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Released October 18, 2023 | SUGAR LAND
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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies are the next Holy Grail in the pursuit of a clean energy economy. Late last month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) (Washington, D.C.) selected several LDES projects to split up to $325 million in funding that will demonstrate the viability of intraday (lasting 10-36 hours) and multi-day (lasting 36 to 160-plus hours) energy storage technologies.
These selected projects will negotiate the funding terms with the DOE, which has not committed to funding the projects it selected. Funding applicants were required to submit a community benefits plan that outlined how proposed projects would:
"As we build our clean energy future, reliable energy storage systems will play a key role in protecting communities by providing dependable sources of electricity when and where it's needed most, particularly in the aftermath of extreme weather events or natural disasters," Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a September 22 statement.
The Investing in America agenda is the administration's umbrella term for the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding advocated by the president and passed by Congress to improve infrastructure, rebuild and reshore manufacturing capability, and deploy clean energy. The legislation included in this agenda includes the American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act. This gush of federal spending will be matched by private-sector investment to create new, good-paying jobs, including union jobs and positions that don't require a college degree.
The goal of the administration's LDES effort is to reduce the cost of long-duration energy storage by 90% by 2030. The LDES projects selected by the DOE will be funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The projects are designed to demonstrate a variety of leading-edge technologies that are designed to enhance a community's energy resilience, mitigate risks associated with disruptions to the grid, and help communities develop reliable and affordable energy systems.
Most of the energy-storage technologies that are operating commercially use lithium-ion chemistry that can store energy for relatively short terms, typically up to four hours. But severe weather or wildfires could turn off the lights for days or weeks at a time, necessitating longer-duration energy storage technologies. Also, the threat of cyberattacks, many of which are aimed at destabilizing the power grid, is a constant threat which could be ameliorated by LDES.
The DOE's effort to help commercialize LDES has several aims:
The projects selected by the DOE are summarized below:
Communities Accessing Resilient Energy Storage (CARES): Led by ReJoule (Signal Hill, California), a second-life battery diagnostics and reuse company, this project aims to utilize retired EV batteries to provide peak electric demand reduction, load shifting and electric resilience to affordable housing complexes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Petaluma, California, as well as a Red Lake Nation workforce development campus in Minnesota.
Second life Smart Systems (SMART): This project, led by Smartville Incorporated (Carlsbad, California), seeks to take advantage of retired EV lithium-ion batteries to build stationary storage systems that bring grid resiliency, increase energy affordability and provide backup-up power to senior centers, low-income multi-family affordable housing complexes and EV-charging facilities. The project sites are in: Atlanta, Georgia; San Diego, California; Orangeburg, South Carolina; Denmark, South Carolina; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
STOred Rechargeable Energy Demonstration (STORED): This project, to be carried out in the City of Oneonta, New York, and Westchester County, a suburban county located near New York City, will investigate fire-safe zinc manganese dioxide (ZnMnO2) batteries made from domestically available materials. The project team includes the Urban Electric Power (Pearl River, New York), the New York Power Authority (NYPA) (White Plains, New York) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (Palo Alto, California).
Rural Energy Viability for Integrated Vital Energy (REVIVE): Rural areas often are among the last to benefit from innovation, have lower household incomes and have limited resources to invest in emerging technologies. Power outages are increasingly common in these areas. To address these challenges, several rural communities--Tama, Iowa; Waterville, Iowa; Blair, South Carolina; Hamlet, North Carolina; and Ewell, Maryland--will demonstrate vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), an alternative to lithium-ion technology, with nominal discharge ratings of 700 kilowatts (kW) to 3.6 megawatts (MW) and discharge capabilities of up to 20 hours. The aim is to bring high-benefit, low-risk energy solutions to vulnerable and underserved rural areas. The project is being led by the National Renewable Cooperatives Organization (NRCO) (Carmel, Indiana), Invinity Energy Systems Plc (London, England), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) (Richland, Washington).
Multiday Iron Air Demonstration (MIND): A partnership between Xcel Energy Incorporated (NASDAQ:XEL) (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Form Energy (Somerville, Massachusetts) aims to accelerate the commercialization and market development of multiday storage by deploying two 10-MW, 100-hour LDES systems at retiring coal plants in Becker, Minnesota, and Pueblo, Colorado. In collaboration with labor unions, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) (Washington, D.C.), the project team plans to develop pathways to employment for communities near the LDES sites that are affected by coal power plant closures.
