Energy Storage Journal - Summer 2015 - issue 9

Issue 9: Summer 2015

Island microgridsRenewables make commercial sense as diesel replacement

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

Pioneers of the gridLady Vanadium and the remarkable Maria Skyllas-Kazacos

The fl ow battery challengeVanadium redox to offer new economic logic

Meet the team

Claire Ronnie,

offi ce manager

and subscriptions

Claire’s our unfl appable person — she’s the go-to girl for subscriptions or account enquiries. Go ahead and challenge her!

Antony Parselle,

page designer

Better known in the offi ce as ‘Ant’ he’s been working in magazine design and layout since the early 1990s. Not so good on showing his best side however!

June Moutrie,

business

development

manager

She’s our accounting Wunderkind who deals with all things fi nancial — a kind of mini Warren Buffett. But more fun!

Jan Darasz,

cartoonist

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

4 ...

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.

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.”

Karen Hampton,

publisher

In her recent years of working within the energy storage business Karen has become a well known fi gure at conferences — not least as our social butterfl y. “My job,” she says, “is to get the maximum benefi t 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.”

YEARBOOKS, PUBLISHING ADVERTISING EDITORIAL & EVENT GUIDES Karen Hampton Mike Halls All enquiries

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Hampton Halls Associates Ltd, 10 Temple Bar Business Park, Strettington PO18 0TU, UK • Registered in England and Wales 09123491

POWERING THE SMART GRID www.energystoragejournal.com

Sara Vanbruggen,

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

Wyn Jenkins,

Supplements editor

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

Jade Beevor,

sales executive Jade, who joined the team in early 2015, is already getting a feel for the industry. “This is an incredible business we’re in,” she says. “These people are literally changing the future of our lives — and the planet too!”

EDITORIAL

www.energystoragejournal.com Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 • 1

Every week a fl ood of press releases cross our desk. Mostly they’re about the Next Big Thing in energy storage.

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

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

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

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

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

Something similar — perhaps disturbingly simi-lar — occurs with the arrival of new technolo-gies. And with equal distortions of the truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All this is a prelude to our cover story. In this we examine the way fl ow batteries suddenly seem to offer a challenge and a solution to the way en-ergy storage could work in the future.

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

Mike Halls, editor • [email protected]

Too many breakthroughs, not enough reality

2 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2015 www.energystoragejournal.com

COVER STORY 20

VANADIUM REDOX BATTERIES

Energy storage economics for fl ow batteries start to stack up

Flow batteries, once regarded as economically disadvantaged to put it

politely, now appear to offer the possibility of being affordable and ideally

suited to some applications — think wind power particularly. Moreover,

the magic combination of containerization and ming with other battery

chemistries that can deal with grid stabilithy and renewables integration,

suggests that cost may soon be an irrelevance when buying these systems.

• An alternative to the costs of full EU grid integration

• India goes offgrid, telcos to fi nd fl ow battery solutions

• Flow batteries go nuclear, the joys of uranium

EDITORIAL 1

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

PEOPLE NEWS 6

Jones steps up as SVP for S&C, Buchanan to retire in December • Bergman joins

Maxwell board while Finger starts as VP for global sales • Navitas Systems hires three into

manufacturing and engineering • Two resignations at American Vanadium • New executive

chairman for Ioxus • Solaris Power Cells appoints Calderon chairman and Lawrence as new

COO • Redflow hires former Siemens sales exec • Ghislain Lescuyer as new chair of Saft’s

management board • New appointments for KPMG as Marshall, Petropoulos step forward

THE CEO INTERVIEW 10

ViZn is a start-up on a growth spurt. Having spent the last six years perfecting its zinc-

iron flow battery technology, the firm now led by Ron Van Dell is ramping up and on a

recruitment drive to seize commercial storage opportunities

NEWS 14

Siemens launches rent-a-storage system • Saft supplies energy storage for Arctic Circle

microgrid • Divide to form for lithium ion batteries between EV users and stationary ones

• Cellstrom supplies vanadium battery for University of New South Wales microgrid •

Fraunhofer microgrid to deploy flow battery • GE enters into lithium-ion first with Con Edison

• TNG partners with VRB battery manufacturer • Flow batteries Alps test could lead to

bigger things says Imergy • ZBB breakthrough battery validated • Electrovaya completes

acquisition of Evonik • Litarion Reliance Jio places €7m battery order with Saft • ViZn

supplies advanced flow battery to US college • SunEdison invests in vanadium for India •

Younicos and Leclanché partner on Graciosa project • Aquion Energy declares Ideal Power

PCS compatible • Drexel develops next gen lithium-sulphur component • Boston-Power

and Darfon team up for solar • Cheaper batteries to boost energy storage tech revenues

• Sumitomo buys stake in Willey, orders Toshiba batteries • VCs invest $69m in battery

companies in first quarter • Umicore sued for lithium-ion patent infringement

SOLARUNITED 31

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

Plus: news from the association’s members

Andrew Jones steps up as SVP for S&C Electric 6

Going with the flow 20

Island microgrids: the start of bigger things to come 34

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

News of energy storage in the wastes of the Arctic 14

CONTENTS

CONTENTS


Energy Storage Journal — Business

and market strategies for energy

storage and smart grid technologies

Energy Storage Journal is a quarterly

publication.

Publisher: Karen Hampton,

[email protected],

+44 (0) 7792 852 337

Editor: Michael Halls,

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+44 (0) 1 243 782 275

Associate editor: Sara Verbruggen,

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+44 (0) 7981 256 908

Supplements editor: Wyn Jenkins,

[email protected],

+44 1792 293 222

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June Moultrie,

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+44 (0) 7775 710 290

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Claire Ronnie,

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International advertising representation:

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The contents of this publication are

protected by copyright. No unauthorised

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Every effort has been 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

cannot be assumed.

© 2015 HHA Limited

UK company no: 09123491

Working with

Messe Dusselforf: the place to be in March 52

Grid hero: Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, pioneer of vanadium flow batteries 58

They seek a gigafactory here, they seek it there 64

ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS 34Energy storage lets island and other types of remote grids use more wind and solar,

lowering electricity costs, while building a better understanding of the technology’s role

within mainland grids

BACK TO BASICS —ESSENTIAL LITHIUM 41In the first of a series Isidor Buchmann, founder and CEO of Cadex and creator of the

online Battery University explains some of the fundamentals behind the choice of lithium

as a battery chemistry.

CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES AND LITHIUM 48Energy storage systems able to use more than one type of battery chemistry can address

both power- as well as energy-intensive applications, to broaden the range of benefi ts

and services possible with one asset.

EVENT REVIEW 52Energy Storage 2015 March 9-11, Dusseldorf, Germany

Looking for that breakthrough moment

EVENTS 54A listing of some of the major events in the energy storage and smart grid world

HEROES OF THE GRID 58Lady Vanadium: The vanadium redox flow battery is proving an invaluable storage

technology underpinning the increased use of renewable energy. Its remarkable inventor

is Maria Skyllas-Kazacos.

THE LAST WORD 64Tesla and the Great Gigafactory Debate • Drama and English opens way forward to ESJ

sales • Brace, brace, here comes high flying lithium • Something for the weekend to read

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PEOPLE NEWS


Andrew Jones became senior vice president, inter-national business, at S&C Electric at the start of April. He will report to S&C’s president Kyle Seymour.

All non-US regional busi-nesses, including EMEA, Asia-Pacifi c, central and South America and Canada, will report to Jones.

Jones’ key responsibili-ties will be to oversee each business unit’s organization plans and staffi ng, as well as leading new business development globally and providing quotation, ship-ment and service support. He will also lead all energy storage activities by S&C outside the US.

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

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

Tony Rooney joined S&C in February as the new managing director, EMEA business, reporting to Jones. Rooney has previously worked at ABB and Alstom.

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

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

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

During his career at S&C Buchanan has been re-sponsible for the country’s factories in Mexico, Brazil and China as well as all sales and marketing activi-ties outside of the US.

Buchanan is also a mem-ber of the board of Cana-dian Electricity Association (CEA) and the Ontario Energy Network and is the chair of the Corporate Partners Committee. ■

Maxwell Technologies, the ultracapacitor maker, an-nounced in May that Rick Bergman, chief executive of Synaptics, a developer of hu-man interface products for intelligent devices, has been appointed to Maxwell’s board of directors.

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

tember 2011, and senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Graph-ics Product Group from Oc-tober 2006 to May 2009.

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

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

Finger joins from TT

Electronics where he was vice president, global sales and marketing at the global electronics fi rm.

