures, while keeping costs low.” This integration is key to an easier uptake of the technology. Silicon Joule is a substrate that replaces the grid in a battery, resulting in a large reduction in the amount of lead required and better performance. “Gridtential bi-polar batteries can be produced on our existing plate-making lines, modified assembly lines and existing formation/ finishing lines,” says Shawn Peng, Leoch vice present of technology in the US. “This will make the steps towards commercial production happen sooner and more reliably. We will have the capability to provide greener, safer, higher power, faster charging, longer life lead-based battery solutions for our customers in the areas of telecoms, UPS, automotive and renewable energy storage industries. “In the next five years, we estimate that around 10%20% of all of our batteries will be made with Silicon Joule bi-polar technology. “This technology will effectively increase the specific power and energy density of lead acid batteries,” said Peng. “The cycle life performance can be extended up to five times normal VRLAAGM batteries. Because it’s a non-metal grid, there is no grid corrosion, and it has

Kubis: “efficient strategy”

a much wider temperature adaptability compared with a lithium solution.” Kevin Smith, East Penn Manufacturing vice president of technology, said the scalability of Gridtential’s design would allow for 48volt operation, for which demand would inevitably increase along with features

like stop-start. “The industry’s experts understand bi-polar technology is really the Holy Grail for design architecture change where you obsolete lead grids, whether they are lead calcium, pure lead or others,” said Kubis. “However, until now there was not a clear pathway to scale the technology securely to emerge from the lab to commercial production. Gridtential’s technology is a real breakthrough, so I expect other companies in Asia, Europe and the Americas to follow their initial investigations into Gridtential with investments and or licensing. “It is clear that the race is on to commercialize bi-polar technology and to provide real solutions in contrast to lithium batteries.”

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Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 15

THE US PRESIDENT AND ENERGY POLICY Donald Trump, the US president, will have a profound effect on the energy storage industry. While his pro-business stance could benefit the whole supply chain — from OEMs up to automotive makers — he is also cutting green energy initiatives and cutting funding and research critical to developing the battery chemistries of the future.

New US admin policies on batteries and energy storage start to emerge Along with every other industry in the US at the moment, the energy storage and batteries industries have spent the past couple of months trying to get a sense of the implications for their sector after Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States. A picture is starting to emerge which has more or less co-incided with his sometimes awkward sounding campaign rhetoric. Mid-March signalled the arrival of the so-called “skinny budget” — a set of proposed measures that could end up as government finance policy but would before that have to be run through Congress for approval. The skinny budget offers a strange mix of how the US government world intrudes into the commercial world of business. Media headlines have spotlighted the US change of policy stance on climate change. Huge chunks of the Environmental Protection Agency’s thoughts and data on the subject have simply disappeared from the website. But the skinny budget, as a provisional and interim measure, highlights the thinking further. There are three areas of funding where the skinny budget could have an impact on the future of energy storage. The agencies involved are: • the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which nurtures innovative energy technologies that are too early in the development process to attract private-sector investment. It was launched in 2007 under president George Bush, but first funded under president Barack Obama to invest in “high-risk, highreward research” that might not oth-

16 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

erwise be pursued because there is a relatively high risk of failure. At a recent convention ARPA-E boasted that to date it has provided approximately $1.5 billion in R&D funding across more than 580 projects through 36 programmes and three open funding solicitations. It said that than $1.8 billion in private sector follow-on funding had happened since the agency’s founding in 2009. The agency is charged by the US Congress to maintain US competitiveness in the energy space, which it says “achieves through targeted support of projects that, if successful, could (it claims) transform how the US generate, store and use energy”. The US Senate voted 70-26 last year to increase its funding by $30 million, to $382 million. • the Title 17 Innovative Technology

Loan Guarantee Program, which allows companies and projects to take technology risks without the danger of losing their entire investment; and • the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which funds research into clean-energy technologies. Under the proposed plan, ARPA-E and the loan-guarantee program will be eliminated completely, while EERE will only be allowed to focus on “early-state applied energy research and development activities where the Federal role is stronger”. EERE will compete will three other programs — the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability and the Fossil Energy Research and Development – for the same money. Possibly the most controversial aspect of the skinny budget is a cut of $2.6 billion to $5.7 billion of funds for the Environmental Protection Agency. The budget de-funds the Clean Power Plan, international climate change programs, climate change research and partnership programs. Forgetting the increases to the military budget and the proposed wall to block crossing betwen the US and Mexico — both about which this magazine has no right to comment — the new administration intends to revitalize the use of fossil fuels such as coal. Natural gas and nuclear — which receives extra funding in the skinny budget — are winners under Trump. The likelihood, however, is that he will reduce incentives moving the economy to renewable forms of en-

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THE US PRESIDENT AND ENERGY POLICY ergy — though the impact of that will only be slight near term. Possible beneficiaries of his “America First” plans — particularly in ensuring that the US automotive industry stays north of the border — could be positive for US lead battery firms, but that depends on what levels of protectionism might be created over the import of batteries. It also depends on the more complicated picture of how responsive US car makers will be to threats from government. In early January it seemed that taxation threats from the then president elect on Ford had caused it to cancel plans to build a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico which would have created 700 jobs there. One commentator said that the theme of successful business rather than ideologies over renewable energy would give the industry help. “If passed as proposed, the solar industry will not be affected immediately. As the fastest-growing energy industry in the US, employing more than 200,000 workers — and more than in the US utilities as a whole — it has established itself strongly enough in the energy infrastructure that even these draconian cuts are likely to have little if any impact on solar markets over the short-to mid-term,” he said. The fear, however, is that without the three bodies facing sharp cuts, future innovations in solar and battery technologies, including increased efficiencies, less expensive materials, and advanced grid integration with high levels of renewable energy — could be slowed. This picture looked substantially different in mid-February. Mark Thorsby, executive vice president, Battery Council International, says that too much speculation may be premature. “I don’t think that just weeks in office can give any of us much insight,” he says. “Instead, it is just igniting speculation. I don’t think a lot is going to happen for the next six months in the energy sector. “We will see some loosening of the restrictions that have been placed on some energy forms. I do not believe energy storage will be affected by Trump. I think it will be the consumer that will impact energy storage in the future, not government.” Yet prematurely or not, investors and analysts alike are looking to second guess what Trump’s government might mean for energy storage. Tim Grejtak, energy storage research associate at Lux Research, says

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“I don’t believe energy storage will be affected by Trump. I think it will be the consumer that will impact energy storage in the future, not government.” he has concerns for the way in which the Trump administration could impact initiatives designed to move the US economy towards greener forms of energy.

Early days

Yet he also points out that the federal government has limited power over many aspects of such policy with individual states driving forward many initiatives. “It is early days to be looking at this but people are trying to work out his impact,” Grejtak says. “There is a great deal of momentum behind the deployment of energy storage in some industries such as grid storage. “But if you look at the stationary side, a lot of those are being driven at a state and regional level, meaning most of those initiatives are immune to whatever is going on at a federal level. If you look at California or New York, they have their own mandates and incentives in place at a regional level to address regional problems. Nothing happening at a federal level

is going to change that quickly.” When it comes to electric and stopstart vehicles, while there are some federal incentives in place, such as vehicle tax credits for electric vehicles that could be reversed, the momentum is again too great to be significantly altered by government policy quickly. “There is too much momentum that has been built up by companies such as Tesla for that to be reversed easily,” says Grejtak. “The tax credits for electric vehicles, for example, only cover the first 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles and Elon Musk has said he is aiming for 500,000. “Consumer choice will be very influential on the momentum of such matters. And as for consumer electronics — the train has left the station on those. Nothing will impact the consumption of tablets and laptops now.” Geoffrey May, principal of FOCUS Consulting, agrees. He too notes that while Trump’s administration has the potential to roll back some green policies, nothing will be likely to happen quickly and his impact will be limited.

SCOTT PRUITT APPOINTED HEAD OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

The US Senate confirmed midFebruary that Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general, was to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump proposed his selection in December. Pruitt’s appointment concerned environmental campaigners

because, in his former role, he sued the Environmental Protection Agency on a number of occasions, often siding with oil and gas companies and saying climate change was unrelated to CO2 emissions. After Pruitt took up this new position policy changes followed, driven by the Trump administration aimed at loosening regulations on energy production and rolling back the Clean Power Plan, which president Obama’s administration introduced in 2015 to help reduce carbon emissions. Any relaxation of environmental rules could benefit some sectors of the industry such as lead smelting plants. However, a shift back to a reliance on fossil fuels could stymie the emerging green energy sector, which has become a growing user of energy storage to harness and store wind or solar power.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 17

THE US PRESIDENT AND ENERGY POLICY

A new vision: “The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans … for many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry… From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land… From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.

“I imagine a move to the right will push green policies back but there is a lot of regulation in place and it will take time to change things. And some initiatives, for example, in California, are state-based not federal,” he says. Neil Hawkes, principal consultant, Cru Group, attempts to analyse the impact Trump’s presidency could have on the wider economy and the impact it could have on batteries and energy storage. He says it is too early to make much out of the “huge flurry of proclamations” Trump has made and translate these into hard action/ realities that could be a concern for lead-acid batteries. But there are elements of his wider economic strategy that are clearer. “He is pro-business, which includes of course lead-acid battery making, yet there are some conflicting influences that might play out in the months and years of his presidency,” Hawkes says. “The first point to make is that

Trump’s infrastructure spending plans will have no impact on automotive lead-acid batteries though maybe boosting industrial motive (fork lifts) lead-acid batteries as higher industrial activity includes greater material handling (fork lifts) needs.”

The stop-start factor

“Consumer sentiment to continue buying big ticket items like cars remains reasonably upbeat, though the trend in US vehicle sales last year was one of a slowing growth trend,” says Hawkes. “Lead consumption in making more VRLA AGM batteries for stop-start vehicles is already in motion and will continue to grow, though further moves down the vehicle electrification path may well slow to a crawl under Trump, particularly if it dares to threaten American auto jobs in any way!” Hawkes also says a slowdown in momentum towards greener forms of energy could benefit the lead acid bat-

If you look at the stationary side, a lot of those are being driven at a state and regional level, meaning most of those initiatives are immune to whatever is going on at a federal level. If you look at California or New York, they have their own mandates and incentives in place at a regional level to address regional problems. 18 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

tery industry. “My gut feeling is that less rapid moves towards greener energy is probably net positive for lead-acid batteries as in most of the greener energy storage areas other battery chemistries (not just lithium ion) are serious competitors,” Hawkes says. “In other words, the status quo — greater majority of vehicles built are internal combustion engine, more with stop-start function, lead-acid batteries still king in motive fork lifts and standby UPS and telecoms applications — is a good thing for lead demand prospects in the US.” Farid Ahmed, principal analyst covering the lead markets, Wood Mackenzie, says: “It’s still way too early to tell but there are plenty of reasons to think it will both help and hinder the battery industry. “Positives include: more automotive production creating battery demand; more industrial batteries for standby and motive power. “Negatives include reduced development of renewables which means less ESS opportunity; a potential economic downturn reducing automotive and industrial demand across the board. But it’s very much up in the air, swings and roundabouts. Too early to call,” he says. Beyond the high-level speculation, however, there are also some specific concerns that some experts have, especially around some of the funding ultimately provided by the federal government that is used to develop new forms of energy storage and new battery chemistries.

Appointments

Grejtak at Lux says some are very concerned by the appointment of Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and Trump’s nominee as energy secretary, who has said in the past — while running for president in 2011 — that he would like to abolish the Department of Energy. More recently, during his Senate confirmation hearing, he did something of a U-turn and said he regretted having said that. As well as his portfolio including the oversight and management of the nation’s nuclear weapons, Perry will also be responsible for 17 national scientific laboratories and thousands of research scientists across the country. Grejtak says that these laboratories have been responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs in battery chemistry and research. “At Lux we try to keep tabs on

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THE US PRESIDENT AND ENERGY POLICY “There is a worry that the Department of Energy, while unrealistic to consider it being closed, could come under the microscope for budget cuts. Reducing funding at some of these key places could impact the industry, not in the short term but in the very long term, and we may simply never know what might have been.” where the next generation of batteries and energy storage might come from and innovation has always been very strong in the national labs in the US,” Grejtak says. “There is a worry that the Department of Energy, while unrealistic to consider it being closed, could come under the microscope for budget cuts. “There is always going to be a question of where cutbacks might come when you have a new government with different priorities as they look to reduce budgets and focus money elsewhere in government. “But it is those labs that could produce the next generation of chemistries. The battery commonly used in laptops now was first invented by a team in one of these national labs. Reducing funding at some of these key places could impact the industry, not in the short term, but in the very long term and we may simply never know what might have been.” Grejtak says Lux is particularly interested in the potential of some of the work being done around solid state chemistries where they replace the potentially flammable liquid electrolyte with an ultrathin aluminium oxide, which makes them safer and run for longer while using fewer materials. Some exciting work is also being done around the use of lithium sulfur, which he foresees as having potential in specific areas of energy storage. But as with so many issues when it comes to predicting Trump, uncertainty and his tendency for knee-jerk reactions on twitter is clearly a big factor. One big beneficiary of federal funds, for example the University of California Berkeley, discovered this the hard way in February. Protests against a planned speech by alt-right figure and Breitbart news editor Milo Yiannopoulos — a big Trump supporter — turned nasty when some 1,500 protestors smashed windows and started fires on campus.

Predictability

But what should have been a local issue dealt with by the university suddenly became bigger when the presi-

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dent waded in on Twitter to suggest he would suspend federal funds to the university if it did not allow such speeches to take place. “If UC Berkeley does not allow free speech and practises violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” Trump tweeted. Grejtak says such an incident sums up just how difficult it is to predict what impact Trump will have. “Berkeley has many good scientists and suddenly that funding is coming under threat directly from the president because of an incident like this,” he says. “Trump is a loose cannon and it just shows how uncertain almost everything is right now. My concern is that the next generation of battery technology could be at risk.” However, such uncertainty would exist with any incoming new president who will have their own priorities, ideas and agendas. Obama was a keen backer of projects that moved the economy towards greener sources of energy, for instance. But Grejtak says it is less about the politics at the moment than the people filling senior roles and trying to predict whether their past words will become actions in the present. “You have Parry who previously wanted to abolish the Department of Energy and Trump being a loose cannon on twitter. Unsurprisingly, that translates into a lot of uncertainty for the energy storage industry. “But the flip of that is that the federal government is only so influential. There is enough going on at the state and regional levels to keep the momentum going on many projects and Elon Musk is not going to stop work any time soon. My main concern is around the administration’s take on science and how that translates into national policy and funding.” Musk, incidentally, sits on Trump’s economic advisory council. He has already faced criticism for that but argues that it is better to be on the inside guiding things than on the outside. It will be interesting to see if that lasts. Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, quit the role in February.

Elon Musk has already faced criticism sitting on Trump’s economic advisory council but argues that it is better to be on the inside guiding things than on the outside.

The appointment of Rick Perry, former Texas governor and Trump’s nominee, as energy secretary has proved troublesome to the energy storage industry — he has said in the past that he would like to abolish the Department of Energy. He has since retracted that wish.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 19

POWERING THE SMART GRID www.energystoragejournal.com

Meet the team Issue 8: Spring 2015

Sara Verbruggen, Associate Editor Sara, one of the founding figures of Energy Storage Journal, has relocated back to England, and now works as our in-house adviser as well as a respected contributor to sister magazine, Batteries International.

Let cool heads prevail The lead-lithium storage debate steps up a notch The new titan of lead Ecoult’s UltraBattery, ready to take lithium on, head-to-head

The CEO interview Anil Srivastava and Leclanché’s bid for market dominance

Next gen integrators Coming soon to a smart grid near you, the ideal middle man

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!

ADVERTISING Jade Beevor +44 (0) 1243 792 467 jade@energystoragejournal.com

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, Advertising Manager 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 ...

EDITORIAL Mike Halls +44 (0) 7977 016 918 editor@energystoragejournal.com

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.

YEARBOOKS, PUBLISHING & EVENT GUIDES All enquiries +44 (0) 7792 852 337 publisher@energystoragejournal.com

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OPINION Alfons Westgeest, executive director of EUROBAT, argues that greater regulatory coherence is needed for the European battery industry.