Children's Hospital Resilient Grid with Energy Storage (CHARGES): The California Energy Commission (CEC) (Sacramento, California) will be the state of California's designated lead agency for this project, which will be located at an acute-care hospital in Madera, California, an underserved community. This project seeks to provide critical power backup and resiliency in a region that is increasingly at risk for significant power outages due to fires, storm surges, floods, extreme heat and earthquakes. Working with Faraday Microgrids (Irvine, California), the project team will install a 34.4-megawatt-hour battery system.
Front-of-the-meter Utilization of Zinc bromide Energy Storage (FUZES): This project, under the direction of NextEra Energy Resources LLC (Juno Beach, Florida), a unit of NextEra Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach), will be located in Morrow County, Oregon, and Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. It proposed to develop several 10-hour duration battery energy storage projects that use aqueous zinc technology for an in-front-of-the-meter application at multiple existing renewable energy sites in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest.
Columbia Energy Storage Project: Three Upper Midwest utilities--Alliant Energy Corporation (NYSE:LNT) (Madison, Wisconsin), WEC Energy Group Incorporated (NYSE:WEC) (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Madison Gas & Electric, a unit of MGE Energy Incorporated (NYSE:MGE) (Madison)--will co-lead this project in Columbia County, Wisconsin. It seeks to demonstrate, for the first time at a commercial scale, a closed-loop CO2-based energy storage system that could validate the technology for wide-scale U.S. deployment. The project likely will be located on a brownfield site with a two-unit coal-fired power station scheduled for retirement in 2026. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power project and plant databases can click here for a related project report and click here for the plant profile.
Pumped thermal energy stOrage in ALaskA Railbelt (POLAR): Located in Healy, Alaska, this project seeks to overcome the dual challenges of remoteness and cold temperatures by demonstrating the viability of high-temperature long-duration energy storage in a cold climate. This project will develop and deploy a pumped thermal energy storage system to assist in local and regional grid resiliency and stability, regional carbon footprint reduction, and improved reliability of electricity in a remote area of Alaska. It will be paired with a planned windfarm. This project will be co-led by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania) and Echogen Power Systems (Akron, Ohio).
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
These selected projects will negotiate the funding terms with the DOE, which has not committed to funding the projects it selected. Funding applicants were required to submit a community benefits plan that outlined how proposed projects would:
- support community and workforce engagement
- invest in the American workforce
- advance energy and environmental justice
- promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility
- deliver benefits to disadvantaged communities as part of the Biden administration's Justice40 Initiative
"As we build our clean energy future, reliable energy storage systems will play a key role in protecting communities by providing dependable sources of electricity when and where it's needed most, particularly in the aftermath of extreme weather events or natural disasters," Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a September 22 statement.
The Investing in America agenda is the administration's umbrella term for the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding advocated by the president and passed by Congress to improve infrastructure, rebuild and reshore manufacturing capability, and deploy clean energy. The legislation included in this agenda includes the American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act. This gush of federal spending will be matched by private-sector investment to create new, good-paying jobs, including union jobs and positions that don't require a college degree.
The goal of the administration's LDES effort is to reduce the cost of long-duration energy storage by 90% by 2030. The LDES projects selected by the DOE will be funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The projects are designed to demonstrate a variety of leading-edge technologies that are designed to enhance a community's energy resilience, mitigate risks associated with disruptions to the grid, and help communities develop reliable and affordable energy systems.
Most of the energy-storage technologies that are operating commercially use lithium-ion chemistry that can store energy for relatively short terms, typically up to four hours. But severe weather or wildfires could turn off the lights for days or weeks at a time, necessitating longer-duration energy storage technologies. Also, the threat of cyberattacks, many of which are aimed at destabilizing the power grid, is a constant threat which could be ameliorated by LDES.
The DOE's effort to help commercialize LDES has several aims:
- to make the electric system more resilient after natural disasters
- to insulate the grid from the effects of cyberattacks
- to make the electric system more efficient by storing electricity generated during off-peak hours that can be used to meet peak electric demand without constructing new generating capacity or transmission & distribution(T&D) infrastructure
The projects selected by the DOE are summarized below:
Communities Accessing Resilient Energy Storage (CARES): Led by ReJoule (Signal Hill, California), a second-life battery diagnostics and reuse company, this project aims to utilize retired EV batteries to provide peak electric demand reduction, load shifting and electric resilience to affordable housing complexes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Petaluma, California, as well as a Red Lake Nation workforce development campus in Minnesota.