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

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

Key markets for Max-well’s ultracapacitors include global transporta-tion and also grid/stationary storage. ■

Jones steps up as SVP for S&C,Buchanan to retire in December

Bergman joins Maxwell board while Finger starts as VP for global sales

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

States Mead was ap-pointed as vice-president of manufacturing, Chad Hartzog as director of en-gineering and Paul Corby as global supply chain

manager. Mead will be responsible for production, quality, engineering, ware-house, and equipment.

He was previously manufacturing engineer-ing manager at The Morey Corporation.

He has also worked for Panasonic Factory Solu-tions Company of North America and Tyco Elec-tronics.

Hartzog, who will over-see battery hardware and software development, was previously senior manager of systems engineering at Enerdel specifi cally focused on battery management systems and grid energy storage.

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

Navitas Systems hires three into manufacturing and engineering

Two resignations at American VanadiumFor the record, Ameri-can Vanadium an-nounced in February that founding director George Hayes had resigned as a director of the fi rm. In January another founding direc-tor, Kelly Hyslop, also resigned as a director. ■

Jones: new international SVP

Finger: global sales

PEOPLE NEWS


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

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

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

for deploying lean princi-ples and streamlining and integrating engineering, manufacturing, and pur-chasing.

Runkle was Delphi’s chief technology offi cer, responsi-ble for R&D, global supply management, and executive leadership of engineering and manufacturing. He was also the leader for the Daim-lerChrysler and Commercial Vehicle customer teams, two of the higher growth customer accounts.

“He has had a career fi lled with innovation and suc-cesses, and this makes him an exceptional fi t for our vision for the future” said

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

“Ioxus’ proprietary tech-nology is now capable for meeting these global chal-lenges, particularly in the ag-gressive automotive sector.

“The potential for rapid growth, a strong set of in-vestors, and an extraor-dinary and experienced management team made it and easy decision to join this company.” ■

Solaris Power Cells, a renewable energy storage start-up fi rm, has appointed former California state senator Charles Calderon as its chairman and Steve Lawrence as its chief operat-ing offi cer.

Calderon has spent 38 years as a lawyer and legis-lator. “He is the only legisla-tor in California to serve as

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

“During his tenure as a legislator he created the California Earthquake Authority and authored the California Interstate Bank-ing Act and the Calderon-Sher Safe Drinking Water Act along with many other

signifi cant social, economic, environmental and regula-tory laws.”

Calderon said: “My work with the California State Legislature has helped shape the renewable energy legislative portfolio within the State of California. Therefore, we are prepared to spearhead Solaris Power Cells into the Renewable Energy Corridor and help energy companies utilize our

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

New executive chairman for Ioxus

Solaris Power Cells appoints Calderon chairman and Lawrence as new COO

Australia-based zinc-bro-mide battery company Red-fl ow has appointed Frédéric Ridou as sales manager for Europe, based in Germany.

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

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

residential to utility scale, on or off-grid.

Stuart Smith, chief execu-tive offi cer of Redfl ow, said his experience was part of a drive into Europe. “His experience with leading companies in the energy in-dustry will help us achieve volume sales contracts.

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

Redfl ow hires former Siemens sales exec East Penn promotes

Miksiewicz to senior VP positionFor the record, East Penn Manufacturing has promoted Larry Miksiewicz as senior vice president of manu-facturing and purchas-ing. He reports directly to Robert Flicker, chief operating offi cer.

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

Diversifi ed (wire, cable, accessories, and injection molding).

Royal steps down at MaxwellKevin Royal, senior vice president and chief fi nan-cial offi cer will step down from his position during 2015. He joined the fi rm in 2009. “Royal will remain active in his cur-rent role until a successor is named and an effective transition is planned and initiated,” according to the fi rm. ■

Runkle: ex-GM veteran

Political clout: Calderon

PEOPLE NEWS


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

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

Lescuyer has been a

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

As part of this, Marie-Claire Daveu joined the supervisory board in early May replacing Lescuyer. Daveu was recommended by Saft’s remuneration and appointments committee, during a meeting held this March.

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

Since 2012, she has been

the chief sustainability offi cer and head of interna-tional institutional affairs of the Kering group.

The supervisory board now consists of fi ve inde-pendent members: Yann Duchesne (chairman), Jean-Marc Daillance (vice-chairman), Bruno Angles, Charlotte Garnier-Peugeot and Marie-Claire Daveu.

Earlier this year, Saft’s management committee ap-pointed Frédéric Hapiak as director of the committee’s energy storage unit. The management committee serves as a forum for dis-cussing and for implement-ing Saft’s global strategy, says Saft

Hapiak is the general manager for Saft America and based in Florida. His previous work at Saft in-cluded being deputy general manager of the company’s industrial battery group and a director of global sales and marketing. ■

Amy Marshall has joined KPMG as a director in the fi rm’s power and utilities practice.

Marshall joined from Engage Consulting where she was a director of busi-ness development, work-ing with Engage’s experts to advise clients in energy and utilities.

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

Storage, and the emerg-ing trend toward smaller

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

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

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

Dimitrios has over 20 years of cyber security ex-perience and has worked with fi nancial institu-tions, telecom organiza-

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

smart energy sector devel-ops make his experience relevant for KPMG and its clients, says the fi rm. ■

Ghislain Lescuyer as new chair of Saft’s management board

New appointments for KPMG as Marshall, Petropoulos step forward

Lescuyer: started as chairman in May

Dimitrios PetropoulosAmy Marshall

THE CEO INTERVIEW: RON VAN DELL


Location, location, location. A rule for estate agents around the world — but also no different for energy storage companies seeking to plant their start ups.

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

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

The state capital is arguably one of the most attractive of alternative American tech hubs to rival Silicon Valley. It has a young, well educated population and is home to the region-al offi ces and, in some cases, head-quarters of many Fortune 500 blue-chips, including Intel, Apple Google and IBM in addition to Dell.

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

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

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

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

Taking the message of zinc iron redox to yet wider markets

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



in which to build out the rest of the company. We need a larger ecosystem to tap into for the right set of skills. Austin is attractive to relocate to and has a very good high-tech food chain.”

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

Undoubtedly Columbia Falls, the gateway to the stunning Glacier Na-tional Park, where Zinc Air Inc was founded also scores well when judged by on quality-of-life criteria. However, it is also close to one of Applied Ma-terials’ subsidiaries with plating tech-nology and expertise. It took a further fi ve years and six generations of pro-totypes to prepare the technology for commercialization and to perfect the production design.

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

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

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

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

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

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

and growing base of intermittent re-newables, as well as a booming popu-lation thirsty for more electricity, is creating the perfect conditions for en-ergy storage.

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

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

Target marketsFollowing the fi rst orders for the C&I segment in the US, later this year ViZn anticipates shipping for remote micro-grid as well as utility-scale projects. In addition to North America and Europe, the company is also targeting Africa and the Asia-Pacifi c.

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

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

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

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

Greensmith, Dynapower and Princeton Power are current partners with the fi rm.

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

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

MARKING THE DANCE CARD



remote villages with reliable electricity autonomously,” says Van Dell.

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

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

ViZn is working with local partners on the ground that develop microgrid projects. “They secure fi nance via lo-cal governments or multi-government lending initiatives such as Power Af-rica.”

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

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

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

“We are missing the opportunity to go to market with a more versatile storage platform. At the risk of sounding clichéd, a ‘Swiss Army knife’ approach is needed, an energy storage technology that delivers on both the kilowatt and the kilowatt hour fronts.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Typically most of the money is spent on the solar system, but if you size the storage properly you can get better economic returns overall. This will become more important as the penetration levels of renewables continue to increase. Grid operators want renewable energy sources to be better behaved. Take Germany for example, the government wants new renewable energy investments on the condition these can be better managed and integrated into the grid.”

ViZn has partnerships with solar companies and engineering, procurement and construction fi rms and LFC Capital also has trusted companies it works with in this area. Van Dell thinks that it is a bit too early on in the industry for players to start aligning with specifi c partners, but expects this to start happening in 2016.

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

BINDING CAPITAL TO ENERGY STORAGE



approach is needed, an energy stor-age technology that delivers on both the kilowatt and the kilowatt hour fronts.”

It is hard for utilities to predict the mix of power and energy intensive services in, say, fi ve years from now. But also, in increasingly deregulated markets where independent power producers are entering to provide ser-vices, the revenues associated with all of these are not clear yet, he thinks.