Towards a ‘2030 Battery Strategy for Europe’ EUROBAT, the Association of European Automotive and Industrial Battery Manufacturers, is proposing the development of a ‘2030 Battery Strategy for Europe’. For Europe as a whole, it is important to enable the future of its battery sector and ensure coherence between EU, regional and national policy initiatives. The recent references to batteries across many EU policy fields recognize them as a key enabling technology, and acknowledge the huge and growing importance of batteries and their need in several sectors: • The recent European Commission proposal on new energy market design has finally recognized the importance of battery energy storage for the integration of renewables in the energy mix. We hope that the final package will create a level playing field for batteries to compete on an equal footing with other flexibility services, remove double grid fees and any other unintended regulatory barriers. • Several legislative initiatives are promoting the decarbonization of the transport sector, and the European Commission is discussing with several stakeholders the future of the automotive sector . To achieve the targets highlighted in the European Strategy for low-emission mobility, it will be paramount to increase the efficiency of all ICE vehicles (cars, vans, buses, trucks) while at the same time develop an internal market for hybrid and electric vehicles. All types of batteries will play a key role in this regard, from advanced start-stop batteries to batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. • The EU is also investing in several research, innovation and development initiatives specifically focused or involving batteries, from Horizon2020 to specific strategies in the energy sector. Research projects are important for the future of the battery sector and the development of an R&D strat-

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egy for batteries, but they should always take into account the existing landscape of EU battery production base and be linked to other policy initiatives in a coherent way. • Several policies address sustainability and recycling-aspects of batteries, including the Batteries Directive and the Circular Economy Package. EUROBAT members support the circular economy approach of the EU, and automotive and industrial batteries are all collected and treated at end of life in accordance with the recycling efficiency targets of the EU Batteries Directive. Lead-based batteries, for example, have a collection and recycling rate of almost 100%, creating a closed loop for this technology. Overlaps of EU legislation that regulate the batteries sector, notably the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, the REACH Regulation and the Battery Directive, need to be clarified to ensure business certainty. In terms of minimizing exposure risks of workers to heavy metals essential in battery production, our members have created voluntary industry

programmes that even go beyond regulatory requirements. One important objective that EU policy-makers are pursuing is the further development of a European manufacturing base for lithium-based cells. Moreover, keeping the production of all different battery technologies in Europe will be paramount for the competitiveness of different EU industrial sectors. We are convinced that the various EU initiatives on batteries would benefit from an overall EU strategy, taking stock of existing markets, technologies and policies. To be in line with the concept of better regulation, the strategy should also include an assessment of which developments can be left to the market and in which fields policy-makers need to intervene and regulate. As the representative association of European manufacturers of automotive, energy storage and industrial batteries, EUROBAT and its members wish to deepen the dialogue with policy-makers at EU and member states level to define the regulatory framework for batteries that is needed for the next decade and beyond. We believe the best way to achieve this is to develop a long-term ‘Battery Strategy for Europe’ which sets out the guiding principles for EU policy-makers for this period. This strategy should be prepared in cooperation with all stakeholders (trade associations, the supply industry for batteries, users of batteries, civil society etc.). The coming two years of the current European Parliament and European Commission should be used to develop the strategy. The next EUROBAT AGM and forum will be held on June 8, 9 In Brussels

Overlaps of EU legislation that regulate the batteries sector, notably the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, the REACH Regulation and the Battery Directive, need to be clarified to ensure business certainty Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 21

COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

Here come the

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The UK market is quite mind-boggling in terms of how to develop a business case for a project. There are some 20-odd potential revenue streams, comprising grid balancing services, the capacity market, network use charge avoidance, but only some in combination can be accessed, depending on whether the storage asset is connected directly to the grid or sits behind the meter.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

money men … The UK’s energy storage market could be poised for explosive growth, as developers pursue business models around gridbalancing services. The scramble for business will inevitably offer international lessons reports Sara Verbruggen.

aking a business case for investment during periods of great uncertainty is always a tough challenge. Ane even more so when the sums are huge. National Grid, the UK’s transmission system operator, estimates that its annual spending on grid services will double from roughly £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in 2015/2016 to £2 billion a year by 2020. That cost is expected to continue to rise to 2030. However, the investment that has traditionally gone into generation assets will be less, as the price of renewables cross grid parity. The UK has entered a choppy, unpredictable period as the electricity market contracts to accommodate this change. In 2016 National Grid contracted 200MW of battery storage to provide enhanced frequency response (EFR), a new grid balancing service, along with other grid balancing markets that batteries can potentially bid their capacity into.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

The part aggregators have to play The UK market is also unique because of the emergence of a set of market participants called aggregators, who could potentially help to accelerate the market’s development, but can also add more to the operational expenditure of the asset. In the US utilities are aggregators by another name. They have accumulated internal market intelligence based on operating various assets and knowledge of how the market works, so they are moving into aggregation, as part of a strategy to divest themselves of operating big power assets and becoming nimbler services-oriented businesses. They don’t necessarily want to own assets but they will operate them or deploy their services. In the UK the market is more fragmented. Aggregators emerged out of the demand side response (DSR) market. Traditionally major users of energy, such as steel mills, would contract directly with the National Grid, to adjust their energy demand and be paid directly for doing so. National Grid has designed DSR markets so that other commercial and industrial energy customers, not just the biggest energy users, can become participants, adjusting power demand to help balance the grid. They are able to participate through aggregators — companies that have developed hardware and software programmes that enable energy loads to be turned up and down, or switched off, in response to supply and demand variations to help keep the grid balanced. Storage assets have very little chance of making money just by doing one function or service. Because they need to be pointed at a various different revenue streams to earn income, such as fast frequency response, capacity market, avoidance of transmission network use of system (TNUoS) and distribution network use of system charges, aggregators are naturally well placed to manage batteries as a pool of assets. These can tap into these various revenue streams and provide these services, in much the same way as managing lots of loads among C&I customers. As a segment of the energy market in the UK, it makes sense for aggregators to develop energy storage

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They are able to participate through aggregators — companies that have developed hardware and software programmes that enable energy loads to be turned up and down, or switched off, in response to supply and demand variations to help keep the grid balanced projects. “As a segment of the energy market in the UK, we have the capability to be thrown the keys to run the energy storage asset. But by taking projects through development, the build and operating them, it gives aggregators more flexibility, rather than wait for others to do their projects and then come to us,” says James Stoney, senior project developer of energy storage at Kiwi Power. Revenue stacks are affected based on whether the asset is behind the meter or is a greenfield in-front of meter project. “With a behind the meter asset, triads are a relatively safe revenue stream, but as a result of Ofgem’s embedded benefits review, TNUoS/ TRIADS as a revenue stream are going to be reduced for in-front of meter installations. We’re also expecting the National Grid to make its position clearer on the frequency response markets, whether it will end up merging the fast frequency response and EFR in future,” says Stoney. “It could be the case that a battery project’s business model could be centred on newly revised frequency response market the National Grid is designing, supplemented by capacity market revenues.” This degree of uncertainty means that projects need to be designed with flexibility in mind. “Sizing the battery in terms of power (kW) and energy (kWh) is one thing. But once it is built, how quickly can the software programme that the battery is running on be changed? You need to factor in that sort of flexibility. We know what the revenue streams

are today but they could be different in year two or year three of the asset’s operation,” says Stoney. “For instance if wires utilities which are going to see their roles expanded, from distribution system operators to distribution network operators, they might start contracting for some services that the National Grid has traditionally done, so you might end up needing to change the software — not the physical asset hardware — monthly, instead of yearly, or even weekly.” Some aggregators in the UK are developing or are involved in developing energy storage projects. They might find in future that their business works by being operators — not necessarily owners — of energy storage assets as well as purely about software. But the market is still developing, so aggregators are on a learning curve as much as the rest of the industry. If business models rely on stacking, which is essentially finding more than one revenue stream, then skills in trading are needed. Aggregators have a part to play and the asset needs to be managed well to be able to perform in different markets. Campbell says: “It feels a little like the ‘dash for gas’ in that whatever you are investing in, it is down to a combination of people, trading knowhow and also the asset itself. I get frustrated when people try to divorce the asset from the trader. “Aggregators are doing a good job bringing smaller assets to market and finding revenues but we are missing the big hedges need to build up this market. But it’s down to the market’s level of maturity at this stage.”

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

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offer longevity in contract lengths to base reasonable payback assumptions upon. On top of that, regulatory issues, such as double charging compound the difficulty in pencilling out the business case. It’s a far cry from the frequency regulation market presided over by PJM Interconnection. Contracts are not limited by time, providers of frequency response services, which include energy storage stakeholders, win payments based on the accuracy and speed at which their resource responds to grid signals, rewarding innovation, to enhance overall market efficiency. Without a clear sense of how a grid battery is going to make money, it can be difficult to convince investors to provide the finance needed to get the projects off the ground. At a recent energy storage conference in London, an entire panel of investors, bar one — SUSI Partners — all had to admit they had not yet put any money into energy storage projects, due to uncertainty around future revenue streams sufficient for achieving payback. “If the offtake/income stream for a storage asset is linked to grid balancing then the offtake tends to be a function of market demand and prices that are variable. This means that the income generated by the storage asset is uncertain in the longer term. It also means that replacement value of competitive storage assets comes into consideration,” says Scott Macaw at Denmark-based investor and developer Howard Scott. As an operating asset, the value is closely linked to the quality of the income stream associated with it. It would be like the owner of commercial real estate paying for some highly specialized specifications within the building. By having tenants only prepared to sign a lease agreement for six months at a time, who then choose to move out after six months, the property owner is left not knowing what price new tenants would be prepared to pay for the next lease period. Howard Scott set up the special

“In a market such as the UK revenue visibility is narrowed down to four years contracts or less, so the investment ‘crowd’ is limited to corporate investors, like utilities. An infrastructure investor needs 7-10 years of revenue visibility” — Jacques Boppe, SGEM purpose vehicle Recharge to invest in Leclanché and from that deal it ended up providing investment for a clean microgrid project on the Azorean island of Graciosa and taking a majority stake in the project. Howard Scott is ultimately managing the commissioning of the project. The island’s grid has been completely refigured so that diesel fuel — once the main electricity generation source — has become a back-up source of power. It was also the world’s first megawatt scale renewable energy plus storage system. Integrating energy storage, with the battery system supplied by Leclanché, with wind turbines, provided by

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In addition National Grid has contracted for a further 500MW of battery capacity to secure reserves, through its capacity market, to make sure there is enough power during winter peaks. Interest in the last year in the UK’s energy storage market has reached a crescendo. Eight EFR contracts were awarded, mainly to power producing utilities able to bid low. The 200MW market revealed a gigawatt of pent-up energy storage potential. The EFR market provides many potential grid battery developers and, crucially, their investors, clarity that for at least four years they could rely on a secure, reliable revenue stream to recoup investment in energy storage — a very new class of energy infrastructure class. However, how to make a business case for energy storage in the UK market is a conundrum that many developers have been struggling with. For example, one UK developer of solar PV plants that is developing several energy storage projects declines to discuss its business model for the storage projects it plans for fear of giving away any commercial advantage. But it is also because the developer is still working through a host of unknowns that need to be factored into the larger model. “While we have a good idea of some revenue streams derived from frequency balancing services, for the initial years of the battery’s operation, then it becomes difficult to predict,” an executive at the company told Energy Storage Journal. One US energy storage player says “the UK market is quite mind-boggling” in terms of how to develop a business case for a project. There are some 20-odd potential revenue streams, comprising grid balancing services, the capacity market, network use charge avoidance, but only some in combination can be accessed, depending on whether the storage asset is connected directly to the grid or sits behind the meter. Many grid balancing services do not

“Aggregators are doing a good job bringing smaller assets to market and finding revenues but we are missing the big hedges need to build up this market. But it’s down to the market’s level of maturity at this stage.”

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

Adding value to projects: a developer’s perspective Many UK solar developers have been searching for new business opportunities, now that declining subsidies have stemmed the flow in new solar PV projects, particularly utility-scale solar. Developers have gathered knowledge about areas such as permitting and grid connections, all of which can be deployed when planning energy storage projects. For wires utilities, more distributed generation combined with rising demand for electricity from EVs and heat pumps will all put local grid networks under increasing pressure. So energy storage at strategic points on the distribution network, co-located in some cases with renewable energy generation, can help to alleviate grid constraints whilst providing investors and stakeholders in projects with a secure revenue stream. In a project funded under Ofgem’s Low Carbon Network Fund, Somerset-based developer British

Solar Renewables has partnered local distribution network operator (DNO) Western Power Distribution to develop a 330kW/360kWh battery co-located with a 1.5MW solar park, next to its headquarters. RES supplied the energy storage system and the energy management system. Western Power Distribution will own the asset for the project’s duration. British Solar Renewables is operating the installation and accumulating data from the project. The aim is to develop commercial models where energy storage can support wires utilities, like Western Power Distribution. This includes placing the batteries in locations that are strategically valuable to the DNOs to provide support as this group of utilities transition to distribution system operators (DSOs), which will redefine their role to have more control over local networks. The project’s aim is to define the value that energy storage systems

British Solar Renewables is fundamentally a developer that sells on solar PV projects. The company’s long-term strategy it is about developing projects that add value longer term, which requires finding sites that leverage benefits for DSOs/DNOs.

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can provide to DNOs under various operating modes. By saving the DNOs money and deferring capital intensive upgrades to the local network British Solar Renewables and Western Power Distribution want to be able to develop a commercial framework under which DNOs/DSOs can contract with privately owned batteries. For example where batteries are installed for renewables smoothing and grid upgrade deferral their capacity could also be deployed in grid services markets. The so-called “revenue stack” needs to reflect this, whether the asset can participate in frequency response or pricing arbitrage. However, when factoring in deferral or replacement of grid upgrade expenditure as the main business case it provides the opportunity for long-term contracts. British Solar Renewables is fundamentally a developer that sells on solar PV projects. The company’s long-term strategy it is about developing projects that add value longer term, which requires finding sites that leverage benefits for DSOs/ DNOs. Part of the company’s business is also servicing solar plants, so provision of O&M services for storage assets in future is a potential area to expand into.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING Enercon, solar PV arrays, provided by DST, and diesel generation wrapped in Younicos’ energy management system enables renewables to account for the majority of the island’s electricity production. The system is designed to minimize the fossil fuel used to generate electricity and provide other key functions, which the generators would have traditionally done, like black start recoveries from a total or partial shutdown. The offtaker is local utility EDA. Portugal has a subsidy system in place that guarantees the Azores power at the same price as the mainland. The offtake is guaranteed by the mainland — ultimately the Portuguese state — through the subsidy mechanism. The offtake agreement is linked primarily to the level of diesel savings and therefore is affected by oil prices. The microgrid has a target level of renewable energy penetration of 65%, so diesel-generated power has to be reduced to 35% of the overall power consumption on the island. “The guarantee through the subsidy system provides a minimum, a collar, and a maximum, a cap, return for the equity investors in the project,” Macaw says. In the projects that Howard Scott is developing, established renewable

energy technologies — onshore wind, solar PV and hydro — can be optimized with energy storage and energy management system — software controls — to make savings. This is because they ensure lower operational expenditure to reduce carbon-based power production, which tends to be diesel fuel on islands or remote grids. “The offtaker is prepared to pay an income based on operational efficiency improvements and energy savings together with significant sustainability and environmental benefits,” says Macaw. “In these configurations the energy storage component — the newest riskiest component — becomes about 20% of the whole investment. A 20MW or 50MW grid balancing battery, which is where the majority of that asset is batteries and management software, that’s a bigger risk.” In markets where grid-balancing is driving energy storage demand, income of those assets is derived from trading. “Because they are selling capacity into whichever market, you can’t depend on these income streams for the long-term because they aren’t contracted for the life of the asset and the amount you are paid for your capacity as well as the asset’s capacity changes over time,” says Macaw. “The ‘golden

“Technical knowledge is paramount but developers also need to possess creativity. This is not a subsidyled market” — Roberto Castiglioni, Ingenious egg’ though is a secure, fixed, longterm cashflow or capacity-derived income source that the battery can trade in.” One of the reasons why National Grid’s EFR market was so oversub-

Evolution of UK Generation and Demand 2000-2015 (TWh)

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

The big picture Increasingly grid operators are after one thing, flexibility. Traditionally the lion’s share of investment in the electricity grid went on building and operating generation assets; big power plants, and upgrading the network; the wires and cables needed to transport electricity to customers. Grid balancing was addressed by the inertia inherent in a system, created by the thermal mass of lots of large turbines turning in coal and gasfired plants. But electricity grids are yet more complex, with the growth in distributed sources of renewable generation. More intermittent generation that cannot be controlled in terms of when it is dispatched to meet demand is being connected to the grid. Old coal plants are being retired. So replacing that diminishing inertia, in greater quantities, to balance supply and demand has given rise to the need for flexibility. Presiding over grid ancillary services markets, which put a value on flexibility, have emerged as an important function of transmission system operators and independent system operators (ISOs). Demand side response — getting large electricity customers to address their power consumption — has helped grid operators balance the grid. Now energy storage has emerged as technology that will be critical in providing flexibility, especially frequency regulation, where batteries, flywheels and other storage technologies are programmed to inject and withdraw power on a second by second basis. The grid as a whole operates more efficiently as the task of providing frequency control can cause wear-and-tear on traditional generators’ operations. In Germany batteries are being built and brought online to looking to balance the grid in the primary frequency control market. The island of Ireland, where lots of wind generation is being installed, is revising its power market rules to accommodate more flexible resources, which can include energy storage. Several wholesale power markets in North America, most notably the one operated by PJM Interconnection — one of the largest wholesale power markets in the world — have redesigned their grid ancillary services markets to procure fast responding and accurate frequency regulation services, from energy storage, to balance the grid more efficiently and cost-effectively. Other wholesale power markets, in California and Ontario, have been adapted to procure flexibility, providing other markets for energy storage to play in.

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Demand side response — getting large electricity customers to address their power consumption — has helped grid operators balance the grid.

Now energy storage has emerged as technology that will be critical in providing flexibility, especially frequency regulation, where batteries, flywheels and other storage technologies are programmed to inject and withdraw power on a second by second basis.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING scribed was because it guarantees contract lengths of four years. By contrast other frequency response markets guarantee contracts for half that time. For strategic investors the financial parameters that they put around a decision to invest, can be challenging to quantify, since it links to their business strategy. “For financial investors, four years income certainty makes a huge difference compared with two years,” says Macaw. “In most cases financial investors on a trading asset, would be looking at getting back most of their capital in that period of time to cover off the risk and downside. “Their upside returns would be linked to how the market develops after the four-year period — both in terms of prices the market will pay for ancillary services and the replacement value of competing assets.”

Equity and debt financing

The energy storage market in Europe

is not mature enough for debt financing yet. Lending banks cannot take security in an underlying asset where its value is so contingent on income streams that may not exist in the long term. One firm, investor-developer Swiss Green Energy Management (SGEM) has come up with a business model to bridge the gap, providing private equity investors with a new asset class to invest in, while tapping into debt lending, in the energy storage market’s nascent stages. SGEM is based in Switzerland and many of its investors are European, but North America is the source of the company’s initial projects. SGEM invests in energy storage projects on a build-own-operate model. Through a partnership with lithium ion battery producer and energy storage engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Leclanché, SGEM enjoys the right of first offer for all qualified projects of Leclanché

“Everyone is taking a risk with their money so developers should also be prepared put skin in the game” — Simon Parrish, John Laing

In the UK the market is more fragmented. Aggregators emerged out of the demand side response market. Traditionally major users of energy, such as steel mills, would contract directly with the National Grid, to adjust their energy demand and be paid directly for doing so.