Second life Smart Systems (SMART): This project, led by Smartville Incorporated (Carlsbad, California), seeks to take advantage of retired EV lithium-ion batteries to build stationary storage systems that bring grid resiliency, increase energy affordability and provide backup-up power to senior centers, low-income multi-family affordable housing complexes and EV-charging facilities. The project sites are in: Atlanta, Georgia; San Diego, California; Orangeburg, South Carolina; Denmark, South Carolina; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
STOred Rechargeable Energy Demonstration (STORED): This project, to be carried out in the City of Oneonta, New York, and Westchester County, a suburban county located near New York City, will investigate fire-safe zinc manganese dioxide (ZnMnO2) batteries made from domestically available materials. The project team includes the Urban Electric Power (Pearl River, New York), the New York Power Authority (NYPA) (White Plains, New York) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (Palo Alto, California).
Rural Energy Viability for Integrated Vital Energy (REVIVE): Rural areas often are among the last to benefit from innovation, have lower household incomes and have limited resources to invest in emerging technologies. Power outages are increasingly common in these areas. To address these challenges, several rural communities--Tama, Iowa; Waterville, Iowa; Blair, South Carolina; Hamlet, North Carolina; and Ewell, Maryland--will demonstrate vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), an alternative to lithium-ion technology, with nominal discharge ratings of 700 kilowatts (kW) to 3.6 megawatts (MW) and discharge capabilities of up to 20 hours. The aim is to bring high-benefit, low-risk energy solutions to vulnerable and underserved rural areas. The project is being led by the National Renewable Cooperatives Organization (NRCO) (Carmel, Indiana), Invinity Energy Systems Plc (London, England), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) (Richland, Washington).
Multiday Iron Air Demonstration (MIND): A partnership between Xcel Energy Incorporated (NASDAQ:XEL) (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Form Energy (Somerville, Massachusetts) aims to accelerate the commercialization and market development of multiday storage by deploying two 10-MW, 100-hour LDES systems at retiring coal plants in Becker, Minnesota, and Pueblo, Colorado. In collaboration with labor unions, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) (Washington, D.C.), the project team plans to develop pathways to employment for communities near the LDES sites that are affected by coal power plant closures.
Children's Hospital Resilient Grid with Energy Storage (CHARGES): The California Energy Commission (CEC) (Sacramento, California) will be the state of California's designated lead agency for this project, which will be located at an acute-care hospital in Madera, California, an underserved community. This project seeks to provide critical power backup and resiliency in a region that is increasingly at risk for significant power outages due to fires, storm surges, floods, extreme heat and earthquakes. Working with Faraday Microgrids (Irvine, California), the project team will install a 34.4-megawatt-hour battery system.
Front-of-the-meter Utilization of Zinc bromide Energy Storage (FUZES): This project, under the direction of NextEra Energy Resources LLC (Juno Beach, Florida), a unit of NextEra Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach), will be located in Morrow County, Oregon, and Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. It proposed to develop several 10-hour duration battery energy storage projects that use aqueous zinc technology for an in-front-of-the-meter application at multiple existing renewable energy sites in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest.
Columbia Energy Storage Project: Three Upper Midwest utilities--Alliant Energy Corporation (NYSE:LNT) (Madison, Wisconsin), WEC Energy Group Incorporated (NYSE:WEC) (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Madison Gas & Electric, a unit of MGE Energy Incorporated (NYSE:MGE) (Madison)--will co-lead this project in Columbia County, Wisconsin. It seeks to demonstrate, for the first time at a commercial scale, a closed-loop CO2-based energy storage system that could validate the technology for wide-scale U.S. deployment. The project likely will be located on a brownfield site with a two-unit coal-fired power station scheduled for retirement in 2026. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power project and plant databases can click here for a related project report and click here for the plant profile.
Pumped thermal energy stOrage in ALaskA Railbelt (POLAR): Located in Healy, Alaska, this project seeks to overcome the dual challenges of remoteness and cold temperatures by demonstrating the viability of high-temperature long-duration energy storage in a cold climate. This project will develop and deploy a pumped thermal energy storage system to assist in local and regional grid resiliency and stability, regional carbon footprint reduction, and improved reliability of electricity in a remote area of Alaska. It will be paired with a planned windfarm. This project will be co-led by Westinghouse Electric Company LLC (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania) and Echogen Power Systems (Akron, Ohio).
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