“Putting out a lot of capital expendi-tures which are tied up in energy stor-age assets with a 20 year service life and trying to be right about whether it is going to be power-intensive or energy-intensive is an extremely tough call to make. ViZn is commercializ-ing a fl ow battery that supports both power and energy services. As a result, the fi nancial risks of mix planning are largely avoided.”

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

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

“For example, for a 1 MW/4 MWh multi-service capability, you can’t buy a half size of lithium ion and a half size of fl ow system to meet the need. You end up buying 1MW of Li-ion and still need 4MWh of fl ow. There-fore you end up with redundant costs compared to a single fl ow battery that can do both jobs.” ■

“Putting out a lot of capital expenditures which are tied up in energy storage assets with a 20 year service life and trying to be right about whether it is going to be power-intensive or energy-intensive is an extremely tough call to make.”

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

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

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

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

Business model• Large, scalable storage with the

lowest cost / highest value per kWh delivered

• Industry leading customers representing utilities, transmission, and renewable energy

• Asset-light business model, through contract manufacturing and strategic partnerships

• +$25 million equity funding to date from key stakeholders, management and high net-worth individuals

• 3 patents granted, 13 patents pending.

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

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

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

VIZN — DATAFILE

Ron Van Dell has a track record of leading early-stage, turn-around and established businesses. His 30 year career

spans industries in semiconductors and electronics, including power, communications, computing, industrial control, electrical distribution and clean-tech.

In May 2014 he was appointed president and chief executive of ViZn (previously Zinc Air Inc), a zinc redox fl ow battery fi rm targeting large-scale stationary storage markets.

Before that Van Dell was president

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

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

He has also been the general manager for Dell Computer’s Dimension line of business. Other companies he has held management positions at include Intersil Corporation, Schneider, Square D Company and General Electric.

BIO: RON VAN DELL, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VIZN

NEWS


Siemens launches rent-a-storage system

Saft supplies energy storage for Arctic Circle microgrid

Siemens and Ads-tec have launched a container-ized battery for utilities to rent, to de-risk storage deployment. Containerized products are already be-coming a de facto standard for energy storage but a fi nancial model based on a rental product signals an increasingly sophisticated business model,

Initially StoRent will be rolled out in Germany, Austria and possibly Switzerland, where the two companies have strong sales and distribution chan-nels.

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

period and eventually buy the system outright.

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

StoRent can be supplied in different sizes and can provide different grid func-tions, including ancillary services and peak shaving. The systems are designed for easy relocation around the grid.

StoRent uses lithium ion batteries as these can fi t into 20 or 40 foot con-tainers. Lithium ion cells are declared as danger-ous goods and need to be transported with special care, usually in separate boxes.

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

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

storage systems on the grid. The association’s members develop pilots to demon-strate profi tability, security and other issues.

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

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

However, the StoRent containers have been devel-oped for multiple use cases, making them slightly more expensive than the tailor-made Siestorage system. ■

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

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

The system will be in-stalled at the Colville Lake Power Station this June and will provide the residents

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

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

the existing power plant.The battery bank will

enable the solar panels to generate about 30% of the community’s electricity. Without energy storage, the penetration of intermittent renewables, such as solar and wind in hybrid micro-grids is usually limited to under 20%. In addition to enabling higher renewables penetration at the expense of diesel or other fossil fu-els, energy storage systems provide power quality and stabilize the microgrid.

Following several years

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

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

In its 2014 annual report, within Saft’s industrial bat-tery group markets for bat-teries for stationary backup power, which mainly used nickel chemistry, and en-ergy storage applications, which mainly use lithium ion, reached €243 million. This represented a 10% growth in revenue. ■

The cost of stationary stor-age is set to stay high even though the price of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles will fall, according to Lux Research.

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

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

The stationary storage market, however, will con-tinue to see higher prices. The report predicts a price of $655/kWh for residen-tial applications and $498/kWh for grid applications.

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

teries require construction of specifi c buildings and systems to be integrated.

The report also predicts a rising gap between best-in-class manufacturers and the rest with a pricing divide opening up of as much as $100/kwH for EV batteries. “The estimate is based on a new bottom-up cost model built by Lux Research,”said the fi rm.” ■

Divide to form for lithium ion batteries between EV users and stationary ones

NEWS


A fl ow battery is being built as part of a micro-grid project on Fraunhofer ICT’s campus in Germany.

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

Installation of the

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

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

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

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

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

Industrial fi rm Schmalz, a supplier of automa-tion technology, handling and clamping tools and technology is working on the stack design, which was originally developed by Fraunhofer ICT, to be mass

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

Active Energy Solutions, a division of Methode Electronics, received certi-fi cation for its lithium-ion uninterruptible power sup-ply from UL, an independ-ent safety science company, in April.

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

“UL certifi cation is a key milestone as it verifi es the quality and integrity of the product. The AC6000’s cer-tifi cations prove this new lithium solution delivers a safe, proven and reliable solution over the life of the battery,” said Emilie Stone, general manager of Meth-ode Electronics’ Active Energy Solutions. ■

Fraunhofer microgrid to deploy fl ow battery

Methode secures independent certifi cation for UPS

The University of New South Wales — birthplace of the vanadium redox fl ow battery (see our profi le of Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, the driving fi gure in its creation, at the end of this magazine) — has ordered its own commercial system from Gildemeister subsidi-ary Cellstrom.

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

The system will be con-nected to the building grid and will be used to dem-onstrate its performance in a range of applications including renewable energy storage, load shifting and power arbitrage.

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

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

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

Skyllas-Kazacos has dedi-cated most of her research and career to developing a vanadium redox fl ow bat-tery suitable for mass com-mercialization. The core technology that she and her team, which includes her husband Michael Kazacos, developed is being used in vanadium battery storage systems around the world — including China, Europe and the US — for renewa-bles integration and also microgrids.

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

By charging a battery us-ing cheap off-peak electric-ity at night and discharging it to power appliances during the peak period, signifi cant cost savings can be achieved using energy storage. ■

General Electric will supply Con Edison Development, the renewable and energy infrastructure project devel-oper, with an 8MWh battery energy storage system based in Central Valley, Califor-nia. The project should be completed by year-end. This is GE’s fi rst foray into lithium-ion batteries and Con Edison’s fi rst energy storage project. GE said it is seeking to expand its energy storage portfolio.

The storage product,

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

The deal will also deliver a complete energy storage system with associated long-term service agreements.

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

ments our Durathon battery offering and gives customers more fl exibility in meeting their specifi c site application needs.”

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

GE enters into lithium-ion fi rst with Con Edison

Cellstrom supplies vanadium battery for University of New South Wales microgrid

NEWS


Energy management solutions developer ZBB Energy has received third party validation of its agile fl ow battery. The bat-tery has been designed for behind the meter energy storage applications in the commercial and industrial building market.

According to ZBB, the battery allows a large amount of energy to be deployed from a rela-tively small footprint. “It is designed for the lowest lifecycle cost available for applications requir-ing more than two hours of discharged energy,” the fi rm said.

The commercial valida-tion of the Agile Flow Battery by an independent third party was performed at a battery and grid power control products testing facility in Beijing, China. It followed a product devel-opment programme that began in July 2014 and utilised concurrent engi-neering, procurement, as-sembly and testing between ZBB Energy and Meineng Energy.

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

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

ZBB breakthrough battery validated

TNG, an Australian com-pany exploring the develop-ment of what could be the largest vanadium resource in the world, signed a memo-randum of understanding in early May with an unnamed vanadium redox-fl ow bat-tery manufacturer.

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

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

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

of the largest vanadium deposits in the world.

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

The installation of the VRB unit could potentially

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

It also offers the option of a strategic cooperation for vanadium product develop-ment and, subject to satis-factory discussions, TNG may enter into binding agreements to sell vanadium product from its plant. ■

A recent project where two vanadium-based fl ow bat-teries installed to help store and manager power at a restaurant in the Slovenian Alps could become the cata-lyst for many more similar deals if success, according to Imergy Power Systems, the developer of the batteries.

The two ESP4 series vanadium-based fl ow bat-teries were installed at a restaurant called Trojane by Metronik Energija. The project was sponsored by the Slovenian Utility Elektro

Ljubljana and supported by the Business Support Center Kranj.

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

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

reduction, backup power and EV charging. Energy storage systems that can support multiple applica-tions deliver a higher return on investment than systems only used for a single ap-plication.

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

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

cycles. With the Imergy Vanadium Flow battery you can take it all the way to zero, recharge it fast, take it all the way to zero, recharge it fast, and keep going that way. This particular environment needed three to four cycles per day.”