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Test project on Scilly Isles to provide EV, smart battery business model The Isles of Scilly are set to provide a global model for EV integration and home batteries in smart energy systems. If the test project works, then the financial benefits should prove quantifiable and so provide a template for investment given that future revenue streams can be modelled. The £10.8 million ($13 million) project will provide a model for electric vehicles and home batteries to play a major role in smart energy systems around the world, according to Moixa, a UK smart home battery company. Moixa will develop platforms allowing electric vehicles and smart home batteries to be used to help balance supply and demand within the islands’ energy system, although the project will not fund the electric vehicles and charging points themselves. The Smart Energy Islands (SEI) project, part financed by £8.6 million from the European Regional Development Fund, will lay the foundations for the wider Smart Islands programme, which aims by 2025 to cut electricity bills by 40%, meet 40% of energy demand through renewables, and see 40% of vehicles being electric or low-carbon. The Electric Vehicle Management System will control and optimise how electric car batteries can be used by the islands’ energy system. It will develop learning algorithms to ensure that when electric vehicles are deployed they are maintained at a state of charge best able to support the energy system and the needs of their users. The Home Battery Management

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System will also support the Smart Islands goals. Smart home batteries will allow homes with solar panels to save money by using more of the power they generate. They will also be able to import or export energy to balance local energy needs.

Coulomb counting becomes part of a battery management system that also assists in controlling mobile phone and laptop batteries. Furthermore, a BMS keeps the battery voltage and current in check to maintain safety and prolong battery life. Moixa’s systems will integrate with an Internet of Things (IoT) platform developed by Hitachi Europe, which is leading the SEI project. It will use home batteries, electric vehicles and smart heating technologies to balance supply and demand of electricity. By easing pressures on the islands’ energy system, it will allow them to scale up renewable generation and increase their energy independence. Chris Wright, Moixa chief technology officer, said: “Moixa’s role in the Smart Energy Islands project will demonstrate how ordinary people will play a key role in our future energy system. “Our systems will support the reduc-

tion of fuel poverty on the Scilly Isles and support their path to full energy independence. They will be scalable and flexible so they can be replicated easily to allow communities all over the world to cut carbon and benefit from the smart power revolution.” Electric vehicles are set to play a major part in the global transition to a low-carbon economy, providing an alternative to diesel and petrol vehicles and playing an important role in future smart energy systems. Fourteen countries plan to put 13 million electric vehicles on the roads by 2020, and with 60% annual growth they could make up a third of the road transport market by 2035. Transforming islanders’ lives in a high-carbon, low-wage economy The Isles of Scilly face unique challenges due to their remote location 28 miles from the UK mainland. The 2,200 islanders have no gas supply and rely on imported fossil fuels and electricity to meet their needs, resulting in one of the UK’s highest household electricity consumption levels. They have a low wage economy, dominated by tourism and agriculture. They have one of the highest rates of fuel poverty in the UK, affecting 22% of households. The Isles of Scilly have 270kW of renewable power, mainly rooftop solar panels, and the SEI project will more than double this. It will see rooftop solar PV systems installed in 100 homes, a tenth of the island’s housing stock, and two 50kW solar gardens will be built. They will deliver 448kW of renewable energy. Energy management systems will be installed in 100 solar homes and energy monitoring in 190 of the islands’ businesses. PassivSystems, the home energy services company, will supply the home energy management systems for domestic buildings allowing them to be integrated into the IoT platform, and building energy monitoring systems for commercial properties.

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similar opportunities for investors and for the industry itself, in areas such as project development, EPC and O&M. Asif Rafique, the managing director of SUSI Partners’ energy storage infrastructure fund, says: “The plus points of a market like the UK is that you have a lot of renewables capacity installed and so you have a large number of developers in renewables and clean-tech that are seeking to apply their skillset in a new sector outside of their core area.” Downsides are the lack of regulatory and policy progress designed to clarify energy storage. “The combination of revenues from the EFR, with its four year contracts, supplemented with longer term revenue streams from the capacity market were compelling,” he says. “It’s not quite the same case with other frequency response markets, where contract lengths are shorter. We like predictable cashflows and large predictable revenue bases. “That said, infrastructure funds can take a degree of risk, for instance feedin tariff and power purchase agreements for renewable energy plants are not guaranteed for the full lifetime of the asset, so infrastructure funds are used to a degree of haziness when it comes to where income streams are coming from, further out.” SUSI Partners’ first energy storage investment is in Canada, where it closed a deal in 2016. The developer is Convergent Energy and Power, which is developing a 5MW flywheel and a 7MW lithium ion battery storage project, which is contracted to provide frequency regulation and voltage support services with the Ontario Independent System Operator (IESO), following a solicitation. SUSI is investing in the portfolio, along with the lead investor CJF Capital. The loan facility is a non-recourse, third-party project financing structure for energy storage assets. The financing structure incorporates construction financing elements to bridge a short development period before com-

“As an aggregator, we have the capability to be thrown the keys to run the energy storage asset. But by taking projects through development, the build and operating them, it gives aggregators more flexibility, rather than wait for others to do their projects and then come to us” — James Stoney, Kiwi Power mercial operations start. “For us, we were happy with the developer, which has a track record of bringing energy storage projects to fruition, in North America, and we were also confident in the level of certainty around the income streams. The energy storage markets in the US and Canada, are not necessarily better than in Europe, it’s just that they are further along,” says Rafique. Boppe reckons that: “Europe will become more attractive in the next 18 months, led by the UK and Germany. We’ll be able to use our experience of

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that total 85MWh for 2017. “In a market such as the UK revenue visibility is narrowed down to four year contracts or less, so the investment universe is limited to corporate investors, such as utilities. An infrastructure investor needs seven to 10 years of revenue visibility, which includes servicing the debt in the project for seven to eight years, because lenders are looking to allocate project financing for long, not short term, return,” says Jacques Boppe, managing director of SGEM. Contracts for grid services that are two or four years, which provide the visibility of income streams, are too short for private capital. “But if private capital is excluded then the market does not grow as fast. If only corporates (utilities) are in the game then the market for energy storage projects will tend to develop more slowly because they are the incumbents,” says Boppe. Boppe regards the UK as a market where participants, such as renewable energy developers looking to energy storage as a new commercial opportunity, as “very literate about energy storage”. Many would-be investors are circling the UK because their involvement helped to transform renewable energy infrastructure — wind and solar farms — into a major new asset class. Trading portfolios of assets have attracted mutual, pension and infrastructure funds. Indeed renewables bucked the trend, post 2008, when many other assets failed to offer the returns investors were looking for. This liquid secondary market of built operational assets, backed by secure long-term incomes in the form of government subsidies, have helped the UK renewables industry, which has no indigenous manufacturers of wind turbines or solar modules, expand as a services-driven sector, not only EPC, but in post-build area such as operations and maintenance and asset management. Potentially energy storage offers

These banks don’t want to deploy $10 million, but $50 million at least. To attract those lenders you have to have a pool of potential assets, or projects, worth $100 million. It is not that 7MW-10MW projects cannot be developed at all, but they will tend to be financed totally with private equity, which is a more expensive cost of capital.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

SUSI Partners investing in, building and operating commercial energy storage assets in North America to deploy in Europe as the market gets going.” North America’s more mature energy storage market has begun to attract investment banks. Last year infrastructure investor Macquarie announced a deal to provide capital for the joint development and construction of $200 million of energy storage projects, developed by Advanced Microgrid Solutions in California. The finance will go towards the design, management and construction of energy storage facilities. These will be at commercial, industrial and government host sites to be used for utility

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Though money hasn’t gone out the door yet among equity investors, the likes of Platina Partners, Ingenious, Zouk Capital, Deutsche Bank Private Equity, and Bluefield have been busy doing their research and working up projects. Ingenious plans to deploy a fund in the next six to eight months, while Platina Partners is in the due diligence and final modelling phase, with plans to make an investment in the £5 million to £10 million region. “In the next few months we’ll take one forward,” says Colin Campbell, a director at Zouk Capital, adding, “We’re also looking in the electric vehicle space. We don’t think EVs will kill off batteries but what they do to the grid will be interesting.” Investors seem divided on EVs in terms of the impact on energy storage, with some seeing them as mobile energy storage systems, potentially able to interface with the grid either directly through nascent vehicle-togrid charging technology or through battery banks powering fast-charging infrastructure. There is also the question of the impact of cheaper repurposed EV batteries arriving on the market. These developments could all have a major impact on the cost of energy storage, pushing down the price of batteries and creating oversupply, a situation that could burst a future investment bubble, which is inevitable as the market takes off. Others see an opportunity in the future because EVs will increase electricity demand, also the long-term forecasts for the UK are that electricity demand will rise, leading to higher prices and volatility, creating more opportunities for arbitrage, where electricity is traded based on the delta between prices at their peakiest and at their lowest. From an investors’ perspective developers with a thorough knowledge of the market are key, with some wanting to see projects designed with the flexibility to take advantage of other opportunities if they arise and also with options that will create value in the long-term.

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“The plus points of a market like the UK is that you have a lot of renewables capacity installed and so you have a large number of developers in renewables and cleantech that are seeking to apply their skillset in a new sector outside of their core area” — Asif Rafique,

grid services, including flexible and reserve capacity, solar integration and voltage management in addition to retail energy services such as demand management, back up generation and enhanced power quality. Southern California Edison will buy capacity from the AMS fleet of behind-the-meter, battery-based energy storage systems under 10-year capacity contracts. In fact where global institutional lenders are starting to lend they are looking for sizeable portfolios and deal pipelines. “These banks don’t want to deploy $10 million, but $50 million at least. To attract those lenders you have to have a pool of potential assets, or projects, worth $100 million,” says Boppe. “It is not that 7MW-10MW projects cannot be developed at all, but they will tend to be financed totally with private equity, which is a more expensive cost of capital.” SGEM’s plan is to acquire individual projects for a portfolio. A 20MW/10MWh battery project, the firm has acquired in Chicago, which will bid into PJM Interconnection’s market should start operations at the end of this year while another project contracted with the Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario should start by mid-2017. “We’re building projects mainly with equity funding and mainly in North America at this point. We are talking to construction lenders for long-term debt financing. At this stage of market maturity, we are looking at 50% leverage. But as the industry matures, which is through more grid services opportunities becoming open to energy storage, more revenues are possible. Then this debt to equity ratio can change,” Boppe says. This is also good for equity investors or shareholders in projects, because increased income streams, which enable more debt to be used to finance the asset, is still shared among the same number of equity holders. But while energy storage progress in Europe is playing catch-up with North America, investors have not been idle.

One UK developer of solar PV plants that is developing several energy storage projects declines to discuss its business model for the storage projects it plans for fear of giving away any commercial advantage.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

“If the offtake/income stream for a storage asset is linked to grid balancing then the offtake tends to be a function of market demand and prices that are variable. This means that the income generated by the storage asset is uncertain in the longer term. It also means that replacement value of competitive storage assets comes into consideration” — Scott Macaw, Howard Scott.

Developer that are putting projects together that will seek revenue streams from provision of grid balancing services and other services contracted with the TSO, need to be clear in terms of any overlapping deliverables. The complex market rules for each revenue stream and how they interact with each other have to be well-understood. “Technical knowledge is paramount but developers also need to possess creativity. This is not a subsidy-led market,” says Roberto Castiglioni, a

fund manager at Ingenious. Some investors also want to see, in a market so dominated by equity finance, would-be developers put in some equity too. “Everyone is taking a risk with their money so developers should also be prepared put skin in the game,” says Simon Parrish, a project director at John Laing. Macaw says: “If a developer is prepared to put money on the table, the rewards should also be emphasised. When the project is a success commercially it could lead to other opportuni-

ties for that company too.” Following the hype and the interest generated by the EFR market last year, a high level of interest in the UK’s energy storage potential has occurred. According to observers, the expectations of developers and of investors are starting to meet in the middle. Over the next year to 18 months as more clarity about which grid balancing and other services will be applicable, the market could take off quickly with many participants prepped and raring to go.

Howard Scott set up the special purpose vehicle Recharge to invest in Leclanché and from that deal it ended up providing investment for a microgrid project on the Azorean island of Graciosa and taking a majority stake in the project. Howard Scott is ultimately managing the commissioning of the project.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

What guarantee can underpin success? Investors need to feel confident that energy storage assets are going to pay back their investment with a return. Everything afterwards is upside. But how to guarantee that the asset will perform over its lifetime is an evolving challenge the industry needs to be conscious of, when persuading investors and lenders to open the purse strings. Investors will be asking questions about the project’s engineering, procurement and construction firm, and whether it is providing an umbrellatype guarantee. One guarantee is preferable because it avoids dealing with different suppliers and the simple rule — the more individual components the more interface risk. “If something goes wrong you do not have the issue of going through all the various warranties to find which party is responsible when all you want to do is get the fault or issue fixed quickly,” says Scott Macaw, from Danish project developer-investor Howard Scott. “Big players such as ABB, Siemens, GE, Tesla, can offer this sort of single interface guarantee on the system.” From its experience of building energy storage projects, developer-investor

Swiss Green Energy Management is able to assure its equity investors and banks that it is able to negotiate performance warranties and maintenance contracts with its EPC partners. “Of course it is better to have one main wrapper warranty contract provided by a single source, the EPC, usually,” says SGEM’s managing director Jacques Boppe. “But it is also about ensuring for those various component suppliers and subcontractors that their back-to-back warranties are also properly structured.” But while batteries and inverters are proven components, what makes energy storage a riskier technology is the glue that sticks all these components together and tells the system how to operate. The energy management system. “A system might be built with the best batteries and power control systems in the world but if the problem is with the software controls what happens then?” says Macaw. “It is compounded because the EMS tends to originate from integrators, those are the new players that haven’t been around long because they tend to be innovating. But for a large storage asset interfacing with the grid, you need

a guarantee for how the system as a whole is going to perform.” Battery makers provide specifications linked to warranties. For example if the battery can be cycled x many times for 10 years cycled once a day then it will be half that time if cycled twice a day. A developer needs to take into consideration that if the battery is to end up cycling more intensively than was originally expected it will degrade more quickly. Other parameters too such as temperature ranges and depth-of-discharge will be included in the specifications, all of which can accelerate the battery’s degradation if they keep being breached. The EMS is also set up with parameters and part of their function is to make sure the battery operates within its warranty parameters. “For investors looking at this new opportunity, they want to be assured of offtakers and income streams sufficient to see their investment paid back and returns,” says Macaw. “The other side is the technology itself. You have all these hardware bits and pieces, pulled together by that is evolving at breakneck speed. That side of the in-

A feature of any new infrastructure industry in its formative phase is that the projects do not have cookie-cutter replicability. Mostly energy storage projects are being devised on a case-by-case basis.

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COVER STORY: FINANCIAL MODELLING

The offtake or income to be derived from an energy storage asset are one side of the issue. The other concerns the quality of the warranties and servicing package writes Sara Verbruggen dustry needs to mature as well. Then you will start to see more money flow into energy storage.” A feature of any new infrastructure industry in its formative phase is that the projects do not have cookie-cutter replicability. Mostly energy storage projects are being devised on a caseby-case basis. This is bespoke and very different to solar PV, when once developers got the permits, off they went. “With energy storage what you are seeing is that solutions and projects are being developed through the integration of components. It would make the question of warranties easier if these components were packaged into a standard offering. But this is unlikely to happen until the market clarifies which solutions are going to be successful,” says Macaw. Nevertheless, energy storage integrators and providers of systems are trying to design products with some modularity, a kind of battery in a box offering, that is scalable and can be programmed with a menu of controls, which is being aimed at a specific market segment, such as commercial and industrial customers. Then on top of warranties dealing

with the system and its components, some integrators will offer performance warranties and servicing agreements that are based on ensuring that the system hits a certain level of performance for all of its various functions and applications. The advice to would-be developers is to take time and negotiate to avoid being tied into a limited service agreement. One US energy storage provider has developed a software package to manage warranties over the longterm, by analysing the effects of how the battery is being used, for fast frequency response-type service, for example. It is helpful to look at the more mature renewables industry, where warranty and servicing solutions didn’t spring fully fledged when the market was in its infancy. Aspects such as performance warranties, guaranteeing certain uptime, and sophisticated menus of post-warranty service packages took years to emerge. The post-commissioning services markets for both wind and solar PV are where growth is occurring in established markets, where demand for new turbines and modules has levelled off, compared with previous years.

Only recently has the solar PV industry witnessed the emergence of whole plant certification, which is designed to ensure the bankability of assets. It is where an independent testing agency, such as DNV for example, provides a holistic certification service. Only through a combination of component testing in production, project site visitations, component testing on site, contract reviews and other various checks — in other words, thorough due diligence at all stages right up to commissioning — that can provide such whole plant certification to rubber stamp bankability. But it has required the accumulation of data of how solar PV assets operate to be able to identify how performance is impacted in real-life applications. It is early days still for energy storage, but would-be developers and their stakeholders are advised to shop around because getting the right warranty and service package is time well spent. “It is about balancing technology risk ± through warranties, servicing agreements and so on with the commercial opportunity risk. If both are addressed then private capital will come in,” says Boppe.

“For investors looking at this new opportunity, they want to be assured of offtakers and income streams sufficient to see their investment paid back and returns”

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BATTERY TESTING Time is money in the battery industry, so high precision testing tools designed to cut development times, and bring about other benefits, are being commercialized by several providers of testing equipment. Sara Verbruggen reports.

Right on target Measuring coulombic efficiency, also termed high precision testing, and even ultra-high precision testing, depending on the level of accuracy, can provide data on how a battery cell is going to perform all through its entire lifetime. It does this by cycling the cell a fractional amount of cycles it would need to do in real life once coulombic efficiency stabilizes. The results can then be extrapolated. The technique potentially halves the development time cycle that traditionally goes into a new product deploying, say, lithium ion batteries.