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

TNG partners with VRB battery manufacturer

Flow batteries Alps test could lead to bigger things says Imergy

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

The proceeds, which will be used for general operat-ing costs, will also help towards the sales of its CellCube vanadium fl ow energy storage systems.

American Vanadium is the master sales agent in North America for Gilde-meisters’ CellCube vana-dium fl ow battery. ■

American Vanadium closes private placement

NEWS


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

Randolph-Macon College is working in partnership on a solar energy project with Dominion Resources, an East Coast utility pro-vider and one of the largest producers and transporters of energy in the US.

The Z20 redox fl ow bat-tery uses a non-toxic, non-fl ammable and low cost zinc and iron chemistry.

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

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

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

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

Saft will supply its Evo-lion lithium-ion battery

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

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

supply. In addition, Saft is also

providing a dedicated service for Reliance for life cycle support across the entire installed base. Deliv-eries are scheduled to take place during the second quarter of 2015.

Xavier Delacroix, general manager of Saft’s industrial

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

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

ViZn supplies advanced fl ow battery to US college

Reliance Jio places €7m battery order with Saft

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

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

Separion is a ceramic

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

Litarion owns numerous patents concerning chemi-cal cell components for lithium ion batteries. The portfolio contains more than 70 protective rights. Collectively, this portfolio of intellectual property and patents accompanies the

purchase of Litarion.Sankar Das Gupta, CEO

of Electrovaya, said: “Con-ventional manufacturing of lithium ion employs a toxic NMP (n-methyl-pyr-rolidone) process, which is prohibitively expensive and energy intensive. Regula-tions are becoming more stringent in Japan, Europe and North America. Elec-trovaya’s unique non-toxic manufacturing technology will enable this best-in-class plant to become one of the lowest cost produc-ers and one of the largest manufacturers globally. We are delighted to be working

with an exceptional team at Litarion.

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

Renewable energy develop-ment company SunEdison is set to purchase up to 1,000 vanadium fl ow bat-teries from Imergy Power Systems to bring electricity to villagers in rural India. (See cover story for larger coverage of fl ow battery work in India.)

The vanadium fl ow bat-teries will be used to store

solar-generated electric-ity for SunEdison’s rural electrifi cation and solar powered minigrid projects in India.

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

“Energy storage is the perfect complement to solar powered minigrids

because it enables us to provide dependable, 24/7 electricity,” said Ahmad Chatila, president and chief executive offi cer of SunEdison. “And Imergy’s technology is a great fi t for rural electrifi cation because their systems are high per-formance, low cost, ultra-durable and need very little maintenance.” ■

SunEdison invests in vanadium for India

Electrovaya completes acquisition of Evonik Litarion

NEWS


A new high performance cathode material for use in lithium-sulphur batter-ies has been developed by researchers from Drexel University and Aix-Mar-seille University in France.

Lithium-sulphur batter-ies have an energy density around four times higher than lithium-ion batteries used in mobile phones. According to Drexel, one of the challenges for the

practical application of lithium-sulphur batteries is to fi nd cathode materi-als that demonstrate long-term stability. The team has created a two-dimen-sional carbon/sulphur nan-

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

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

“The researchers say that carbon/sulphur nanol-aminates have a covalent bonding between carbon and sulphur in an ex-tremely uniform distribu-tion of sulfur between the atomically thin carbon layers.

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

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

Ideal Power’s PCS underwent test-ing and validation in Aquion Energy’s labs to verify the compatibility of the two companies’ products under typi-cal operating conditions.

Ideal Power said that the results

demonstrated that its PCS is a good fi t for Aquion Energy’s battery prod-ucts, delivering exceptional effi ciency and reliability.

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

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

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

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

Drexel develops next gen lithium-sulphur component

Aquion Enery declares Ideal Power PCS compatible

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

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

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

we have decided to use our lithium titanate batter-ies due to the timeline in which we have to realize the project. It is a well-established and proven technology,” says Joep Thomassen, vice president, distributed power genera-tion, at Leclanché.

Leclanche announced in March that it has also developed lithium graphite batteries and these are go-ing through the fi nal stages of the release process for mass production.

An affi liate of Recharge, which is one of Leclan-ché’s largest shareholders,

will lend €3.5 million in convertible debt fi nancing to the project’s company, Graciolica, which is a sub-sidiary of Younicos.

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

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

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

Leclanché’s battery energy storage system will be integrated into the intelligent energy manage-ment system developed by Younicos. The system should start to go online by the end of 2015.

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

Lithium-ion battery maker Boston-Power and Darfon Electronics Corp, a preci-sion components com-pany and part of the BenQ Group, revealed at the end of April they had entered a three-year supply agree-ment to target the global residential solar storage market.

The companies have initially committed to sup-

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

By using Boston-Power’s lithium-ion cell technol-ogy, Darfon is able to offer solutions, which will benefi t both homeowners and in-stallers, said the companies.

Rick Chamberlain, Boston-Power’s chief

technology offi cer, said: “Boston-Power’s develop-ment of long-life, high-energy density lithium-ion technology, combined with our commitment to expand high-volume production which leverages improv-ing industry costs, enables us to deliver high-quality solutions with a clear value proposition for the residen-tial storage market.” ■

Boston-Power and Darfon team up for solar

Younicos and Leclanché partner on Graciosa project

NEWS


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

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

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

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

There was only one debt

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

ogy products.There were also fi ve M&A

transactions in the bat-tery and storage category. Only two disclosed fund-ing amounts totalling $2.3 billion. ■

Japanese fi rm Sumitomo Corporation has invested in a battery energy storage system for a power fre-quency regulation project in Hamilton, Ohio. The project should start in December.

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

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

This is the fi rst time Sumitomo has invested in a large-scale stand-alone battery storage facility in the US.

Willey will own the bat-tery power storage system,

which will be supplied by Toshiba in November 2015. The system, which inte-grates an array of 6MW-2MWh SCiB lithium-ion batteries, will start opera-tions in December.

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

of temperatures. “It has a lifetime of over

10,000 charge-discharge cycles, and operates with a high level of reliability and safety, including high resist-ance to external shock. The SCiB has found numerous applications, such as the power source for electric and hybrid vehicles,” said the fi rm. ■

VCs invest $69m in battery companies in fi rst quarter

Sumitomo buys stake in Willey, orders Toshiba batteries

Global revenues from energy storage technolo-gies will exceed $21 billion by 2024, compared with just $605 million in 2015 driven partly by the falling cost of the batteries used by such technology, a report by Navigant Research estimates.

Although battery prices have fallen anywhere from

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

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

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

Navigant said that once this happens more trans-parency in the price of ESS

is expected, allowing the industry to grow further.

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

German chemical fi rm BASF has sued Umicore, a Belgian materials technol-ogy company, for infring-ing patents related to its lithium-ion batteries. They were fi led with the US International Trade Com-mission and a Delaware district court in February.

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

porate Umicore’s cathode active materials.

The case alleged that patent infringement was just one example of the unlawful conduct that Umicore has used to maintain its position as a primary supplier of cath-ode active materials in the industry — at the expense of BASF.

“Thus, this case is about Umicore’s willful and knowing infringement of patents as well as the anticompetitive, tortious, and deceptive conduct Umicore has used for its benefi t and BASF’s detri-

ment,” said the fi ling. It also alleged that Umi-

core threatened a potential customer of BASF, which the chemical fi rm had been in negotiations with.

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

Umicore sued for lithium-ion patent infringement

Cheaper batteries to boost energy storage tech revenues


Flow batteries:the economic logic starts to stack up

At the Energy Storage show in Düsseldorf this March, the highest profi le battery technology in the exhibition hall was not lithium ion — as one might expect based on its popularity as the go-to option for containerized storage systems for grid services. It wasn’t the all-rounder lead acid battery either.

It was vanadium redox fl ow battery technology.

COVER STORY: FLOW BATTERIES

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

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

more prevalent, technologies. Four years ago a price of $1000

per kW was reckoned to be about standard but subsequently fell to around $500 per kWh. Last No-vember Imergy Power Systems an-nounced that it was ready to push it below $300 per kWh.

However, economies of scale may > page 22


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

“”




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

owners in the cooperative by buying a share.

The amount the members invest is between €500 ($560) and €3000. Projected dividends are steady, at about 5% a year. The storage systems owned by the cooperative do tasks such as shaving the peak loads of wind and solar farms and storing surplus electricity then selling it to the grid later for a decent price.

A COOPERATIVE INVESTMENT MODEL

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

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



ceeds most of the developed Western world.)

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

At the end of 2014, China boasted an installed capacity of over 100GW. But while this might be more than that of the US, wind accounts for a smaller share of China’s electricity supply com-pared to the US.

Curtailment rather than network investment has been the strategy for China when there is too much wind electricity and not enough demand.

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

China’s National Energy Administra-tion says that, in 2012 and 2013 wind curtailment rates were 17%. But these rates have been reduced thanks to sev-eral billion dollars spent by China’s State Grid and other utilities on build-ing long distance power lines.

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

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

Where fl ow batteries fi tVanadium redox fl ow batteries have specifi c attributes that make them suit-able for such a task. They work best as a long-duration storage tank, banking excess wind power and feeding it into the grid, smoothing and fi rming the supply, up to a few hours later.

“In other words they enable wind farms to act like base load generation,” says Lars Möllenhoff, managing direc-tor of Cellstrom, an Austrian subsidi-ary of energy storage developer Gild-emeister. Cellstrom has developed and

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

SunEdison is positioning itself as a global renewable energy developer. The company’s main business is solar PV, however its expansion into wind and also energy storage completes the portfolio.

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

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

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

But the market is competitive. Even though the total cost of

ownership is reduced with Imergy’s batteries, converting companies to fl ow batteries is challenging because the technology is newer and companies feel comfortable with lead acid.

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

market has good growth prospects. In India many of the batteries will

be installed with cell towers, which will provide local communities with electricity, initially for lighting at night and also cell phone charging. In most cases for each project with SunEdison, Imergy will supply its battery systems in 15kW-20kW sizes, providing about eight to 10 hours of storage. Many of the projects will be in Rajasthan. Omnigrid Micropower Company (OMC) is the local partner on the ground installing the projects.

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

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

INDIA GOES OFFGRID, TELECOMS

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



commercialized containerized energy storage systems using vanadium redox fl ow chemistry.

This type of requirement is very dif-ferent to using batteries for discharging power to meet grid signals for frequen-cy control, for instance.

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

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

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

Perhaps not economical but interesting all the same. The properties of Vanadium in a (atomic number 23) redox fl ow battery show that other periodic table elements have the potential to give higher charge-discharge performance.

One of the more interesting is the uranium redox fl ow battery which works on the basis of the quite unique feature that the single element possesses two redox couples with identical structures (UO2+/UO22+, U3+/ U4+). Uranium satisfi es the necessary condition for the active material for the redox fl ow battery — the two battery reactions are reversible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLOW BATTERIES GO NUCLEAR

“Energy storage systems using vanadium redox fl ow batteries enable wind farms to act like base load generation” — Lars Möllenhoff, Cellstrom



More recent projects are proving how Rongke’s batteries are compatible with wind power generation. Rongke is trying to estimate the potential mar-ket size for fl ow battery-based energy storage to address wind curtailment in China. It could be in the hundreds of MW and MWh range.

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

In 2013 the company installed its fl ow batteries at a wind farm owned by Longyuan Group, the largest wind power producer in China and also the rest of the Asia-Pacifi c. Rongke shared results of the project during the Energy Storage show in Düsseldorf.

Increasing wind farm capacity Co-locating fl ow batteries increases the generating capacity of Longyuan’s 50MW Woniushi wind farm in Liaon-ing, a province bordering North Korea. It is the fi rst demonstration of a vana-dium redox fl ow battery with a wind farm in China. At 5MW/10MWh Wo-niushi is the largest operational vanadi-um redox fl ow energy storage installa-tion, not just in China, but worldwide.

According to Rongke’s sales director John Zhang the 5MW/10MWh fl ow battery storage system has continuous-ly operated with a stable output and timely responses, since it began opera-tions in May 2013.

In 2012, before the battery was in-stalled, Woniushi wind farm supplied about 71.5 million kWh of electricity to the grid. In 2013, with the battery, this amount increased to about 97.5 million kWh, translating to more than 500 hours more of effective generation time. The priority application has been to improve power quality for market trading — smoothing and fi rming. Storing wind, instead of curtailment, is also a key advantage.

As well as Woniushi, Rongke has installed its redox fl ow systems at two other wind farms for output smoothing, power output optimi-zation and to address curtailment. One is 3MW/6MWh. The other is a 2MW/4MWh system installed at the 100MW Beizhen wind farm in Jinzhou City at the end of 2014.

In this project the fl ow battery is used with a 5MW/10MWh lithium ion bat-tery. The hybrid energy storage system

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

avoiding upsetting the grid, the alter-native options to curtailment are in-vesting in new transmission lines and grid network infrastructure or using more batteries.

The Braderup project means network investments can be delayed.

Reducing costs More recently Rongke’s efforts have focused on reducing the costs associ-ated with its vanadium redox fl ow bat-teries and energy storage systems based on the experience of the projects that it has executed so far.

A second generation fl ow battery en-ergy storage system developed the by company is containerized, to shorten onsite works and lower labour costs as most of the assembly can be done in the factory rather than onsite. The con-tainerized system can be transported in one go rather than as separate compo-nents.

Andreas Luczak, managing director of Rongke’s sister company Vanadis Power says other areas are being ad-dressed too: “We are working on re-ducing the cost for expensive materials required for the stack production, such as the membranes. In addition, we are further optimizing the design of the stacks to get more power out of them. Finally, we are constantly optimiz-ing the design of the balance-of-plant, which is about 30% of the total costs.”

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

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

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

Types include: zinc bromide, zinc-cerium and lead acid fl ow.

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

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

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

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

Volume production may bring costs down.

HYBRID FLOW BATTERIES

The lifespan of fl ow-type batteries is not strongly affected by cycling. Their energy density is low — about 40Wh per kilogram — though recent research indicates that a modifi ed electrolyte solution can produce a 70% improvement in energy density.

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

over 25 years.System suppliers report achieving

cycling capability of 10,000 or more cycles at 100% depth of discharge. The physical scale of vanadium redox systems tends to be large due to the large volumes of electrolyte required when sized for megawatt-hour utility-scale projects.

Types include: vanadium redox fl ow, polysulfi de bromide, uranium redox fl ow.

LIFETIME EXPECTATIONS



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

The company’s containerized second generation system, which incorporates full integration of stacks, electrolyte, balance-of-plant, battery management and support systems comes in two sizes, 60kW/400kWh and 125kW/650kWh.

For large-scale longer duration appli-cations, such as those for wind farms, Rongke has also developed a MW-class containerized energy storage sys-tem, which has been installed at the Beizhen wind farm. The system can be supplied with the electrolyte tanks on the outside.

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

With 60kW and 125kW systems the company is targeting microgrids, the commercial and industrial market and also off-grid demand. The 60kW system will be launched in Europe by mid-2015, coinciding with installa-tion for a specifi c project in Germany. “The application is the optimization of decentralized electricity generation by an industrial customer (increase of

autarchy) and for providing grid sup-port for the distribution grid operator,” says Luczak. The 125kW system is also available for similar applications.

In Germany Vanadis is not the only company that has commercialized vanadium redox fl ow batteries. Gild-emeister has supplied a number of

customers in Germany and also the Benelux.

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

Spend time around people who work in the energy storage industry and an often repeated phrase can be heard. There is no one single electrochemical storage technology. It is a case of horses for courses, as the saying goes.

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

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

Here are some of the technology’s benefi ts for energy storage:

• The electrochemical reaction takes place at normal pressure and temperatures. The battery is non-fl ammable

• Independently rated energy and power capacity. This means better scalability and fl exibility

•Batteries can be cycled for up to 20 years and can be discharged up to 100% without degradation that occurs in other types of batteries

• Real-time monitoring of the state of charge of fl ow batteries with active thermal management is possible

• Flow battery electrolytes are recyclable, whereas lithium ion batteries are not. This makes the long-term economics more favourable

• Flow battery benefi ts and value streams are stackable. For example a single installation can provide renewables Integration, ancillary services and other market revenue services, T&D system capacity and reliability support and isolated loads.

INCREDIBLE HULKS

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




Such a vision is a long way off and requires the technology to be more competitive. “It already is getting there. The more aggressive end of pricing for lithium ion batteries predicts about €200/kWh. Prices for vanadium re-dox fl ow batteries are already around €350/kWh,” says Möllenhoff.

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

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

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

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

Schmid Group, a German equipment manufacturer specializing in wet pro-cess systems for industries including photovoltaics, is building a production line for making redox fl ow batteries and energy storage systems.

The company expects to start manu-facturing in 2016. Schmid is mainly targeting resident opportunities where the batteries can be installed to enable the customer to use more of their self-generated solar photovoltaic electricity. Germany has the biggest installed ca-pacity of photovoltaic systems of any country in Europe.