Precision, precision, precision

Forget lithium, or cobalt, or vanadium or lead. The battery industry’s most precious commodity is time. This is particularly true when it comes to testing energy storage devices. There is no way around it, the whole process can take months and sometimes years, depending on the end-use application. For an EV the battery must have a lifetime of 10 years, for a medical or aerospace application, it can be 15 years, or more, and for a grid storage system, it can be 20 to 30 years. That translates into batteries that could well need to cycle for 10,000 times, or more. Since the most accurate way, historically, of forecasting a battery’s useful

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life is done through cycling the battery, by repeatedly charging up and discharging the device, development timeframes for new products can take a long time. A full charge/discharge test plan to validate a new technology for an electric vehicle or a grid battery can take three years, minimum. But some traditional methods of accelerated testing can skew results. Instrumental precision needed in order to reliably assess the likely performance of thousands of cycles can be corrupted by something as subtle as a small increase in temperature, which can occur in accelerated testing conditions.

Measuring coulombic efficiency to accurately pinpoint these percentages could, for example, give a cell manufacturer developing a new cell chemistry a clear indication of what materials will be needed for a battery to perform over its lifetime in a given application. Or enable a developer of energy storage systems to select which cell suppliers to source from, by testing different cells head-to-head under the same conditions. Research, notably by Jeff Dahn, professor of physics and chemistry and Canada research chair in battery and fuel cell materials at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, has shown the industry how taking coulombic efficiency measurements with a high degree of accuracy indicates battery cycle and calendar life. To measure coulombic efficiency to a much higher accuracy than with previous systems, a few years ago Dahn’s lab built its own system with precision current instruments. The prototype had just six channels, capable of measuring six cells. Each channel cost about $10,000 to build. Chris Burns, who co-founded Novonix, is not a typical high-tech start-up chief executive. He doesn’t do hype and his respect for his mentor is apparent. Last year Burns completed

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BATTERY TESTING his PhD, supervised by Dahn. Burn’s focus of research was lithium ion cell lifetimes and the impact of electrolyte additives in short-term experiments using high-precision coulometry. The work also involved scaling up the lab’s proof-of-concept machine. Earlier on research literature published by Dahn and his team stirred up interest from across the industry. One of these was A&D Technology. “A&D visited the lab five or so years ago and said they were interested in this space. We thought, ‘great’, so we worked with them on their system,” says Burns. A&D’s concept involved taking a regular cycler and adding to the front of it an A&D module designed to operate in series with the cell to enable it to log the current, accurately and rapidly, so providing greater precision than the cycler by controlling its charge/discharge operation.

Scenting opportunity

With various researchers in the industry contacting Dahn, it became clear to Burns there was demand in the market for an advanced diagnostic tool for testing lithium ion cells using high precision coulometry. “I wanted to design a low noise, really accurate system.”

So in 2013 Burns set up Novonix to develop a multi-channel diagnostic tool and commercialize the system and also to provide some testing services using its equipment. Novonix is not a spin-out in the traditional sense because it has not licensed intellectual property from the university to develop the system. Novonix has developed a high precision diagnostic tool from scratch, which adheres to the same degree of accuracy as Dahn’s lab equipment. Burns says: “You can buy the components for high precision coulometry from Keithley Instruments. The devices they supply are highly accurate but are designed to do several things, which is overkill. Keithley’s equipment was the benchmark, but we needed it to do one task but better or at least equally well.” Novonix makes channels for under half the cost of those Burns helped build in Dahn’s lab, in the range of $3,000-$4,000 per channel for full turn-key systems. The initial plan was to sell systems to academia, establishing a base of users that could vouch for the system’s performance and then target the industrial research labs. “We leap-frogged the whole aca-

demia stage; because of Jeff’s work. He’s been a great friend of the company,” says Burns. By late 2014 four customers had put down deposits before the final testing systems had even come off of the production line. They included Bosch, Alcatel Lucent, for its labs in Ireland, and a lithium ion cell manufacturer in China, which had been in contact with Dahn, several years previously, afterwards it had followed the professor and his team’s progress in this area. Most sales have been to industrial and corporate R&D labs, for testing different chemistries and validating supplies. Through partnering with a distributor in the region, Novonix has recently been making inroads with Japanese companies. “My pitch is 100% scientific, the results speak for themselves.” Novonix can build individual systems between eight and 64 channels. Each channel is dedicated to one cell. “Professor Dahn’s lab, for example, will typically run tests for three to four weeks. He also duplicates each test so a research group could test up to 32 cell types in parallel our one of Novonix’s system.”

WHAT THE COULOMBS! Coulombic efficiency can be used to estimate both calendar and cycle life. For batteries used in consumer electronics, which have a typical shelf-life of two or three years before they are discarded in favour of an upgraded version, there is little rationale for such precise

Arbin sales VP Antony Parulian

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forecasting. But for use in an electric vehicle or a grid-tied storage application, lithium ion batteries have to be guaranteed to operate for many more years, even decades. And so increases the need for diagnostics to estimate accurately calendar and cycle life of the battery in a given application. Coulombic efficiency measures the ratio between the amount of charge that goes into a battery during charging and the amount that comes out when the battery is discharged. A ‘perfect’ battery would charge up 100% and discharge 100%, repeatedly. In reality, parasitic reactions, due to various causes, from film formation

to electrolyte reactions or particle cracking, exposing batteries to higher temperatures, can all degrade the cell, consuming charge. When Coulombic efficiency is less than 100%, some combination of these reactions are present. Taking measurements of columbic efficiencies can be used as a powerful prediction tool to assess both the present state and the future capability of a battery. This type of testing is also known as high precision testing because of the accuracy required in the delivery of the current, the precision of voltage measurement, the short time that occurs between voltage measurements and the very precise control of cell temperature.

“If you want to ensure that the battery is going to last its guaranteed lifetime, you oversize it. However, overbuilding the battery increases the cost of an already expensive component.” — Antony Parulian

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BATTERY TESTING The number of high volume cell manufacturers in the market is relatively small, though these companies invest in thousands of channels. “We’d expect to supply a subset of those channels.” Even, these could end up being substantial contracts, though the installation might be staggered over several deals. In its current iteration, the system is not suitable for large format cells. Burns says: “It’s good for smaller cells; 1 amp maximum current, up to 5 volts. By the end of this year we’ll have a product that can test larger format cells; 20 amp maximum current.”

Finickity

“Keep in mind that coulombic efficiency is an additional accelerated testing tool that gives cell cycle life predictions but we still have a lot of customers doing the real thing and run cycle tests for months, even years,” – Raf Goossens The company’s high precision charger systems can measure the coulombic efficiency of cells to typically less than 10 parts per million (ppm) precision and 50 ppm accuracy. The system is able to compress testing times. For example, tests which might take many months on a standard charger system could be shortened to only a few weeks on a Novonix system. It has the potential to be developed further into critical piece of equipment, for use in industrial labs, as well as in independent battery laboratories and, eventually, cell manufacturers. “The economics for independent labs are good. They have the budgets to invest in testing equipment, and a capital expense of around $100,000 can have a short payback time given the potential benefits they can obtain. Economics are also good for third party testing labs, who will invest in equipment and are able to recoup the cost through charging customers to use their services and facilities,” says Burns.

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A half-hearted approach to measuring coulombic efficiency will not work. It is a finickity form of testing and it can take about six months to set up the equipment in a lab, including installation and calibration. If measurements are not done accurately enough, when they are extrapolated to thousands of cycles, the risk is a large spread on the potential end result. Precise, granular control of the environment in which the measurements are taken is critical. According to Raf Goossens, who founded PEC along with Luc Vereycken in 1984, typical customers that are interested in his company’s coulombic efficiency measuring technology are R&D labs and some end users, or OEMs, looking to do supplier validation tests. “Keep in mind that coulombic efficiency is an additional accelerated testing tool that gives cell cycle life predictions but we still have a lot of customers doing the real thing and run cycle tests for months, even years,” he says. The main point of coulombic efficiency is to predict the cycle life of new cells or processes. Goossens says: “The process is often forgotten and underestimated when discussing cycle life.” The company’s range of testing tools can be used in early stage R&D of cell development. Customers include cell/ module and battery pack manufacturers and independent testing labs, such as Intertek. In addition, companies in different end-use industries, including automotive, aerospace as well as stationary energy storage, use PEC’s equipment to perform validation of lithium ion batteries. PEC’s advantage is that the company also makes production tools as

well as testing equipment used in the battery industry, including high volume, fully automated and integrated, cell finishing lines used in formation, degassing, ageing, grading and sorting steps. High speed inline testers can be included for finishing or qualification of cells during manufacturing. The company’s cell finishing equipment can improve cell cycle life by up to 40% by growing a very consistent solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer during formation. “Such cycle life improvement basically comes for free,” says Goossens. “To evaluate real-life cycle life improvements we need to test cells for many cycles and this is very time consuming — especially at low C rates. For this reason faster testing methods have been developed and coulombic efficiency is suitable.” Cell materials R&D and coulombic efficiency measurements are typically done on smaller cells and scaled up later. Building a consistent SEI layer is one of the key challenges for good results, hence PEC’s cell finishing manufacturing equipment for this. “Due to this large format cells are much more challenging to produce, but it does make sense to verify materials-oriented cycle life achievements on larger cells. Our equipment can support such tests but we should keep in mind that the more power losses, the more challenging the set up. The maximum cell size we used is around 50Ah,” says Goossens. Coulombic efficiency readings are supported by PEC’s system ACT0550, an 80-channel high power cell tester, developed for testing and evaluating cells for high speed and accuracy in demanding applications that include electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as renewable energy storage systems, for R&D, production quality control and incoming goods inspection. The company uses a water cooling technology developed for keeping cells and all the circuitry chilled, eliminating the use of fans. “It is the only way to keep the heat to the needed levels for such stability and accuracy.” According to Goossens, some customers are using coulombic efficiency measuring to accelerate testing. “But it is not very common yet. Not only is the battery test equipment set up important, but the whole test setup is very critical, especially from a temperature control level. We do have a setup which is so accurate that we could see the sun coming up and going down (delta T) when using a cli-

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BATTERY TESTING mate chamber in an air conditioned room. It is like zooming very deep on a digital picture where the image only stays clear if the resolution and focus are perfect.” Arbin Instruments has developed a high precision high power battery tester for measuring coulombic efficiency of a large scale battery; 200 amps at 5 volts. “Coulombic efficiency testing is performed in academic research at lower current, but not at a scale relevant to industrial battery performance,” says Antony Parulian, vice president of sales and marketing, at Arbin. The degree of precision with the majority of cycle testing equipment on the market ends at about 300 parts per million (ppm). Arbin has developed a system that is able to go less than 40 ppm. “That level of granularity is the Holy Grail in battery testing because with that level of accuracy, you can then extrapolate how the cell is going to perform in a battery in a given application,” says Parulian. “With our equipment, the typi-

ESSENTIAL READING

“You can buy the components for high precision coulometry from Keithley Instruments. The devices they supply are highly accurate but are designed to do several things, which is overkill. Their equipment was the benchmark, but we needed it to do one task but better or at least equally well.” — Chris Burns cal six-month period that’s usually needed in battery testing for a consumer electronics application could be halved.” And for batteries in applications with much longer operational lifetimes compared with smart phones, testing can also be shortened significantly.

In the automotive industry, where tests need to run for two to three years, these can be reduced to under a year. The same for stationary storage applications. In early 2013, the Department of Energy awarded a $3.1 million grant to Arbin, Ford Motor Company and Sandia National Laboratories, to im-

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Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 39

BATTERY TESTING

That little black number ...

prove the efficiency of batteries in electrified vehicles, enabling the company to develop and commercialize a high current, high-precision battery tester. “Sandia National Laboratory is such an important partner as they have provided expertise and capability in metrology and precision calibration,” says Parulian. Arbin began commercializing the system in September 2015, with several customers evaluating the equipment, fulfilling orders for the system earlier this year. In electric cars, or in grid energy storage applications, the battery pack accounts for one of the costly components, and cells make up the largest portion of the battery pack’s cost to produce. More accurate data on cell

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performance can enable more accurate sizing of the battery. “If you want to ensure that the battery is going to last its guaranteed lifetime, you oversize it, says Parulian. “However, overbuilding the battery increases the cost of an already expensive component. We think that anyone that is developing batteries for long-term use, will be interested in these high precision tools. “By shortening testing, with the ability to get more accurate data about what degrades batteries and ultimately causes them to fail, you can expedite the product development cycle and you also ensure that you have a battery properly sized for the application.” Eventually, this type of testing could potentially be applied further along the battery production process, nearer the end of product development and mass production. However, the benefits of implementing such high precision testing earlier on in the battery development and production process means a better battery, ultimately. Parulian says: “In cooking, starting out with the best possible ingredients has a huge impact on the quality and the taste of the final dish. It’s the same with batteries. If you select the best performing cells for your application, then you will have better performing packs. Also, once you get to pack level testing there are several things that can conflict with the coulombic efficiency measurement, such as the connections between the cells and the pack’s electronics. A version of the system that works with the high voltages and amps, at the pack level, would need to be developed.”

Testing tools for a costconscious industry

The equipment used in the ARPA-E project by Ford and the other partners is 25 ppm and below. Not everyone will want such a degree of accuracy. In addition to the system Precision 25, Arbin is also planning to introduce additional testing series — Precision 50 and Precision 100. “This level of precision is still much better than 300 ppm, but is more costeffective than the tools that are 25 ppm and below. We want to improve precision measurement for everyone in the industry. We plan to replace all of our testing equipment, which is at 200 ppm, to 100 ppm,” says Parulian. PEC is also responding to cost-conscious customers in the battery industry by developing equipment that is

more affordable but maintains same levels of quality in testing and results. Asia is where most demand for test equipment is coming from, especially South Korea and Japan, though China is catching up. Many customers tend to be aggressive on pricing. They want good performance but at a lower price. So, in response, we have developed a cell tester that has similar performance compared with our existing tools.” PEC is expecting to ship the first units in the first quarter of 2016. The new product will have the same accuracy and dynamics as PEC’s ACT0550 system but parallel switching will be limited to 1000A, versus 4000A with the ACT0550. “In addition there is no deep discharge function and the kit supports two automatic switching current ranges, as opposed to four on the ACT. The price however will be substantial lower,” he says. Deep and negative discharging at maximum current is typically only needed for cell development or abuse testing. “Our new system is designed to provide lower cost testing during cell sampling, incoming inspection and validation, but can also be used for R&D,” says Goossens. “A lot of low cost cell testing equipment that is being made available to the industry is totally incomparable in terms of performance. With our new cell testing system we are conscious that customers need to drive down the cost of cell testing, but that this can be done with our high accuracy, quality and advanced software.” The activities by various providers of testing equipment to commercialize high precision testing tools using coulombic efficiency measuring techniques, is part of a trend to improve battery cell diagnostics. “Unlike funded developments that claim to be unique, our ACT0550 system has achieved 50 ppm accuracy on the voltage for a few years already and we can achieve similar accuracy on the currents with a specific setup,” says Goossens. For the battery industry, testing is a critical dimension, along the value chain. Development of new materials and new cells, to meet the demands of longer life applications, cannot occur without testing. Approaches and innovations that can reduce development cycles, reduce costs or that can make the process of testing itself run more efficiently and smoothly, are going to be favoured.

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BATTERY TESTING: TESTING POINT OF VIEW

The end-user’s perspective: Greensmith Since it was set up eight years ago, Greensmith has emerged as notable player in the energy storage industry. One third of energy storage capacity installed in the US is running on the company’s software platform, equating to about 70MW. Customers include utilities, including public utilities in the state of California, and independent power producers. Greensmith takes batteries and inverters from suppliers that it builds into stationary storage systems for providing renewables integration, grid balancing and other services. The company’s services include designing and building turn-key energy storage systems for customers. The company’s advanced software platform, GEMS — Greensmith Energy Management System — now in its fourth iteration, is able to interface with the grid and is programmed to manage and control the systems based on the requirements of each specific project. This can involve asking batteries to perform several different applications and functions. Greensmith is battery-agnostic, sourcing different battery technologies, including lithium ion batteries from Samsung and other suppliers, as well as flow and other chemistries. To date, the company works with 14 different battery technologies, mainly different forms of lithium ion. It conducts regular technology and factory audits around the world on a quarterly basis. Chief executive John Jung says Greensmith’s quality control process and how it works with supplier partners is arranged so that: “Greensmith performs all tests in-house, sourcing batteries from credible OEMs that provide the performance guarantees for their products.” Greensmith tests at the rack level and system level. The GEMS software connected to the power conversion system (PCS) and the battery management system (BMS) provides an extensive diagnostic tool to evaluate and analyze the performance of the systems or subsystems. “We test systems for electrical (performance), thermal, functional

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and safety adherence to the requirement,” says Jung. “Initially, test data is received from the battery companies during the component qualification stage. The data set includes, but is not limited to, the performance characteristics, cycle life at various conditions, thermal characteristics and safety test results of batteries.” Greensmith’s engineers perform factory acceptance tests at the OEM facility for the batteries before shipping. The engineers test for communication interface, thermal characteristics and adherence to functional requirements. “We have devised a fairly extensive scoring matrix which it uses to evaluate battery vendors and their factory operations,” he says. “The key is to understand their quality control and production capacity and efficiency. “For example, the cleanliness and organization of the factory, the level of automation, the number of quality factors collected through the manufacturing process include some of the good indicators of how OEMs approach their quality assurance and quality control processes. The factory’s capacity and efficiency are good predictors of the cost curves.” In addition to meeting standards and safety requirements, the functional test can be used to demonstrate how the systems will perform under various conditions. “For instance,” says Jung. “that could mean what performance score can be achieved in PJM Interconnection’s frequency regulation market, based on the averaged day signal versus the worst day signal or the performance of ramp rate control based on various PV signals.” For a large project, Greensmith will typically bring one building block unit to its facility for the full system testing with the PCS and balance of plant (BOP). Extensive integration, functional and performance tests are performed according to the test plan agreed with the customer, leading to the customer factory acceptance testing which would be signed off at facility. The system is shipped to the site upon full acceptance of FAT. Time and efforts required for new

Rack testing at the Greensmith facility

battery qualification can vary depending on the vendor. Criteria such as Greensmith’s previous experience with the vendor, the amount of data available on a new battery, the vendor’s reputation and their warranty conditions are all important considerations for battery qualification processes. “We have seen tremendous improvements in the safety and performance of lithium ion batteries over the past few years,” says Jung. “The redundancies in design at the software controls and physical hardware levels have significantly improved the safety. “The lifecycles of lithium ion batteries have improved while cost has dropped to the level that even most experts did not see coming so soon. These factors have enabled energy storage to become an economically viable solution for grid-tied storage applications. “While the uniformity of lithium ion cells produced by the same vendors are improving, the gaps between various suppliers, particularly between the Japanese and Korean manufacturers versus Chinese vendors still exists.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 41

BATTERY TESTING: TESTING STATIONARY STORAGE The growth in energy storage for integrating renewable energy and other grid applications is providing new opportunities, as well as challenges, for the battery testing industry to get its teeth into

Testing times ahead

As fast as one new technology leads energy storage in a new direction, so too — by necessity — follow the testing industry. The move into electric vehicles and hybrids generated a boom in the testing industry a decade ago. And now the dash into energy storage from renewable sources on an industrial scale is sparking excitement as a new generation of testing equipment for everything from flow batteries to supercaps comes to the fore.