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

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

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

US developmentsBut outside of China, in the shorter term it is the US market that is mov-ing along more quickly. “This is due partly to the 1.3GW storage mandate in California.

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

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

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

Mid-20th centuryFirst redox fl ow technology patented in Germany

The 1970sNASA investigates fl ow batteries. This is followed by research in Japan, by the Electro-Technical Laboratory

The 1980sR&D proliferates. In the mid-1980s Maria Skyllas-Kazacos and co-workers at the University of New South Wales develop and patent the fi rst true vanadium redox fl ow battery in its modern form (using sulphuric acid electrolytes in each half) and follow up with the demonstration of the fi rst operational vanadium redox fl ow battery. Other proof-of-concept systems follow

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

The 2000s Pilot projects, such as microgrids with vanadium redox fl ow batteries, start to be built worldwide, especially from 2008 onwards, driven by increased uptake in renewables

The 2010sFocus switches to reducing costs of the technology and on mass manufacturing of vanadium redox fl ow batteries

The futureAs costs come down and more renewables are installed fl ow batteries will become more prominent both in grid-tied as well as off-grid markets

A 60+ YEAR LEARNING CURVE

At 2013, the generating capacity of WONIUSHI wind farm is much larger

than that of 2012, with 97.435 million kWhs of 2013 and 71.569 million

kWhs of 2012, about 500h+ extra effective generation time

1. Priority market trade(improved power quality)

2. Wind storing while curtailment condition

ESS Performance

Planed capacity

Real capacity

ESS operation start

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



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

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

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

Interconnectors are transmission cables for supplying electricity from one region or country to another. One country might be experiencing an oversupply of wind power but with an interconnector it could send the surplus to its neighbours.

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

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

distance power lines is expected to be in the region of €40 billion ($44 billion) conservatively.

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

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

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

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

When it goes live in June, the cable, which crosses the Pyrenees moun-tains, where the two countries border, will double French-Spanish intercon-nection capacity to just under 3GW.

But to keep the Pyrenees unmarred by unsightly pylons the new DC interconnector, 65km in total, has had to be buried, at a cost of €700 million.

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

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

The cost of EU grid integration

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



UET produces large-scale energy stor-age systems for utility, micro-grid, com-mercial and industrial customers. Its premises near Seattle include a 67,000 sq ft factory which is being scaled up to produce 100MW annually.

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

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

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

Californian company Imergy, which supplies vanadium redox fl ow batter-ies and storage systems, is targeting off-grid and related applications in fi elds such as mining. The company’s recently launched 250kW system — a scalable containerized offering — was devel-oped with large off-grid and microgrid uses in mind as well as for grid-tied util-ity markets.

“Redox fl ow batteries provide ben-efi ts that no other battery is able to. These are a lowest cost ability to store very large quantities of energy without

having to install costly battery capac-ity,” says Imergy’s chief fi nancial offi cer Jack Stark.

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

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

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

DC microgridsIn the US, Imergy has also been cho-sen to partner with Bosch to provide its fl ow batteries for a $2.8 million DC renewables microgrid demonstration project funded by the California Energy Commission.

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

The project will demonstrate the feasi-

bility and benefi ts of a commercial-scale DC building grid that integrates various advanced technologies to provide reli-able power to the loads on the DC grid, resilience during grid outages, increased energy effi ciencies and high renewable energy use.

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

In the project the redox fl ow batter-ies will provide long duration and high power, whereas competing technolo-gies are able to support high power and short duration. The Bosch microgrid will need long duration power, eight to 10 hours but also quick power.

Imergy’s fl ow batteries are cost sig-nifi cantly less to produce because the company has developed a proprietary formulation that yields batteries with twice the density of other technolo-gies. The company has also developed a method that allows it to reuse waste vanadium as the material does not need to have a 99.9% purity like other vana-dium chemistries.

These combined mean the company’s batteries use substantially less vanadi-um, so reducing the cost of the batteries. The batteries are also able to perform well in temperature extremes without the need for air cooling or warming equipment. Results from the batteries in India are showing good performance even in conditions above 40°C.

The company’s latest series — 250kW modules — are part of Imergy’s aim to supply modules for large grid scale pro-jects.

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

Imergy is also going after grid stor-age projects in the US and also Europe, competing with gas turbines and de-mand or load management in places such as Germany.

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

“Redox fl ow batteries provide benefi ts that no other battery is able to. These are a lowest cost ability to store very large quantities of energy without having to install costly battery capacity” — Jack Stark, Imergy

SOLARUNITED

www.energystoragejournal.com Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2015 • 31

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

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

This is creating new challenges for the solar industry, such as an increasing focus on quality. In addition, the tapering off of subsidies also places the industry under greater pressure to deliver solar projects at a competitive cost and this is making itself felt along the entire value chain — from BOS component suppliers, to inverter makers as well as solar cell and module producers.

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

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

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

Bryan EkusSOLARUNITEDExecutive director

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

One voice

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

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

Intersolar Europe, Munich SOLARUNITED members will be meeting at the Intersolar Europe Conference and Exhibition! Date: June 11. Time: 9am–11:00am. Meeting place: Messe München GmbH, Room 12A fi rst fl oor of the ICM, Messegelände, 81823 München, Germany. Stay tuned for more information! ■

EUPVSEC

WFES 2015

Save the date!

www.solar-united.org

Are you ready to be connected?

Linking the Solar Power Generation and Energy Storage Technology Value Chain

SOLARUNITED MEMBER NEWS

www.energystoragejournal.com Energy Storage Journal • Spring 2015 • 33

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

“Kipfer has proven international experience in an industrial environ-ment, and has previously worked for a number of years for the globally active Franke Holding (Water Systems Divi-sion and Kitchen Systems Division) as a chief operating offi cer.”

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

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

fi scal year. The company accordingly is anticipating an increase in revenues and earnings again in the current year. Specifi cally, Manz is expecting revenues between €320 million and €340 million for the current 2015 fi scal year with clearly positive earnings before interest and tax, known as EBIT.

Of the orders around €40 million are in Manz’s business segment known as Battery.

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

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

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

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

The total annual capacity of the ad-vanced MB PERC upgrade technology is about 400 MW.

“The MB PERC upgrade cell technol-ogy is deployed on the MAiA 2.1 sys-tem platform. This platform is the key equipment for cell coating within the

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

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

The fi ve-day conference is comple-mented by the three-day exhibition, held from September 15-17.

Rinck was chosen by the Internation-al Scientifi c Advisory Committee which is part of EU PVSEC.

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

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

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

order volume for this system is only in the six-fi gure range, Manz says its sees outstanding opportunities for signifi cant follow-up orders in the coming years once the new process has been successfully qualifi ed for series production.

Alongside the increase in the perfor-mance parameters of lithium-ion bat-tery systems, the sustained lowering of their production costs, in particular, will be critical for the success of e-mobility. With the newly developed process for

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

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

Manz receives order for pilot system for laser welding lithium ion batteries

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

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

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

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

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

A sizeable portion of this market can be converted to solar photovolta-ics. However, securing fi nancing for these types of off-grid projects can be diffi cult. Often, investors lack the up-front capital to invest outright.

OneShore, which was set up two

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

OneShore’s transparent approach to customer load measurement and system design enables its clients to fi -nance the system over the long term and benefi t by paying less for electric-ity at a fi xed rate, usually in the form of power purchase agreements.

Reaping the benefi ts of replacing diesel generation with renewables

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


ANALYSIS: ISLAND MICROGRIDS



The company has produced data that shows how integrating solar into a diesel generation operation can re-duce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The LCOE takes into ac-count all costs associated with build-ing a power plant, including con-struction and installation as well as operational expenditure such as fuel and maintenance.

OneShore also shows how greater LCOE savings are possible when bat-teries are also integrated into the hy-brid microgrid, optimizing the share of solar-generated electricity. This can be attractive once investors and fi nan-ciers feel comfortable with providing fi nancing for storage systems in re-mote locations.

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

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

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

Crude oil is only part of the pric-ing picture. For remote communities, hundreds of kilometres from a main-land grid, once factors such as trans-portation costs are taken into account it all adds up.