Moving into grid testing

One company that has seen new business from the grid storage industry is PEC. The company supplied the testing equipment used in the Battery and Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Test and Commercialization Center in Rochester, New York state, which cost $23 million to set up. As well as supplying the test equipment for the facility the company supplied the software management system, Life Test, which schedules and

controls the cell, module and pack testers, the climate chambers and other equipment. The software also manages and consolidates the data coming from the different systems into the central Life Test server. “We are software-oriented while other companies are hardware driven,” says Raf Goossens PEC co-founder and one of its chief executives. The company’s systems are intuitive and user-friendly. “Our test regimes, test data and results are stored in relational databases and reporting can done in seconds. We’ve introduced a data warehousing function that automatically generates reports. You are saving time because otherwise someone has to do all that number-crunching, based on various different files and data sources.” Though PEC has been working with organizations and companies in the grid storage industry, Goossens say there has been a pick-up in activity in the past two years. “With support from the state gov-

Bitrode is developing equipment for testing batteries that are out of warranty, from electric vehicles, in second life applications in stationary storage systems for microgrids. The equipment will be able to ensure that the batteries are capable of turning DC electricity to grid quality AC electricity. 42 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

ernment, New York State has become a hub for batteries in energy storage and many of the players are PEC customers,” says Goossens. PEC’s customers also include electric vehicle manufacturers in Europe that are investigating so-called second life stationary storage applications for batteries. For these companies PEC’s standard software is equipped with algorithms to produce automatic grading rules for ex-electric vehicle lithium ion battery cells, and is able to grade cells based on several characteristics indicative of performance, including capacity, step pulse response, impedance and other programmable criteria. Cincinnati Sub-Zero (CSZ) has also had requests from companies in the automotive industry that want to test ex-EV batteries for secondary life applications, for stationary storage. Wayne Diener, application engineer in CSZ’s industrial division, says: “In our experience, in most instances, the point is to virtually qualify these batteries all over again.

Second life too

“Tests that would be carried out for the materials or cell development are not required. But, the testing that is implemented at the end of development — that same degree of testing — is being used for testing second life batteries because they have to qualify what performance is left. In this case, temperature and humidity testing is high on the list.” Bitrode is developing equipment for testing batteries that are out of warranty, from electric vehicles, in second life applications in stationary storage systems for microgrids. The equipment will be able to ensure that the batteries are capable of turning DC electricity to grid quality AC electricity. This could potentially require developing new testing hardware. The company is also supplying its existing equipment for testing remaining capacity of ex-electric vehicle batteries to help with grading batteries

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BATTERY TESTING: TESTING STATIONARY STORAGE with similar capacities left in them. Currents and voltages can be measured by Bitrode’s equipment, for various different capacities and outputs. But, looking to the requirements of some of its customers in the longer term, Bitrode is investigating what might be involved in developing high power testing equipment for very high voltage batteries – 1500 volts or more. Testing equipment that’s available from Bitrode today is adequate for 1000 volts, but in future there are customers of the company that will need to be able to test very high voltage batteries, for applications in what are niche markets at present, including microgrid energy storage systems, heavy transportation, as well as batteries used in electrified car racing. To develop testing hardware able to handle much higher voltages, new suitable components will have to be investigated. Not only that, the testing equipment will also need redesigning to be able to properly test batteries at such high voltages. This could require bigger components, different layout and spacing. CSZ says it has had requests for its environmental testing chambers for alternative energy storage devices, including fuel cells and flow batteries, technologies that are seeing increased uptake in off-grid and renewables integration applications. The advantage of using flow batteries is that they are extremely rugged and robust even in hot climates. With several companies now supplying energy storage systems based on flow battery technology there is growing interesting in using them instead of lead acid in telecoms in regions of the world such as like and Africa, for example. Unlike other battery chemistries, flow batteries can cycle many times without the need for replacing. However, weak points tend to be components, such as membranes. It is possible to swap out aged components, without replacing the entire device, so a flow battery, in theory, can operate for several decades. Environmental testing chambers are able to simulate harsh conditions, such as extremes in temperature as well as shock and vibration to see how energy storage devices can operate in tough conditions. Flow batteries could require larger chambers but CSZ is used to building large-scale chambers, so this should not be a huge challenge to overcome for the company.

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Arbin’s flow battery testing equipment can monitor individual cell voltages and control the flow rates of the pump, stopping and starting and regulating the flow rates as well as control the temperature of the electrolyte Arbin, a major battery testing firm both within the US and with a growing international presence, supplies testing equipment for flow batteries, aimed at customers that are developing new electrolyte materials. Compared with lithium ion batteries and other types of energy storage devices, flow batteries are a much more straightforward technology. About a decade ago, Arbin developed testing equipment for fuel cells, in response to R&D in the field, and the flow battery testing work is related to this. “With fuel cells you are managing the flow of gases, temperature, humidity, and pressure through membranes. With flow batteries, you are managing the flow of liquids and temperature through the device under testing, which is less complicated,” says Antony Parulian, vice president of sales and marketing at Arbin.

Customization too

Arbin’s flow battery testing equipment can monitor individual cell voltages and control the flow rates of the pump, stopping and starting and regulating the flow rates as well as control the temperature of the electrolyte by heating or cooling it, pressure monitoring, and a provide host of safety features. Additionally, the company plans to offer customized flow battery testers to control or interact with a variety of external hardware. At the other end of the energy storage scale, Texas-based Arbin also provides testing equipment for supercapacitors. Thanks to falling costs and performance improvements, supercapacitors are increasingly being used in electric vehicles as well as stationary

storage applications. “When you cycle batteries you tend to cycle them within hours. Supercapacitors cycle in seconds. So you need really rapid detection, able to respond within milliseconds, as the charge and discharge rate is so fast. While batteries might achieve thousands of cycles, supercapacitors need to achieve hundreds of thousands of cycles,” says Parulian. Testing of supercapacitors aims to quantify three key performance characteristics or attributes. These are capacitance (or cycling), equivalent series resistance (ESR tests) and leakage current. “The tester needs to detect voltage limits happening very quickly, and provide a data acquisition speed which must be consistently fast. The ability to transition from charge to discharge should exhibit no deadtime. Measurement of the capacitance happens after the test.” In the ESR test the equipment needs to provide a quick voltage pulse which means a fast rise time and a short pulse. At the same time during the leakage current tester, or floating test, the tester has to maintain a stable constant voltage regulation. “The challenge is to build testers that have very stable regulation and at the same time very dynamic response time,” he says. The company’s high precision tester, for measuring coulombic efficiency, can also be applied to supercapacitor cell testing. PEC supplies one of the fastest testers on the market, which can also be used for testing supercapacitors, where excellent, rapid dynamics are key.

PEC supplies one of the fastest testers on the market, which can also be used for testing of supercapacitors, where excellent, rapid dynamics are key. Testing of supercapacitors aims to quantify performance characteristics such as are capacitance (or cycling), equivalent series resistance and leakage current. Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 43

EVENT REVIEW Advanced Automotive Battery Conference Mainz, Germany • January 30 – February 2

AABC advances The Advanced Automotive Battery Conference held in Mainz, Germany came back this year with a bang. The fortunes of the conference have largely mirrored the fortunes of the industry as a whole. In the middle years of the advanced battery boom — a golden time for some when firms such as A123 Systems was valued by stockholders at half a billion dollars — conferences such as AABC were at the cutting edge in the discussions of the new battery technologies being pioneered. Huge numbers gathered at these events. Fortunes of the conference largely followed that of the automotive industry which took time to digest the possibilities of electric vehicles in various forms. The worry for the industry, at least for a while, was that with a nervy post-financial crisis approach to battery investment, and the withdrawal of huge chunks of government money from the sector, that the electric vehicle dream was if not dead, being put on the back burner. Thankfully that’s not happened. And this year’s meetings in Mainz were widely recognised as reflecting an industry that was maturing and — at last — more or less commercially viable. “This year’s AABC perfectly captured the excitement that we’re seeing in the marketplace,” said one exhibitor. “As ever the intellectual content of the presentations was extremely high but the thing that I’ll take away from it all will be the sheer enthusiasm of the people we spoke to. “We’re not in the promised land yet, but it’s clearly in sight.” The transition to commercial viability is an important one. “We’ve gone from a statement of faith in what was then an unproven

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technology to something that makes sense,” one delegate told Batteries International. “Yes, the price of lithium batteries is still too high — but look how far battery pack prices have come down — and there are still issues such as driving range and safety that still need to be fully addressed. But we’ve come a long way already with these difficulties. “Indeed the whole range of electric vehicles from pure EVs to mild hybrids and start-stop cars has now gone from an experimental approach from automotive firms in say the middle 2000s to what they hope will be a central product in their future range of cars.” One conference surprise was the announcement by two major battery and electric drive train suppliers that they had introduced 48V systems for their Chinese and European markets. This is something which now looks set to be the start of a new and larger trend with huge implications for battery markets. The conference proper — held on February 1-2 — was preceded by two days of symposia that looked at supercaps and raw materials on the first day and on the second looked at chemistry, engineering and the lead based papers. This year’s meetings proved to be ground-breaking in offering an implicit acknowledgement — for the first time — that lead acid deserves a place at the top table in discussing its role in the new electric vehicle universe. A whole day of symposia focused on their place in the electric vehicle universe. It was well attended and left many enthused about the neglected possibilities that lead batteries offered. “We’ve been waiting for years for

some kind of redress to the idea that the AABC meeting only looks at every chemistry but lead (or just give a token nod to it),” said one delegate. Some of the presentations bordered on the familiar but the selection of speakers — Eckhard Karden, Dirk Uwe Sauer, Juergen Garche, being notables always worth a listen to — was strong. Karden, who has just helped write a book called Lead-Acid Batteries for Future Automobiles, surprised his audience by at one point saying he thought lithium ion was the better technology. One of the most interesting presentations was made by Stewart McKenzie the chief executive of New Zealand’s ArcActive who dealt with dynamic charge acceptance, and his firm’s attempts to introduce a stepchange in performance, with a candid approach to success and failure rare to find nowadays. Part of the renewed vim to the conference comes from its new owners the Cambridge Innovation Institute which organizes events, and provides publishing, and training across the life science and energy industries. Comparitively recently the institute set up a separate division — Cambridge EnerTech — which looks at renewable energy and which in June 2015 acquired AABC’s bi-annual conferences. CET was established by uniting six leading energy conferences — International Battery Seminar & Exhibit, Advanced Automotive Battery Conferences — US & Europe, Lithium Battery Power, Battery Safety and Next Generation Batteries — into a single portfolio. “Our mission is to aid the expansion of the energy storage industry by providing forums for superior educa-

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EVENT REVIEW tional and networking experience,” says Edel O’Regan, a director at the institute. “This mission includes honoring the legacy each of the events have to offer, with a firm commitment to maintain their strong position within the industry.” This is the second year that the institute has run AABC although the content of the sessions and speakers remains with the founder Menahem Anderman. The origin of Anderman’s Advanced Automotive Battery Conferences derive from his work on behalf of the California Air Resource Board (CARB) in 2000. That year he met a variety of auto companies and battery makers to assess the status of batteries for EV applications. When the resulting analysis — eventually published as the 2000 CARB Battery Panel Report won praise, he saw there was a clear need for balanced information. “A year later I decided to follow the same track but this time on my own, collecting detailed information for what would become out our first multi-client report, which happened to focus on the future of HEVs and HEV batteries,” he says. By the time 75 subscriptions had sold over the next 18 months, the re-

port had become the industry’s sleeper hit as the definitive reference book that year. Heartened by that reception, he produced the first of what has since become a series of AABC events in 2001. “That first event took six months to organize from start to finish,” he says, “but it was immensely rewarding to see battery people from 12 international automotive companies gather in one room, and know that most of the 270 attendees had never met their colleagues before that day.” The AABC has since repeated the conference annually and as of 2010

bi-annually — organized once in North America and once in Europe. The next European meeting of AABC will be held once more in Mainz from January 29 to February 1 in 2018. In the US, the AABC meets again this summer in San Francisco between June 19 and 22. EnerTech will also be hosting the 34th Annual International Battery Seminar and Exhibit in Fort Lauderdale, Florida between March 20-23, the 12th Annual Lithium Battery Power conference in Arlington Virginia between October 31 and November 1.

IBRX India 2017 • The Eighth International Battery Expo & Recycling Conference

Goa Marriott Resort & Spa, India • January 9-11

A reflection of Indian and Middle Eastern Interest

The history of IBRX is really a history of Ajoy Raychaudhuri’s struggle to organize an event suited to the Indian battery market. The idea for such a meeting came to Ajoy (as everyone knows him) after attending the 2006 Asia Battery Conference. Initial disparagements over who would attend, where they would attend — at that time there was only one pos-

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sible conference centre in Hyderabad that could accommodate both national and international visitors — and why they should attend were overcome and the first of Ajoy’s conferences was held in 2008. Since then the conferences take place either annually or every other year and most recently they have been held in Goa in what can only be described as a

paradise of a location. In terms of content this year’s event didn’t break new ground — for those attending international conferences almost all of this had been aired in different places before — but it was clearly new and exciting to some of the large number of Indian delegates that attended. A striking proportion of attendees were from the Emirates — Dubai, most notably — reflecting the gradual shift in regional interest in India and the Middle East. One of the strengths of the conference was the exhibition area where a good number of Indian and international names were present. In terms of networking, the location proved interesting and the opening and closing receptions proved to be both fun and useful. The next IBRX seems set to be in 2019 but the location will be changing. Ajoy is promising that it will make Goa look bland by comparison.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 45

EVENT REVIEW Electricity Storage Network 8th Annual Symposium London, UK • January 25

Where regulation meets cost savings

In January the Electricity Storage Network held its eighth Annual Symposium forum, hosting it a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament in central London. More than 100 delegates, including developers, manufacturers, suppliers, network companies and regulators, were present. The meetings began with the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) head of electricity systems David Capper, who gave a rundown of proposed policy changes that will level the playing field for energy storage in the UK energy market. Capper began with top-line numbers. By 2050, the UK could save between £17 billion to £40 billion ($21 billion to $49 billion) cumulatively, if a low carbon energy system is rolled out; one that deploys not only energy storage, but also demand side response (DSR), interconnectors and combined cycle gas turbines, all needed to complement a larger renewables base. The savings can be broken down into four areas. The first is avoiding or deferring network investments. Cumulative savings are £4 billion to £13 billion in avoided distribution costs and up to £1.5 billion in avoid-

46 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

ed transmission costs. The second is by reducing the requirement for overall back-up capacity. Cumulative savings to 2050 from capital costs are £14 billion to £19 billion, due in part to fewer peaking plants. Third is by reducing the operational costs of the system, or balancing the system, and fourth is through maximising the use of low carbon capacity. Cumulative savings to 2050 from avoided generation costs could be £13 billion to £15 billion. However, energy storage technology has so far been able to provide services to the National Grid’s enhanced frequency response markets and capacity market. Though other markets exist, they do not sufficiently guarantee income streams, making investors wary of investing in the construction of energy storage assets. In response, the National Grid is reviewing other grid services markets. BEIS is close to publishing its findings, following a call for evidence — a consultation on a smart, flexible energy system in November 2016. “Removing policy and regulatory barriers is our first priority. We’ve identified these in areas including network charging, final consumption

levies, connections, planning and ownership. We’ve had good discussions with the ESN about these, and the association has been influential in helping to develop a new definition for energy storage,” said Capper. One of the areas that needs to be addressed is double-charging, where storage can be charged as an end-user of electricity, even when this electricity is exported and used a second time. “In the call for evidence we wanted input from the industry on how best to fix it. BEIS and markets regulator Ofgem are addressing these issues together; the government and regulator are committed to working together and setting out the same view in the regulatory space,” said Capper. BEIS will publish a Smart Systems Plan in the spring, outlining the actions it will take to remove barriers for energy storage and other smart solutions. A later presentation in the day, from the National Grid’s John West, who is its policy and design manager, summarized changes that would enable the integration of more low carbon distributed generation as part of the Future Role of the System Operator Programme. The general industry response, including that from major players such as RES, AES, and S&C, was that the “legacy barriers” to market deployment need to be removed quickly; there is no need for further reviews. The plan should contain milestones for action. Ofgem is consulting on the role of the System Operator Programme as a separate National Grid entity, which would take a more neutral role in resolving challenges, look to promote new flexibility and whole system solutions. One of the first developments is to launch by this July a revised market tender for response services. There is also work under way to simplify the various grid service products.