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

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

can absorb with before the intermit-tent nature of solar or wind starts to destabilize the grid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comparision between fuel savings and energy storage Fuel save concept Energy storage concept

Energy consumption 450,936kWh/a 450,936kWh/a

Solar installation size 100kWp 180kWp

Solar energy contribution 150,605kWh 269,191kwh/a

Solar energy share 33% 60%

Solar excess energy 11% 9%

Generator runtime 8,760hrs/a 5,324hrs/a

Battery size n/a 100kWh/200kWh

Overall investment cost €240,000 €700,000

Annual savings €91,991 €162,337

Payback in years 2.6 4.3

LCOE (diesel only: $0.60/kWh) $0.40/kWh $0.24/kWh

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



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

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

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

Siemens is supplying Italian utility Enel Group with a 0.3MW/0.6MWh lithium ion battery storage system. The installation should be operation-al in the summer.

The energy storage system will al-low the inhabitants of Ventotene to reduce fuel consumption and lower the risk of blackouts, while also in-creasing the security of supply and energy effi ciency, as well as integrat-

ing renewable energy into the local electricity grid.

The battery system is installed next to the generators and will store elec-tricity for use when there are peaks in demand. The system has several functions.• Modulating generators, to stabi-

lize the entire distribution system• Makes electricity supply more se-

cure;• Limits the island’s annual fossil

fuel consumption by 25%• Cuts greenhouse gases emissions• Integrates already operational re-

newable energy power plants, so that the island’s inhabitants can install new ones without unbal-ancing the network

Philip Hiersemenzel, at energy storage system integrator Younicos, sees many opportunities for such is-

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

“Storage systems provide many other benefi ts too and they do not have to be that big in terms of capac-ity to achieve these,” he says.

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

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

EU island grids: a still-untapped market opportunity

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Saft in Japan its supplying its energy storage system for a remote island mi-crogrid project run by Takaoka Toko Company, a subsidiary of Tokyo Elec-tric Power Company (TEPCO) on the island of NiiJima in the Philippine Sea.

Niijima, south-east of Tokyo, takes over two hours to reach by jet boat. The microgrid will also include die-sel generators, solar panels and wind power turbines. The 520 kWh/1MW battery will operate in combination with Takaoka-Toko’s intelligent con-trol systems that enable large amounts of wind and other renewables to be integrated into diesel powered grids, ensuring system stability and smooth control of the gen-sets.

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

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

when the company started commer-cializing its containerized lithium ion energy storage system.

The company has shipped and in-stalled about 70 containers world-wide. While a number of installations are connected to mainland grids in Europe and North America, the com-pany has supplied several island or remote grids.

Lippert says such projects are a sig-nifi cant part of the company’s energy storage pipeline at present.

PartnershipsLeclanché, another well established European battery fi rm, is also drawn

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

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

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

“The profi le of wind generation is very demanding on battery energy storage systems, unlike photovoltaics which tends to be relatively simpler. Our system can accommodate two different load profi les simultaneously” — Anil Srivastava, Leclanché

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

Energy Storage China 2015, super-

vised by the National Energy Admin-

istration (China) and organized by

China Energy Storage Alliance and

Messe Düsseldorf (Shanghai) Co., Ltd,

will be held from June 2-4 in Beijing,

China. Its theme is: “Driving Energy

Storage Commercialization: Policy In-

terpretation, Technology Application

and Financial Innovation”. It is the

top networking event synchronizing

energy storage business in China with

a global reach.

Over 700 top industry experts from

over 10 countries worldwide will be

present at Energy Storage China 2015,

with talks from over 60 speakers in

highly attractive sessions, including

an opening ceremony and a plenary

meeting, 2 parallel sub forums and

5 focused seminars. Conference par-

ticipants can also visit the Zhangbei

Renewable Energy Demonstration

Project (Second Phase) or Beijing

Yanqing New Energy Demonstra-

tion Base and Energy Storage Project

after the conference on June 5, taking

a closer look at the latest project

progress and technology applications.

Energy Storage China 2015 will focus

on the integration of energy storage

applications, projects and solutions in

decentralized power supply systems,

centralized renewable integration,

fi nancial innovation and business

models, smart grid, micro-grid and

off -grid, and e- mobility. We syn-

chronize the world energy storage

business in China!

ENERGY STORAGE CHINA 2015

SESSION CHAIRS / MODERATORS / KEYNOTES ENERGY STORAGE CHINA

Mr. Li YeChief Economist,

National Energy

Administration

Mr. Kane

ThorntonChief Executive,

Clean Energy

Council

Mr. Shi

DinghuanChairman, China

Renewable

Energy Society &

Counselor of the

State Council

Mr. Thomas J.

TimminsBoard Member

of the Canadian

Solar Industries

Association

(CanSIA)

Mr. Xu

DingmingCounselor of the

State Council

Mr. Wang

SichengSenior Researcher,

Energy Research

Institute, NDRC

Mr. Zhou

XiaoxinGeneral Engineer,

China Electric

Power Research

Institute & China

Academy of

Sciences

Dr. Liang Hao, Associate

Professor, CSTC

of Ministry of

Housing and

Urban-Rural

Development

Mr. Wang

ZhongyingDirector, Center for

Renewable Energy

Development,

Energy Research

Institute, National

Development

and Reform

Commission

Mr. Dong YangVice Chairman,

Society of

Automotive

Engineers of China

Mr. Johnson YuChairman, China

Energy Storage

Alliance

Mr. Chen

HaishengDirector, Energy

Storage Research

Center, Institute

of Engineering

Thermophysics,

Chinese Academy

of Sciences

Dr. Rahul

WalawalkarFounder &

Executive Director,

India Energy

Storage Alliance

Mr. Lai

XiaokangDirector, Electrical

Engineering and

New Material

Department,

China Electric

Power Research

Institute (CEPRI)

Prof. Dr. Eicke

R. WeberPresident, German

Energy Storage

Association

(BVES); Director,

Fraunhofer

Institute for Solar

Energy Systems

(ISE)

Mr. Wang

ZidongDirector, Power

Battery Laboratory

of China North

Vehicle Research

Institute &

Director, National

863 Electric

Vehicle Key Power

Battery Testing

Center

June 02-04, 2015, Beijing, China

www.escexpo.cn

SPONSORS ENERGY STORAGE CHINA

Since 2009, the global electric energy

storage market has been growing rap-

idly as has the technology surrounding

its capture and storage.

According to the China Energy Stor-

age Alliance, the compound annual

growth rate of global cumulative in-

stalled capacity from 2000 to 2014 has

reached 135%. Moreover, the growth of

China’s energy storage market in 2014

has been yet higher than the global

market, over 50%!

From power generation and distribu-

tion to consumption, business oppor-

tunities are constantly emerging in the

energy storage market in China, with

technological innovation to be found in

each part of the value chain.

Multiple policies have been intro-

duced to gear up the energy storage

market by the Chinese government,

including the “National Energy Devel-

opment Strategy 2014-2020”, “The 12th

Five-year Plan on Renewable Energy”,

“New Electric Power System Reform”,

“National New Urbanization Develop-

ment Plan”, “Guide for the Pilot Project

Construction of Low Carbon Communi-

ties”, “Policy Support of the Develop-

ment of New Energy Vehicles”, as well

as the upcoming “Micro-grid Electricity

Price and Subsidy Scheme”, etc.

These policies will boost the short,

mid and long term development of en-

ergy storage and provide outstanding

opportunities for industrial develop-

ment.

So how to analyze the next steps

to take these given policies? How to

reform energy storage technology in

China’s power market? How can inves-

tors identify the investment value of

energy storage projects? The answers

to these questions will come from

policy makers from the State Council,

National Energy Administration, Minis-

try of Science and Technology, National

Development and Reform Committee,

and Ministry of Housing and Urban-

Rural Development at Energy Storage

China 2015.

THE ENERGY STORAGE MARKET IN CHINA

2000-2014 Cumulative Installed Capacity Ratio of Energy Storage Technology

June 02-04, 2015, Beijing, China

www.escexpo.cn



Graciosa, in the Azores, an archipel-ago about 1500km from the coast of Portugal.

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

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

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

The battery energy storage system developed by Leclanché can integrate wind and solar photovoltaics. “The profi le of wind generation is very de-manding on battery energy storage systems, unlike photovoltaics which

tends to be relatively simpler. Our system can accommodate two differ-ent load profi les simultaneously,” says Anil Srivastava, chief executive of Leclanché.

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

Younicos has also installed a 3MW

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



storage system to fi rm solar on Kauai one of the largest islands in the Ha-waiian archipelago and provides fre-quency response for Kaua’i’s 70MW grid.

The company has further island pro-jects in the pipeline. One of these will be used to replace thermal generation capacity on another island in the At-lantic, but can be used to integrate re-newables should the island decide to build wind or solar capacity in future.