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EVENT REVIEW Other presentations from companies with energy storage businesses followed, including S&C and RES. Both of these made the point that energy storage cannot be deployed effectively unless distribution system operators (DSOs)/distribution network operators (DNOs) — the wires utilities — are able to own or leverage the benefits of the technology. “We have the EFR market now, but still there are no investable signals for distribution networks or for services to defer transmission infrastructure upgrades. Ofgem also has to take a role in aligning market regulations to ensure stacking is restricted to make sure that DNO signals, capacity market and other grid services markets are aligned for stacking,” said RES’ John Prendergast.

Panel debate: EV challenges In the second session of the ESN’s Annual Symposium, four UK companies made up a panel debate with Moixa, a supplier of residential behind-themeter batteries; Connected Energy Storage, a provider of energy storage for electric vehicle charging systems based on second life batteries; liquid air energy storage developer Highview Power, representing distribution scale storage; and flow battery firm REDT, which is targeting grid-scale, long-duration storage applications. The panellists were asked if the network could cope with EV growth. Matthew Lumsden, the managing director and founder of Connected Energy, said while there have been various trials to see EV charging as a new load on the grid, the unknown issue was how people would react to charging EVs. An individual EV is equivalent to a house in terms of network connection. “While EV charging at home will happen, it seems likely that fastcharging public infrastructure will become part of the equation. “Today, public EV charging infrastructure is 50kW, with some 100kW and 350kW being discussed. This will place huge loads on the grid. Energy storage will be required to manage demand from the grid,” Lumsden said. According to Connected Energy Storage, there are some 60,000 EVs on the roads of Britain already, with a capacity of some 1.5GW, accounting for the bulk of our electricity storage. However, the question was raised whether, in the highly competitive environment of car sales, it was real-

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istic to expect vehicle manufacturers to incorporate expensive grid integration equipment. Rather, Moixa suggested, the market for household batteries is soon to take off, with massive household appeal and ability to deploy far more rapidly than that of large units. However, argued RedT, larger units could operate as longer-life, multipurpose assets with >60% utilization rates, rather than as replaceable batteries. This was particularly important when usage entailed not only system stability services but network asset deferral and, later on, reduction of renewables curtailment, a point made by Highview Power. While cities can handle relatively high numbers of EVs before their impact on the grid starts to be felt, Gareth Brett, chief executive of Highview Power Storage, pointed out that growth in EV adoption will present DNOs with more challenges in rural areas, where pockets of people with EVs will be wanting to charge at the same time. “Storage located within the distribution network serving these pockets will help to alleviate the impact of EVs,” said Brett. Pöyry, in the session, “Who Pays Who Wins,” set out four broad applications of electricity storage: merchant service provision, network asset deferral, co-location on the grid with generation, and behind-themeter. Some of the potential positive and negative knock-on effects were set out, for example additional network management costs and retailer imbalance costs, and the question was raised as to whether all such “externalities” should be monetized. In relation to the range of services required, Flexitricity highlighted the challenge not of the service itself, but of managing the state of charge of the storage facility such that it is available when needed. Where is the revenue stream for maintaining the state of charge? CER, the Commission for Energy Regulation in Ireland, set out their approach to the regulatory framework for the provision of services and providing adequate incentives, but highlighted the difficulty of supporting long-term service provision and availability contracts in the context of the EU Balancing Code. In the afternoon session on “Good Services, Better Services,” the National Grid set out its proposed “wholesystem” approach to the procurement of services as a more independent

System Operator. As well as outlining the principles for developing some simpler products, National Grid suggested there would not be another EFR tender, but rather EFR would be incorporated into a new FR tender in July 2017. TLT, having been involved in some 40% of EFR tenders, in their talk “From Spreadsheet to Deployment” set out the legal and contractual considerations for developing a storage project, including a focus on co-located and behind-the-meter configurations. EDF Renewables gave an account of the drivers for its 49MW West Burton EFR project, where co-location with existing generation assets was one of the keys to the success of its EFR tender bid. Kiwi Power rounded off the session on services with an account of how revenues from various services compared, noting that the potential for annual revenue ranged from £5,000/ MW under the Capacity Market to >£100,000/MW for frequency markets, albeit the risk profiles and utilization regimes differ. Turning the focus further afield, the European Association for the Storage of Energy (EASE) outlined the latest provisions for energy storage as set out in the Winter Package. EASE suggested the UK would continue to adhere to EU policy requirements on energy, regardless of Brexit. EASE also flagged the availability of some €2 billion for storage projects, for which post-Brexit eligibility seems less clear. To finish the day with hot news, BEIS arrived to announce funding support for innovation in energy storage, in particular a £9 million competition for reducing the cost of energy storage and £600,000 for a first-of-a-kind, large-scale storage facility. Questions arose around support for pre-commercial deployment of proven technologies. The organizers of the sessions gave a synopsis of the topics of discussion covered: • the need for quick solutions, notably removal of market barriers • the need to facilitate various scales of storage and prepare for the societal implications of each • the flow of value streams and the importance of aligning these • the need to keep an eye on European regulation and global markets • innovation support, with appropriate health and safety regulations.

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 47

EVENT REVIEW Energy Storage, Connected Systems London, UK • February 7-8

Connectivity is all

As well as presentations on regulatory and policy matters Energy Storage, Connected Systems, organized by Reed Exhibitions and held at Kensington Olympia in February, explored different commercial models for energy storage in more depth, in residential, commercial and grid-scale deployments. The residential session included Moixa, Powervault, another UK developer of a behind the meter energy storage offering as well as a joint presentation by Oxford Brookes University and Oxford City Council on an energy storage pilot for social housing, which uses Moixa’s wall-mounted Maslow battery boxes. The project part-funded by the government under a local generation competition, installed solar PV and storage systems in nearly 100 households in mainly social-rented with some owneroccupied homes in a community outside Oxford. The project shows how management of distributed storage in a community can reduce average peak grid load and increase self-consumption of solar PV electricity. Oxford Brookes University is assessing the results. All households have solar PV systems installed, ranging from 1.5kW-4kW in size, each connected to a 2kWh smart electricity battery. The project is running over two years, ending in April 2017. Its aims include reducing the energy bill of tenants and helping to reduce the carbon footprint of Oxford City.

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The next stage of the project is to introduce Moixa’s Gridshare platform to those participating tenants who want it, which will allow Moixa to use the units in the project to contract for gridservices such as fast frequency response (FFR). The revenue generated will be shared with Oxford County Council, a projected £50 ($62) per unit until 2019. Contracts are expected to start from September 2017. From Oxford City Council’s viewpoint it wants to do similar rollouts but there are challenges, such as lack of funding support to subsidise the installation and payback of the systems. Any payback mechanism cannot put the tenants at risk of extra payments. In the summer months (June to September 2016), the average percentage of PV electricity consumed was 43%. In most households peaks in generation and consumption are mismatched and profiles show amount of surplus PV generated electricity. During these four months the average percentage of household demand offset by electricity discharged from the battery was 5.7% (maximum of 13%). The biggest impact of the battery was noticeable in the households with average electricity consumption, where the total electricity consumption was roughly 1000kWh, with solar PV contributing to 365kWh of demand and the battery contributing to 93kWh, leading to a 10% increase in PV electricity consumed and leading to cost savings of nearly £70. Some of the homes with bigger than average electricity demand saved up to £183. Over the same period, a sample of 42 houses where storage was aggregated contributed to smoothing, reducing peak electricity demand by 16%. Powervault has developed a residential storage system, which can be integrated with second life batteries from EVs, which it is seeking to rollout using a financed rented model. The company has developed software programmes for grid balancing services and arbitrage. The company is targeting opportunities where consumers on certain tariffs can charge up the system with cheap off-peak electricity to use at times when electricity from the grid is most expensive. Integrated with solar PV, the Powervault can shift low-cost electricity to daytime and shift solar electricity to the evening time to avoid the evening peak.

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EVENT REVIEW According to company founder Joe Warren, for consumers to adopt the technology, it will need to be simple and automatic and should not require customer behaviour to change after the purchase. The company is involved in a trial with DSO UK Power Networks, where 60 of its energy storage systems are being installed in households in UK Power Networks’ service area, including some in London, in Essex and in Kent. These are being monitored for 12 months by Imperial College. The aims are to understand the impact of installing energy storage with solar PV, for increased self-consumption, including implications for network planning as well as to evaluate benefits of controlling energy storage to assist the distribution network. The commercial segment session on day one included one project, by Panasonic, which has installed energy storage systems for customer Network Rail, which is also the third largest mobile operator in the UK from investing in over £1.8 billion in Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway (GSM-R) to ensure digital, secure and dependable communications between drivers and signallers. Consequently the operator spends about £2,500 ($3,200) a month on diesel costs at each of its transmitter sites. These sites are far from the main track and tend to be hard to get staff to to service them. At one site in north Lincolnshire, diesel was replaced with a lithium ion battery storage and solar PV hybrid system, with a custom-built management dashboard with inbuilt

alarms and reporting as well as five day solar PV forecasting. The total operational expenditure savings over six months were in the region of £15,000 and there are plans to roll out the technology along further GSM-R poles on the network. Panasonic certainly sees the commercial and industrial market for energy storage as more promising than residential energy storage. However Network Rail could potentially be a sizeable customer and diesel fuel reduction is one of the few straightforward business cases. For many C&I deployments in the UK, a stacked revenue model needs to be devised, with a central use-case such as reduction of charges applied by the transmission system operator as well as DSOs and back-up, with other grid services factored in.

Modelling co-located storage and renewables

A project by environmental consultancy TNEI shows that storage for renewables integration is not quite a business case at this stage. According to principal consultant Catherine Cleary, renewable energy plant owners and developers are interested in co-locating storage to help provide flexibility. Storage enables control over variable output to provide power in times of high demand. Installing a battery with a renewable energy generator can firm up output, opening up new revenue streams, such as allowing the possibility of performing simple arbitrage, so exporting at higher price times and in ‘triad’ periods, where transmission-

level charges occur and also during times of distribution network-level charging. Co-locating storage with renewable energy generation can reduce capital expenditure costs through grid connection sharing, which vary between 5%-15% of a project’s capex. Installing storage can add value by time shifting part of the generation, reducing the peak export of the site. The alternative might be to have to wait while upstream network reinforcements occur, which can be costly. TNEI worked with a developer that is planning a wind farm subject to grid constraint. The developer was looking to harness additional revenue streams and maximize the value of the grid connection. The modelling by TNEI is based on a 10MW wind farm, a 5MW solar PV farm and a 3MW battery plant. “The scope was a broad analysis of co-location to look for the optimum combinations. The addition of PV helps with the diversity of the generation as the wind and solar time of day profiles complement each other well,” said Cleary. TNEI’s modelling tool is to determine the operational profile of the battery and the size of battery needed to achieve different revenue streams. For the wind, solar, storage project proposal payback was estimated to be in year 11 and the level of benefit derived from co-location was deemed marginal. For many renewable energy developers, this sort of approach may represent too much risk, at this stage, she said.

LOOKING AHEAD TO … ALL-ENERGY Sister meeting to Energy Storage, Connected Systems is All Energy — an annual event since 2009 hosted by Reed and held in Glasgow. This year is is on May 10 and 11. The exhibition and conference attracts some 7,000 business/professional participants and with a free multi-stream conference they vote with their feet ensuring energy storage sessions are packed to the proverbial gunwales. This year’s show will hold three packed dedicated energy storage sessions involving 20+ speakers and attracting full conference theatres (between 2014 and 2015 room capacity had to be doubled from 100 to 200 to cater for the number of people eager to attend energy storage sessions).

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Discussion about energy storage is not limited to the dedicated sessions, it features too in sessions devoted to the farming community, related to low carbon vehicles, and in the community and local energy conference session and day-long quick fire seminar theatre. With sessions devoted to every renewable energy generation source it plays a role throughout the event. The first storage session ‘Making Energy Storage Happen’ embraces power-to-gas energy storage; the opportunities and risks of co-locating storage on renewables sites; commercial models for battery storage; Tesla’s large scale UK electricity storage facility (featuring Camborne Energy Services and EPC Poweri

Services); and combining energy storage with existing PV solar. Following this, the two 90-minute sessions on the following day embrace ‘Growing the Energy Storage Market’ and ‘New Developments in Energy Storage’. Energy storage also figures in the major All-Energy exhibition. Fifteen dedicated sector trails help visitors find their way to the stands of most interest to them. Energy storage is one of those 15 trails, and already over 40 of the expected 400 or so exhibiting companies are on it. Free registration for All-Energy and the co-local Smart Urban Mobility Solutions exhibition and conference is at www. all-energy.co.uk and www. smarturbanmobilitysolutions.com

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 49

FORTHCOMING EVENTS ICLB 2017: 19th International Conference on Lithium Batteries

5th Energy Storage Europe

Miami, USA March 9-10 The conference aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of lithium batteries. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of lithium batteries. Contact Tel +971 559 099 620 www.waset.org/conference/2017/03/miami/ICLB

Battery Experts Forum Aschaffenburg, Germany March 14-16 The Battery Experts Forum will take place and this event is a must for all those people, who are dedicated to the technologies of batteries. The forum offers participants the rare opportunity, in comparatively short time, to get comprehensive information in direct dialogue with the experts on all major trends and new developments.

Düsseldorf, Germany • March 14-16, 2017 Energy Storage Europe is an expo and conference event that takes place in Düsseldorf in March annually. The goal of Messe Düsseldorf, the organizers, is to further develop this young format of energy storage into a worldwide leading platform for the industry. To reach this goal, Messe Düsseldorf does not only invest financial funds but also uses its worldwide distribution network of 134 countries.

Good business is done where top decision makers gather at one place – in Düsseldorf! Be part of it and revolutionize the energy storage industry with us! Contact Caroline Markowski Tel: +49 211 4560 7281 Email: markowskic@messe-duesseldorf.de www.energy-storage-online.com

NAATBatt 2017 Annual Meeting & Conference

Contact Tel: +49 6188 99410 0 Email: mail@batteryuniversity.eu www.battery-experts-forum.com

The European Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Congress Geneva, Switzerland March 14-16 The European Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Congress strengthens its position as global platform to foster exchange of views between the R&D, the industry, the authorities, the end-users and the NGO’s actors, so to develop synergies in the field of e-mobility. As motivations and constraints are different for each of them, EEVC has the objective to help defining the most promising solutions for market introduction and take-off. This is made taking into account the research and development progresses, as well as the environmental and economic constraints. Feedback from past and current experiences are also discussed and analysed so that best practices and best ways for a daily introduction of e-mobility could be identified. Contact: Email: info@electri-city.mobi Tel: +32 477 36 48 16 www.eevc.eu

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Arizona, USA • March 14-16 The meeting will feature updates on the business and technology of electrochemical energy storage across applications with a view to giving industry thought leaders better insight into general business conditions and prospects. The NAATBatt annual meeting is the most important networking event each year for top executives at companies that manufacture, sell or rely on advanced battery and supercapacitor technology. NAATBatt meetings are designed to help attendees gain new knowl-

edge and build new relationships that help businesses grow and prosper. The 2017 meeting will be held at the historic Wigwam Resort outside Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting will feature the Advanced Battery Golf & Tennis Tournament, an outstanding Spouses/ Companions Program, the Energy Storage Innovation Summit and the best networking in the industry, among many other features. Contact Tel: +1 312 588 0477 Web: https://naatbatt.org

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS Scottish Renewables Annual Conference – Scotland’s Energy Evolution Edinburgh, Scotland March 21-22, 2017

obligation, the next allocation round for CfD, an industrial, strategy and the publishing of climate change plans, as well as further clarity on the emerging shape of Britain’s likely exit from the EU — and what all this means for our sector.

The Scottish Renewables Annual Conference will look at the new energy strategy for Scotland, changes in the feed-in tariff and renewable heat incentive and the closure of the renewable

Contact Lisa Russell Tel: + 44 141 353 4986 Email: lrussell@scottishrenewables.com www.scottishrenewables.com

Energy storage seminars from Shmuel De-Leon 2017 Schedule Location Local Partner March 30, 31

London, UK

HEL

April 19, 20

Wezep, Netherlands

Dr. Ten

April 24, 25

Itzehoe, Germany

Custom Cells

June 7, 8

Le Bourget du Lac, France

Serma

June 15, 16

Boston, MA, USA

Fastcap Systems

July 3, 4

Karlstein am Main, Germany

BMZ

34th International Battery Seminar & Exhibit

Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Exhibition Metro Manila, Philippines March 22-24 The three-day exhibition will highlight ways and means to attain alternative energy advancements and productivity. Increase your audience reach as it brings together key players and top practitioners from the industry, while also inviting target visitors and some government authorities for building new profitable partnerships and a lot more proactive business opportunities. It will showcase a wide range of technologies suppliers and equipment from various segments in the industry including: Supported by the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association, (PIPPA), this professional trade show is the best platform to build connections and transform it to mutually beneficial relationships. Renewable Energy (RE) and Energy Efficiency (EE) 2017 is just one of the successful energy series spearheaded by UBM, which includes ASEAN Sustainable Energy Week (Thailand), Renewable Energy India, Renewable Energy Myanmar, Renewable Energy Vietnam, Solar Asia and Green Energy Malaysia. Contact Andrew Lim Email:andrew.lim@ubm.com Tel: +63 852 2827 6211 www.waterphilippinesexpo.co

The Battery Show Europe

Stuttgart, Germany April 4-6

systems and enabling technologies. As the longest-running annual battery industry event in the world, this meeting has always been the preferred venue to announce significant developments, new products, and showcase the most advanced battery technology.

The Battery Show Europe is set to become the premier exhibition and conference for advanced battery manufacturing and technology in Europe The battery industry in Europe has never been stronger, as manufacturers benefit from a growing European market with increases in e-mobility, grid storage, microgrids, renewables, portable devices and tools along with medical technology. The world is becoming increasingly electric, and Europe is leading the way in much of it.

Contact Sherry Johnson Email: sjohnson@cambridgeenertech.com Tel: +1 781 972 1359 www.internationalbatteryseminar.com

Contact Steve Bryan Email: steve.bryan@smartershows.com Tel: +44 1273 916 316 www.thebatteryshow.eu

Fort Lauderdale, USA • March 20-23 Since its debut in 1983, the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit has established itself as the premier event showcasing the state of the art of worldwide energy storage technology developments for consumer, automotive, military, and industrial applications. Key thought leaders will assemble to not only provide broad perspectives, but also informed insights into significant advances in materials, product development, manufacturing, and application for all battery

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Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 51

CHARGING THE FUTURE A powerful combination: Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage systems and the world’s leading exhibition for the solar industry 430 energy storage companies, a special exhibition on E-Mobility & Renewable Energy, three days of expertise in exhibition forums, plus a program conference The efﬁcient generation, intelligent storage and decentralized consumption of renewable power: discover future-ready solutions for energy supply and e-mobility A must-attend event! Save the dates!

MAY 31–JUNE 2, 2017 MESSE MÜNCHEN GERMANY EUROPE'S LARGEST EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS

www.ees-europe.com

EUROPE’S LARGEST EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS

MAY 31–JUNE 2, 2017 MUNICH GERMANY

CHARGING THE FUTURE NORTH AMERICA'S ULTIMATE HOT SPOT FOR ENERGY STORAGE SOLUTIONS

JULY 11–13, 2017 SAN FRANCISCO USA

THE MAJOR PLATFORM FOR STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES RESHAPING LATAM’S ENERGY SECTOR

AUGUST 22–24, 2017 SÃO PAULO BRAZIL

INDIA’S LARGEST SOLAR EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS ENERGY STORAGE INNOVATIONS

DECEMBER 5–7, 2017 MUMBAI INDIA

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION SERIES FOR BATTERIES AND ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS

www.ees-events.com

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Energy Storage Association — 27th Annual Conference and Expo

8th Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technology

International Conference on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology 2017 Putrajaya, Malaysia April 11-13, 2017 Clean energy is electric energy generated by utilizing renewable and nonrenewable technologies with zero or lowest feasible emissions of greenhouse gases, criteria pollutants, and toxic air contaminants on-site. Deploying carbon-free clean energy systems is the best option that will reduce pollution and tackle the issue of environmental and population costs due to the increasing global energy demand. From the current cost perspective, clean energy is also capable of being permanently de-coupled from the oil and gas markets. As carbon-free energy sources, fuel cell and hydrogen energy systems can reduce fossil fuel-based GHG emissions drastically in order to give a significant impact on climate change. Challenges ahead include inefficient technologies for the current clean energy production, short supply of energy-related materials, little understanding of the fundamental processes in the chemical reactions involved, limited actions in terms of policies and R&D, and problems faced in large-scale adoption and implementation of more efficient, high-performing, and affordable alternative technological solutions. Fuel cell and hydrogen energy systems for electricity generation and storage are among the essential elements for the transition from high-carbon, fossil fuel-based energy generation to carbon-free, clean energy power generation. They have made vast improvements and their technologies are currently on the upward move, but there is still a long way to go before they can be as cost competitive as fossil fuels. Close collaboration, cooperation, and coordination between social scientists, climate and energy experts, and policymakers across all sectors of the energy systems can accelerate innovation and drive the most promising ideas to the marketplace. Governments with clear, long-term, and measurable goals for a carbon-free energy economy must be willing to invest on the fuel cell and hydrogen energy R&D efforts. The zero-carbon dioxide economy is achievable with fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies and crucial in transforming global energy politics. Contact www.ukm.my/icfcht2017

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Denver, USA April 18-20, 2017 The Energy Storage Association 27th Annual Conference and Expo is the must-attend event in energy storage — bringing together the global energy storage industry for three days of relevant content, and unique networking and business development opportunities. Our conference this past April was record-breaking in many ways: we featured the first-ever multi-country USTDA reverse trade mission, and had more than 1,600 attendees, 130 speakers, 40 educational sessions, six site tours to cutting-edge installations and multiple workshops led by renowned experts. ESA will continue to build on that momentum when we bring the conference to Denver this April coming. As one of the largest renewable energy markets in the country, Denver will provide the perfect location for ESA to expand the conversation about storage and renewables. The showcase will include 90,000 square feet of exhibit space and we are planning more innovative content than ever before. Contact www.27th-annual-conference.energystorage-events.org

Arlington, USA April 23-26, 2017 The conference will feature plenary sessions, panel sessions, technical papers, and tutorials by experts on grid modernization and smart grid applications and system integration. The theme for this year is “Innovative Trends in Grid Modernization” and will include an emphasis on how to economically and reliably integrate distributed energy resources in system operation, the needs for and trends in advancements of grid management technologies and systems, the seams between distribution and bulk power system operations, and approaches for planning, operations, and cross cutting disciplines to address endto-end operational coordination and control issues, including practical application. Contact www.sites.ieee.org/isgt-2017

International Stationary Battery Conference (Battcon)

Florida, USA • May 8-10 Battcon is an educational venue where users, engineers and manufacturers stay up-to-date by learning of the latest industry trends and how to apply best practices to the manufacturing, safety, selection, installation, and use of stationary batteries. The

core conference provides an intense learning experience unavailable from any other industry source. Presentations include cutting edge topics delivered by leading authorities. Open discussion panels and breakout workshops geared to the utility, datacenter and telecom segments are also included in the conference. Data center, nuclear, telecom or utility industry professionals who are working in mission critical facilities or are involved in the development of stationary batteries and related equipment will find the Battcon experience is second to none. Contact Pam McCombs E-mail: pam.mccombs@emerson.com www.battcon.com

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Free-to-attend Conference and Exhibition

Be part of the UK’s largest renewable and low carbon energy event Boost your learning and knowledge – access the free, world-class conference to discover sessions dedicated to energy storage and visit the Energy Storage Zone* • Discover new developments and source solutions to energy storage challenges by meeting face-to-face with leading suppliers on the exhibition floor • Participate in 50+ FREE conference sessions and join over 7,000 renewable energy professionals • Join over 1,000 colleagues and customers at the free-to-attend Giant Networking Evening at the Glasgow Science Centre * Energy Storage Zone sponsored by:

In association with

Learned Society Patron:

Host city:

In association with:

Organised by:

FORTHCOMING EVENTS All Energy May 10-11, 2017 Glasgow, Scotland All-Energy has historically provided the industry suppliers, experts and thoughtleaders from the renewable energy supply chain the opportunity to connect with new customers, increase their sales opportunities and expand business networks in this fast-changing marketplace. The free-to-attend annual conference and exhibition brings together the UK’s largest group of buyers from the bioenergy, solar, offshore and onshore wind, hydropower and wave and tidal sectors, as well as those involved in energy storage, heat, low carbon transport and sustainable cities solutions. Contact Tel: +44 208 271 2179 Email: all-energy@reedexpo.co.uk www.all-energy.co.uk

Energy Storage Innovations (ESI) Berlin-Germany May 10-11 The event focusing on future energy storage solutions, including advancedand post-Lithium-ion technologies, new form factors and emerging applications. The event brings together different players in the value chain, from material & technology developers to integrators to end-users, providing insight on forthcoming technologies, material selection, market trends and latest products. The event assesses the most exciting battery technology developments from world-leading companies, start-ups and research institutes. • New form and structural factors of future batteries such as thin-film, flexible, bendable, rollable, foldable, large-area and micro-batteries • New manufacturing techniques • Promising materials for emerging battery technologies Emerging applications including flexible wearable devices, Internet of Things, electric vehicles and grid-storage application Integration with other components like displays, energy harvesters. • A focus on commercialization: End users and integrators from a diverse range of markets present their needs, requirements and case studies network with potential adopters/ end users and see the current products and state of the technology at the event exhibition Contact Corinne Jennings Email: c.jennings@IDTechEx.com www.idtechex.com/energy-storage-europe/ show/en/

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Shenzhen hosts the China International Battery Fair, May 18-20

Battery Power 2017 Dallas, USA May 17-18 This an international conference highlighting the latest developments impacting batteries and power management in portable devices including smart phones, laptops/tablets, medical devices, wear ables and military applications. Conference topics will include new battery designs, improving power management, predicting battery life, regulations and standards, safety and transportation, battery authentication, charging technology, emerging chemistries, R&D and market trends. Contact Julie Hammond Email: julieh@webcomcommunications.com http://www.batterypoweronline.com

Renewable Energy World India 2017 New Delhi, USA May 17-19 Renewable Energy World India 2017 will bring together industry experts from across the globe to exchange knowledge and share their expertise, as well as showcase the latest renewable energy technology developments that will ultimately help India transform its power generation system Contact Samantha Malcom Tel: +44 1992 656 621 Email: samantham@pennwell.com www.renewableenergyworldindia.com/contacts.html

China International Battery Fair Shenzhen, China May 18-20 China International Battery Fair is a three day event being held from 18th May to 20th May 2017 at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center in Shenzhen, China. This event showcases products like alkaline battery and new type chemical power sources branch, lead acid

storage battery branch, lithium battery branch, dry cell branch, solar energy photovoltaic branch etc. in the industrial products industry. Contact http://www.10times.com/cibf

Middle East Energy Storage Forum Dubai, United Arab Emirates May 21- 23 Energy storage presents a great opportunity to build more sustainable cities, and if used correctly, can drive the development of renewables and alternative energy sources. There are however challenges surrounding the technologies, costs and deployment of energy storage solutions. In line with the UAE National Vision, the inaugural Middle East Energy Storage Forum will set out to gather key industry stakeholders from the major utilities, regulators, independent power producers, industrial manufacturers and leading solution providers to discuss the adoption, integration and development of energy storage capacity and capability across the region. Contact Vidhya Suman Tel: +971 4 364 2975 Email: enquiry@iqpc.ae www.energystorage.iqpc.ae

231st Electro Chemical Society Meeting New Orleans, USA May 28-June 2 ECS biannual meetings are a forum for sharing the latest scientific and technical developments in electrochemistry and solid state science and technology. Scientists, engineers and industry leaders come from around the world to attend the technical symposia, poster sessions, and professional development workshops. Not to mention exciting networking opportunities and social events. Contact http://www.electrochem.org/231

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS ees Europe

Intersolar Europe

May 30-June 2, 2017 Munich, Germany

May 30-June 2, 2017 • Munich, Germany

ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage systems, takes place in conjunction with Intersolar Europe. The ees Europe covers the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies. Contact Gaby Kubitza Tel: +49 7231 58598-10 Email: kubitza@intersolar.de www.intersolar.de/en/for-visitors.html

Intersolar Europe is the world’s leading exhibition for the solar industry and its partners. It takes place annually at the Messe München exhibition centre in Munich, Germany and focuses on the areas of photovoltaics, energy storage and renewable heating, as well as on products and solutions for smart renewable energy. The accompanying Intersolar Europe Conference consolidates selected exhibition topics and showcases international markets, financing and

ESC ’17 — Energy Storage China

Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition

June 2017, Beijing, China

Sydney, Australia June 14-15, 2017

Since 2012, Energy Storage China has been growing alongside China’s energy storage sector, which has become a prestigious platform for cross-sectoral integration, cooperation and development. ESC 2016 attracted 2,186 professional visitors from 12 countries attended the trade fair to source the latest products, gather market information and immerse themselves in ESC forums and seminars to explore various energy storage business models. At ESC 2017 — the 6th International Expo and Conference on Energy Storage in China, which will invite more than 6,000 global professional visitors from 18 countries and over 120 speakers, including wide range of industry leaders, policy makers and scholars to discuss the latest sector developments. The event was held under the theme of Solutions for the Next Generation Energy System. China’s premier solution platform for energy storage technology and applications, and guide the future development of energy storage together. Contact Emma Shen Tel: +86-10-6590-7101 Email: emma.shen@mds.cn http://www.escexpo.cn

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This event attracts professionals from the energy industry at all levels and is for utilities, energy businesses, building management and the emerging electric vehicle markets. Contact Tel: +61 2 9556 8847 info@australianenergystorage.com.au http://www.australianenergystorage.com.au

17th Annual Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC)

pioneering technologies. Since being founded 25 years ago, Intersolar Europe has become the most important industry platform for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers and partners in the global solar industry. Contact Gaby Kubitza Tel: +49 7231 58598-10 Email: kubitza@intersolar.de www.intersolar.de/en/for-visitors.html

As the electric vehicle market expands amid increasing pressure from looming regulatory deadlines, the need to develop batteries with better performance and lower cost has never been stronger. AABC provides an invaluable opportunity to delve into these challenges, discuss breakthroughs and best practices, and learn from the researchers and engineers who are bringing these technologies forward to consumers. Contact Tel: +781 972 5400 Email: ce@cambridgeenertech.com www.advancedautobat.com/aabc-us

18th International Meeting on Lithium Batteries Chicago, USA June 19-24

San Francisco, USA June 19-23 For more than 15 years, the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference has attracted international thought leaders and battery technologists from major automobile makers and their suppliers to discuss key issues impacting the technology and market of advanced vehicles and the batteries that will power them.

IMLB 2016 is the premier international conference on the state of lithium battery science and technology, as well as current and future applications in transportation, commercial, aerospace, biomedical, and other promising sectors. Convening in the heart of downtown Chicago, the conference is expected to draw 2,000 experts, researchers, and company representatives involved in the lithium battery field. Contact Email: imlb@electrochem.org www.imlb.org

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 57

FORTHCOMING EVENTS 2nd International Conference on Battery & Fuel Cell Technology

Beijing hosts Battery China 2017, June 21-23

Rome, Italy July 27-28

Battery China 2017

EES North America

Beijing, China June 21-23, 2017

San Francisco, USA July 11-13, 2017

Battery China is one of the largest and most recognized state-level industry events, which is held once every two years. Since 1997, Battery China has been accompanied by the growth of China’s battery industry for 20 years. Covering more than 20 countries and regions from China, the US, Japan, Korea, Germany, UK, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., last exhibition reached 30,000 square metres, and attracted more than 300 exhibitors worldwide.

Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies, ees North America is the ideal platform for all stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market. It takes place in the epicenter of the US storage market: California. Co-located with Intersolar North America, North America’s most-attended solar event, ees North America provides the best opportunity to explore energy storage systems in combination with PV and beyond. In 2016, more than 100 energy storage exhibitors and 18,244 visitors participated in the co-located events. ees North America is part of the ees global exhibition series. Together with ees Europe in Munich, and ees India in Mumbai, ees events are represented on three continents.

Contact Ms Yan Tel: +86 10 87765620 Email: batteryfair@163.com www.bhoec.com/batterychina

Power and Energy Conference and Exhibition Charlotte, USA June 26-30, 2017 ASME Power and Energy brings together ASME Power Conference, ASME Energy Sustainability Conference, ASME Energy Storage Forum, ASME Fuel Cell Conference, ASME Nuclear Forum and the colocated International Conference on Power Engineering (ICOPE). ASME Power and Energy focuses on power generation and energy sustainability and showcases industry best practices, technical advances, development trends, research, and business strategies, presented by a broad range of qualified professionals. You’ll also gain access to our 2017 colocated events, TurboExpo, the mustattend event for turbo-machinery professionals and ICOPE, the International Conference on Power Engineering (cosponsored by ASME, JSME, and CSPE). ICOPE is focused on both fundamental and applied topics in power engineering. Contact www.asme.org/events/power-energy/register

58 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

Contact Dorothea Eisenhardt Tel: +49 7231 58598-174 www.ees-northamerica.com

San Diego hosts Energy Storage North America, August 8-10

Battery Tech 2017 will impact an attractive moment to meet the people in the research field and development; therefore it takes a delight in opening a gate to meet the ability in the field, young researchers and potential speakers. The conference also includes essential topics on technologies related to batteries and fuel cells, especially on what we accomplished so far and what we will succeed in future. Our conference is going to deliver numerous keynote sessions, plenary speeches and poster presentations by the eminent scientists and students in the field of batteries and fuel cells. Through this we can achieve great knowledge in modern advancements of batteries and emphasize current challenges in battery and fuel cell technology. Contact Email: batterytech@enggconferences.org www.batterytech.conferenceseries.com

Energy Storage North America San Diego, California August 8-10 Energy Storage North America (ESNA), the largest gathering of policy, technology and market leaders in energy storage, will hold its annual event in San Diego this August. Mirroring the growth and maturation of the storage industry at large, ESNA last year grew in its attendee numbers, expo floor space, and the number of organizations represented at its conference and expo. More than 1,900 industry professionals attended ESNA 2016 hailing from over 1,000 different organizations and 25 countries. The nearly 15,000-squarefoot expo floor, the largest ever for Energy Storage North America, provided over 100 exhibitors with an opportunity to showcase the latest software and hardware storage technologies, systems and services. Senior executives from utilities, grid operators, investors and storage developers took part in panel sessions alongside elected officials and regulators to discuss the changing regulatory landscape, the process of valuing benefits of storage and the latest system deployments and assets, among other trending industry topics. In total, last year’s ESNA conference featured nearly 150 speakers on 21 different panel sessions, six keynote addresses and eight in-depth workshops. Contact Inga Otgon Email: iotgon@mdna.com Tel: +1 312 621-5820 www.esnaexpo.com

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS The Battery Show

Intersolar South America 2017 São Paulo, Brazil August 22-24 Intersolar South America takes place at the Expo Center Norte in São Paulo, Brazil on August 22-24, 2017 and has a focus on the areas of photovoltaics, PV production technologies, energy storage and solar thermal technologies. With 11,500+ visitors, 1,500+ conference attendees and 180 exhibitors, Intersolar has become the most important platform for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers, investors and partners of the solar industry. Contact Banu Bektas Email: bektas@solarpromotion.com Tel: +49 7231 58598-211 www.intersolar.net.br

Battery Congress Frankfurt, Germany September 12-13 To provide a forum for, engineers, managers, scientists , academic researchers, and industry executives to exchange advances in battery technology and applications and management systems. This forum will address key topics and issues related to OEMs, suppliers (all tiers), component manufacturers, governmental and non-governmental agencies. It also will provide a network to support educational research and publish technical findings in conference proceedings and technical magazines. This forum would provide a conference, exposition, and publication dedicated to the research integration of new battery technologies in vehicular and other energy system applications.

Novi Michigan USA • September 12-14 The Battery Show Exhibition & Conference is a showcase of advanced battery technology for electric & hybrid vehicles, utility & renewable energy support, portable electronics, medical technology, military and telecommunications. Facts & Figures With over seven years of exponential growth, The Battery Show proves to be North America’s leading event for cutting-edge battery technology.

Solar Power International Las Vegas – USA September 12-15 Solar Power International is powered by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). SPI held its inaugural show in 2003 and was designed to serve and advance the solar energy industry by bringing together the people, products, and professional development opportunities that drive the solar industry and are forging its bright future. This event focuses solely on creating an environment that fosters the exchange of ideas, knowledge and expertise for furthering solar energy develop-

Here’s some facts and figures from 2016: there were 6,936 attendees, 171 speakers, 28 countries and 535 exhibitors. Contact Caroline Kirkman Email: caroline.kirkman@smartershows. com Tel: Europe: +44 1273 916300 Tel: US toll free: +1 855 436 8683 www.thebatteryshow.com

ment in the US. Unlike other solar conferences, all proceeds from SPI support the expansion of the solar energy industry through SEIA and SEPA’s year-round research and education activities, and SEIA’s extensive advocacy efforts. SPI’s primary mission is to deliver on the missions of both SEIA and SEPA in a way that strengthens the solar energy industry domestically and globally, through networking and education, and by creating an energetic and engaging marketplace to connect buyers and suppliers. Contact Tel: +1 703 738 9460 www.solarpowerinternational.com

Contact Email: jacobd@gamcinc.org Tel: +1 734 997 9249 Web: https://gamcinc.com/conferences/ battery-congress

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Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 59

BATTERY HEROES: MICHEL ARMAND Michel Armand has been at the forefront of many advances in electrochemistry theory and application and made a huge contribution to our understanding of intercalation compounds. Most recently he has been at the cutting edge of LiFePO4 cell optimization.

Opening up the space between worlds Precocious. That’s about the only way to describe the young Michel Armand. Within days — aged just 10 — of exhausting the experiments from a chemistry set Christmas present he was clamouring for more. His parents, both chemistry and physics teachers, sighed and gave him the keys to the school laboratory. An electrochemist had been born. Armand was born on April 29, 1946 in Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France. But it was not until he was 20 that Armand’s brilliance was to show. Taking part in a nationwide competitive exam to enter the Ecole Normale Supérieure at Saint-Cloud — one of France’s most respected scientific teaching establishments — he came first. Academically he was on a roll. His MSc in physics and chemistry was followed by a post-masters diploma in inorganic chemistry and electrochemistry. Now aged 24, he began to look for the next step in his education and in 1970 he obtained a Fullbright travel Fellowship to go to Stanford University. It was a crucial moment in setting a direction for his life. He was to spend 18 months there in the Materials Science and Engineering Department headed by Robert Huggins and where Stanley Whittingham, working as a post-doctorate researcher, was already making a name for himself. Armand recalls: “Arriving at Stanford, I was assigned to make tungsten bronzes to measure the conductivity of beta-alumina, a clever way to avoid interfacial polarization. I immediately realized intercalation material could also be used for making batteries.

This work contained the first generalization of Nernst equation in the solid-state, to predict the variation of the voltage with stoichiometry, a model that has remained indisputable. 60 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

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BATTERY HEROES: MICHEL ARMAND

“I also started on my own initiative work on Prussian Blues as cheap, nonstoichiometric iron derivatives. I was quite surprized that neither Bob Huggins nor Stan Whittingham realized immediately the importance of intercalation for battery operation as their use for impedance measurements was a close concept.” On his return to France in early 1972, Armand rekindled his doctoral research on intercalation compounds for solid-state batteries at what is now Laboratoire d’ionique et d’électrochimie du solide, a large laboratory in Grenoble devoted to solidstate electrochemistry. In 1972, he attended the NATO conference on Fast Ion Transport in Solids in Belgirate in northern Italy, where he presented the use of ternary graphite intercalation, a new family of interstitial compounds derived from graphite, as promising candidates for solid-state electrode materials. Armand’s paper and metallurgist professor Brian Steele of Imperial College’s paper, which clearly suggested the use of solid solution electrodes in his own terms such as NaxTiS2, were the starting point of what was to become a booming activity on intercalation chemistry during the 1970s. Whittingham, for example, became involved at Exxon in the programme for making batteries using LixTiS2 as an electrode material. Moreover, the solid-state chemistry community

“I literally took the first flight out to Texas to meet John Goodenough to offer him a collaboration within a Hydro-QuébecUniversity of TexasUniversité de Montréal triangle” had realized the potential of these compounds for electrochemistry. Paul Hagenmuller in Bordeaux and Jean Rouxel in Nantes, who had been investigating non-stoichiometric compounds, saw their work come into the limelight and extended. For the scientific/engineering community, intercalation electrodes came as a possible competitor to batteries using b-alumina (sodium/sulfur), with Wynn Jones and British Rail in the UK. There was also at Argonne National Laboratory a huge programme on Li(Al)/FeS2 batteries using molten LiCl/KCl as electrolyte, but working at 350°C, where the corrosion from the molten salt proved to be a crippling handicap. In 1974 Armand joined the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as a research associate, He became its director of research

in 1989. “The CNRS did not bother me when I did not publish for five years, and let me supervise students before defending my thesis. In retrospect, the results of my PhD should have been submitted to prestigious journals,” he says. “But I was already into the induction period for polymer electrolytes. I benefitted from great tolerance at the beginning of my career and this helped creativity.” The rationale behind polymer electrolytes was that they would be preferable contact-wise to hard ceramic materials or glasses when intercalation compounds were to be used as electrodes, with volume change. Initially the idea seemed bizarre, as polymers are known for their insulating properties while ions were thought to move only in channels or in twodimensional openings with an optimal size, like b-alumina, which polymers do not provide. Armand selected polyethylene oxide after ceramics researcher Peter Wright at the University of Sheffield had shown in 1975 that it is a host for a number of sodium or potassium salts and displayed some conductivity. Here he established the electrical properties of the polymer-salt complexes formed with selected lithium salts, and pointed out that these material, would be useful for batteries. A little earlier in 1978, he obtained his PhD in Physics cum laude.

The rationale behind polymer electrolytes was that they would be preferable contact-wise to hard ceramic materials or glasses, when intercalation compounds were to be used as electrodes with volume change. www.energystoragejournal.com

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 61

BATTERY HEROES: MICHEL ARMAND This work contained the first generalization of Nernst equation in the solid-state, to predict the variation of the voltage with stoichiometry, a model that has remained indisputable. Also, a wealth of intercalation compounds, many new, had been screened electrochemically. This work also contained the first mention that intercalation compounds could be used both at the positive and negative electrodes — defining the Li-ion battery principle. Around this time Armand and his collaborators filed a patent through the CNRS which ended up in a long litigation with the US Patent Office, due to an unknown premature disclosure. Nevertheless, it prompted a joint research project between the CNRS, the French oil company Elf-Aquitaine, and Canadian electricity utility Hydro-Québec, aimed at designing ultimately a lithium-polymer battery for electric vehicles. Armand was in charge of the scientific orientations, to be materialized with Michel Gauthier, head of the corresponding research group at HydroQuébec. This patent contained the first specific mention of the use of graphite negative electrodes, as polymers do not co-intercalate in graphite like most liquid solvents do. “I later suggested to a PhD student, Rachid Yazami, to include this work in his thesis,” says Armand. “The proof being given by X-rays to the formation of LiC6.” Around this time he met Maryse Cirera, who was working for Motorola in Grenoble. They married and later a daughter, Caroline, was born. “She is now a perfume specialist, from her childhood passion for fragrances,” he says. “It’s another more pleasant side of chemistry in our family.” In 1982 Armand was invited to be a visiting scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He would go back regularly two months every summer for the next six years. The company Polyplus was then created in California for batteries using the then novel concept of S—S reversible redox bond cleavage, i.e. a polymerization-depolymerisation of a high polymer (dimercaptothiadazole), predating by 20 years the interest in LiS batteries we see today. Independently, within the CNRS/ Hydro-Québec/Elf collaboration, 30 patents were filed between 1980 and 1986, including the introduction of new families of highly conductive, ultra-low lattice energy salts (perfluoroimides such as [FSO2)2N ] and

62 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

Armand’s identity card while studying at the Ecole Normale Supérieure at Saint-Cloud

[CF3SO2)2N], respectively FSI and TFSI) for liquid and polymer electrolytes. Salts of these anions are produced now on a large scale as solutes for liquid and polymer electrolytes, but are also the most used, by far, ingredient of ionic liquids. These new materials draw considerable attention as they have conductivities comparable to that of aqueous solutions, an extremely wide range of temperature (400°C), where they are stable liquids with no vapour pressure (non-flammability). They find use as green solvents in which a wealth of chemical reactions can be accomplished without

resorting to volatile organic solvents; as supporting electrolyte for batteries, photo-electrochemical solar cells, light-emitting diodes and antistatics. “But the collaboration between the state agency and industrial companies failed because the CNRS had ceded the property of the patent to Elf-Aquitaine, who offered them to Japan’s Yuasa, in 1986. Hydro-Québec used its pre-emptive rights but was forced into a collaboration with Yuasa. In 1995, Michel Armand moved to the Université de Montréal’s Department of Chemistry to be closer to the development team at Hydro-Québec, and to its manufacturing arm cre-

In recent developments, Armand was involved in the co-discovery of metal fluorosulfates LiFeSO4F as possible improvements over phosphate positive electrodes. www.energystoragejournal.com

BATTERY HEROES: MICHEL ARMAND ated for this purpose, Argotech. The first electric and hybrid cars powered by an all-solid state polymer battery (LMP — lithium metal polymer) were available for test-drives at the 17th EV International Symposium held in Montréal in 2000. From 2000 to 2004, Armand was appointed director of the new Joint CNRS-Université de Montréal International Laboratory on Electroactive Materials (LIME), which brought together scientists from both sides of the Atlantic to work faster towards the finish line of the LMP project. Earlier on, in Austin Texas, John Goodenough at the University of Texas had proposed a new electrode material, LiFePO4, which did not use rare cobalt, but the reported performances in terms of capacity and power were quite poor. Upon reception of the book of abstracts from the electrochemical society describing this material, Armand, who had been testing LiMnPO4 a few years before, realised the promises of such materials. “I literally took the first flight out to Texas to meet John Goodenough to offer him a collaboration within a Hydro-Québec-University of Texas- Université de Montréal triangle,” says Armand. “Curiously, Goodenough was reluctant as he thought that the very low electronic conductivity of this material would be a crippling handicap, and he had not even bothered to take a patent before the ECS abstract disclosure. “A few months later, I was able to show that superb electrochemical performances could be obtained when a thin (a few nm) layer of carbon was deposited on the surface of LiFePO4, and this carbon could be obtained by simply charring organic materials (including simple sugar) mixed with the LiFePO4 powder.” “However, tensions grew within the LIME Laboratory over the potential monetary value created by the value of LiFePO4@C carbon-coating patent,” says Armand. The company Phostech was created based on this. However, a long period of litigation was to ensue over the exclusivity of the patent due to issues of premature disclosure, and tens of millions of dollars of royalties were lost. The end result was that China has become by far the largest producer of LiFePO4 but without royalties. Armand came back to France and joined Jean-Marie Tarascon’s team in Amiens, where he worked until his of-

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ficial retirement age, in 2011. He had time to make a significant contribution to usher the first electrodes materials from the organic world, in particular the polyquinones (Å electrode) and the conjugated dicarboxylates (y electrode). Research on these materials is now extremely active worldwide, simply considering the non-depletability of carbon-based materials and their easy processing. In recent developments Armand was involved in the co-discovery of metal fluorosulfates LiFeSO4F as possible improvements over phosphate positive electrodes. In terms of salts as solutes for the electrolyte, he introduced a new family of anions based on the 5-membered cycles with a stabilized negative charge according to Hückel’s rule. These very stable salts, developed with Warsaw University of Technology and the chemical company Arkema, are on the brink of being used commercially in batteries. Since retirement as Emeritus in Ami-

ens Armand has joined, part time, the CIC research centre in Vitoria, Spain as senior scientist. He has been visiting scientist at CSIRO, Melbourne, Australia and is a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics in Beijing, and at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. From 2013 to 2014 he was Thinker in Residence at Deakin University, Melbourne and is now Honorary Professor at Deakin. The last word goes to Armand. “The progress made in the last 20 years in terms of new concepts and materials for energy management and storage surpasses that of the last two centuries since Volta’s invention of the pile,” he says. “These promises come at a time when humanity is in an ever-growing need for a sustainable environment. The progressive replacement of rare elements (Ni, Cd, Co) by abundant, innocuous Fe derivatives or organic molecules as electrode materials is a good omen for this technology.”

MICHEL ARMAND: INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

Michel Armand has written or coauthored 370 publications, including 304 in international journals, books and book chapters; 225 presentations at conferences, of which 185 were invited, 167 patents delivered or pending. He has been PhD advisor for 23 students. He has acted on the editorial board of several journals (SolidState Ionics, Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, Synthetic Metals, J. Power Sources, JNMES) and the conference advisory committees and organizations of 35 international conferences.

Acknowledgements for Armand’s distinctions read like a roll of honour: Bronze then silver medals from CNRS (1978, 1989); Royal Society, Faraday Division, Medal Award (1985); Médaille Blondel, Société des Electriciens et Electroniciens, – Paris (1987); Preis fur Umweltteknologie Saarland Länder (1988); Battery Division Award, The Electrochemical Society USA (1988); Prix Yvan Puech de l’Académie des Sciences (1989); Prix Bardy/ Comité des Arts Chimiques, Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (1989); Pergamon Medal, International Society for Electrochemistry (1995); Volta Award ECS European Section (2000); first recipient; Doctor Honoris Causa from Uppsala University (2006); Galileo Award for polymer electrolytes research (2010); Prix Aymé Poirson de l’Académie des Sciences (2012); Catalan-Sabatier Award from La Real Sociedad Española de Quimica –Madrid (2012); OREBA conference on Olivines for rechargeable batteries in honour of Michel Armand Montréal June 25-28, (2014); IBA medal of excellence and Conference in honour of Michel Armand, – Nantes (2016).

Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017 • 63

d r o w t s a l e Th

Just kidding …

“I’m calling them Pongo, Trixie and Jemima,” our new buddy from Water Gremlins told us pointing to three wild dogs on the beach at Goa. “Boy I wonder what my wife’ll say when I tell her about shipping these guys home to the US.” Our location? The new Energy Storage Journal office at the IBRX India conference — aka Marriott poolside — with refreshing cocktails to fight the early morning heat. We choked on our triple-strength Pina Colada pickme-ups. “You mean you’re taking those strays back to the US? Why?” “Oh our family are great dog lovers — nothing’s too good for our pooches, though I don’t suppose our kids will like having to take rabies shots, those dogs do look like biters.” “How on earth are you going to get them through customs?” we asked. “10 grand will pay my friends,” he winked. Suddenly concerned, he looked at the astonished expression on our faces. “Jeez, you guys are dumb! I’m just fooling around.”

Something for the bookshelf If we were enthusiastic — and we were — about Isidor Buchmann’s third edition of Batteries in a Portable World, we’re doubly keen on the fourth edition which came out last summer. The sub-heading on the cover says it all … “A Handbook on Rechargeable Batteries for NonEngineers”. And this fourth issue has been expanded considerably and updated to include some of the latest thinking about lithium battery technology. The charm of this book — which we at Energy Storage Journal recommend wholeheartedly — is that it provides a comprehensive overview of the inner workings of a battery and

is written in a particularly clear fashion. One of the oddities of the battery industry is the surprising levels of ignorance between competing parts of the industry. Basic terms such as, say COS (cast on strap) are understood by everyone in the lead manufacturing process. But talk of a spinel structure in a lithium battery will cause huge head scratchings from the same lead expert. This is a book written for the professional needing a basic understanding of how a battery behaves, a student completing an essay and a user wanting to get the most out of a battery. It works for them all.

Something for the bookshelf — part 2 If we’re looking for books to review a good place to continue this would be the latest œuvre from our own batteries historian Kevin Desmond. It’s called Innovators in Battery Technology and profiles the lives and achievements of 95 influential electrochemists. For the last decade Kevin has been writing profiles of the great and the good, the dead and the living that have made an impact on the battery world. Kevin, a polymath who’s written over 25 books on every kind of subject, has gathered some of his published magazine articles and then mixed them

with his own research. “A nice contribution to a global field growing in importance, giving it a highly recommended rating,” wrote Michigan Technological University’s Reynolds. “Academic and specialist libraries with patrons working in this area should seriously consider adding this volume to their collections,” wrote Marc Schumacher for the American Reference Books Annual. Boris Monahov, research head for the ALABC said: “this is well written, useful and fun to read”.

The world according to Maccor Testing firm Maccor has always had a special part in many people’s affections. The team is fun, they do interesting things at their booths at exhibitions — mini-golf a favourite for one we know — and their latest 360 degree photos, including up and down, from the Mainz show that swivel as you look on line are something else. Shame they don’t work in print, but here is a sampler from talented techno-photographer Mike Sandoval. 64 • Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2017

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Contact: editor@energystoragejournal.com Disclaimer: Our editorial board necessarily vets every article that we print and will impartially approve pieces that it believes will be interesting and supportive of the energy storage industry and related products. Articles submitted should not be marketing pieces.

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