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

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

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

Learning curveAs such, island grids can be viewed as microcosms of mainland grids, knowledge gathered from doing them can be useful and relevant to prepare for the coming years when increasing amounts of renewables demand more fl exible approaches to keeping those big extensive mainland grids in bal-ance.

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

Niijima island has about three thou-sand inhabitants. It has been chosen as the perfect miniature model of Japan in anticipation of the grid in 2030. Having embarked on a programme to close down its nuclear plants after Fukushima, the Japanese government is pushing ahead with a goal to gener-ate 13.5% of Japan’s electricity from renewables by 2020, rising to 20% by 2030.

Running for fi ve years, the Niijima project will highlight the technical

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

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

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

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

“One example of island grids providing learning curves for mainland grids is that you do not need long duration…It is about counteracting the intermittency and even small batteries can do that well — Philip Hiersemenzel, Younicos

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

least 20% of the electricity mix as Japan scales back on nuclear and fossil fuel power generation. On the island, solar, wind, diesel and a 1MWh lithium ion battery system, provided by Saft, will provide the 3000 residents with electricity. The different sources

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

BATTERY BASICS


Lithium is the lightest of all metals, has the greatest electrochemical po-tential and provides the largest spe-cifi c energy per weight.

It was not until the early 1970s that the fi rst non-rechargeable lithium bat-teries became commercially available. Attempts to develop rechargeable lith-ium batteries followed in the 1980s but the endeavour failed because of instabilities in the metallic lithium used as anode material.

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

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

In 1991, Sony commercialized the fi rst Li-ion battery, and today this chemistry has become the most prom-ising and fastest growing on the mar-

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

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

Cost reductions, the increase in spe-cifi c energy and the absence of toxic materials have paved the road to make Li-ion the universally acceptable bat-tery for portable applications, fi rst in the consumer industry and now increas-ingly also in heavy industry, including electric powertrains for vehicles.

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

Self-discharge is less than half com-

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

Types of Lithium-ion batteriesLi ion batteries come in many vari-eties but all have one thing in com-mon — the catchword “lithium-ion.” Although strikingly similar at fi rst glance, these batteries vary in perfor-mance, and it’s mostly the cathode material that gives then their unique personality.

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

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

Essential lithium

In the fi rst of a series Isidor Buchmann, founder and CEO of Cadex and creator of the online Battery University explains some of the fundamen-tals behind the choice of lithium as a battery chemistry.

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

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

* Cathode material ** Anode material

Chemical name Material Abbreviation Short form Applications

Lithium cobalt oxide* Also Lithium LiCoO2 LCO Li-cobalt Cell phone Cobalate or lithium-ion-cobalt) (60% Co) laptop, camera

Lithium manganese oxide* LiMn2O4 LMO Li-manganese,Also Lithium Manganate or or spinellithium-ion-manganese

Lithium iron phosphate* LiFePO4 LFP Li-phosphate

Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide* LiNiMnCoO2 NMC NMCalso lithium-manganese-cobalt-oxide (10–20% Co)

Lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide* LiNiCoAlO2 NCA NCA (10–20% Co)

Lithium titanate** Li4Ti5O12 LTO Li-titanate

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

Gaining importance in electric powertrain and grid storage

ENERGYSTORAGEINDIA

EXPO AND CONFERENCE08 – 09 December, 2015India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

05

ENERGY STORAGE INDIA 2015

700+ Industry Experts

16+ Countries

70+ Speakers

35+ Exhibitors

30+ Media Partners

30+ Supporting Partners

WHY INDIA, WHY NOW?

India is poised for rapid adoption of energy storage and mi-

crogrid technologies in the coming decade. Energy storage

technologies are gaining recognition as the key enabler for key

priorities for Indian policy makers such as smart cities, renew-

able integration and energy access. Government of India has

announced series of initiatives in past 6 months that have a

direct impact on opportunities for this sector.

THESE INCLUDE:

Enhancing the target for National Solar Mission from 20

GW to 100 GW

Accelerating wind energy adoption to 10 GW / year

Plans to supply electricity 24/7 to all parts of India in five

years

Launch of Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana

(DDUGJY) for rural electrification

Plan to build 100 Smart Cities and over 1000 microgrids

Creation of National Standing Committee on Energy

Storage and Hybrid systems by Ministry of new and

Renewable Energy

VISITOR PROFILE 2014

17%CEO / Managing Director

8% Vice President/ Senior Director

20% Other

28% Manager / Scientist

6%Entrepreneur / Owner

21% Director

SECTOR PARTICIPATION 2014

9% Government Authorities & Associations

23% Manufacturers of Energy Storage & Energy Consumers

16% Manufacturers of Plants for the Production Of Renewable Energy

10% Manufacturers of Accessories & Components

36% Energy Generation and Supply / Services

6%

Instituitions / Energy Consultancy / Research & Teaching / Press

To support all these initiatives MNRE is currently working on

developing policy framework and is expected to launch a “Na-

tional Energy Storage Mission” later this year. Focus of these

initiatives is not only on accelerating adoption of the energy

storage and microgrid technologies, but also to attract invest-

ments in India, to develop a global manufacturing hub for ad-

vanced storage and microgrid solutions. “Make in India” cam-

paign of Indian Government has introduced series of incentives

that are resulting in interest from global leaders on setting up

or expanding existing manufacturing in India through partner-

ships with Indian Industry.

ESI 2015 will be the perfect platform to

showcase innovative and commercially

available solutions as various segments start

exploring commercial deployments. ESI 2015

will also bring all the key decision makers and

policy makers involved in renewable, smart

grid and rural electrifi cation area to the table

and demonstrate the advances in technology

that needs to be supported by policy changes

for accelerated deployment in India.

BATTERY BASICS


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

Lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2)Li-cobalt is the most popular con-sumer battery. Its high specifi c energy provides satisfactory runtime for cell phones, laptops and digital cameras. The battery consists of a cobalt oxide cathode and a graphite carbon anode. The cathode has a layered structure and during discharge lithium ions move from the anode to the cath-ode. The fl ow reverses on charge. The drawback of Li-cobalt is a relatively short life span and limited load capa-bilities (specifi c power).

Figure 2 illustrates the structure.

Figure 2: Li-cobalt structureThe cathode has a layered structure. Dur-

ing discharge the lithium ions move from

the anode to the cathode; on charge the

fl ow is from cathode to anode.

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

For optimal fast charge, the manu-facturer recommends a C-rate of 0.8C or 1920mA. The mandatory battery protection circuit limits the charge and discharge rate to a safe level of about 1C.

Figure 3 summarizes the perfor-mance of Li-cobalt in terms of specifi c energy, or capacity; specifi c power, or the ability to deliver high current; safety; performance at hot and cold temperatures; life span refl ecting cycle life and longevity; and cost. The hex-agonal spider web provides a quick and easy performance analysis of the battery characteristics.

Figure 3: Snapshot of an average Li-cobalt batteryLi-cobalt excels on high specifi c energy

but offers only moderate specifi c power,

safety and life span.

Lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4)Lithium insertion in manganese spi-nels was fi rst published in the Materi-als Research Bulletin in 1983. In 1996, Moli Energy commercialized a Li-ion cell with lithium manganese oxide as a cathode material.

The architecture forms a three-dimensional spinel structure that improves ion fl ow on the electrode, which results in lower internal resis-tance and improves current handling. A further advantage of spinel is high thermal stability and enhanced safety, but the cycle and calendar life is lim-ited.

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

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

Figure 4: Li-manganese structureThe cathode crystalline formation of

lithium manganese oxide has a three-

dimensional framework structure that

appears after initial formation. Spinel

provides low resistance but has a more

moderate specifi c energy than cobalt.

Li-manganese has a capacity that is roughly one-third lower compared to Li-cobalt but the battery still of-fers about 50% more energy than nickel-based chemistries. Design fl exibility allows engineers to maxi-mize the battery for either optimal longevity (life span), maximum load current (specifi c power) or high ca-pacity (specifi c energy).

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

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

Figure 5: A typical Li-manganese batteryAlthough moderate in overall perfor-

mance, newer designs of Li-manganese

offer improvements in specifi c power,

safety and life span.

Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4)In 1996, the University of Texas (and other contributors) discovered phosphate as cathode material for rechargeable lithium batteries. Li-phosphate offers good electrochemi-cal performance with low resistance. This is made possible with nano-scale

BATTERY BASICS


phosphate cathode material. The key benefi ts are enhanced safe-

ty, good thermal stability, tolerant to abuse, high current rating and long cycle life. Storing a fully charged bat-tery has minimal impact on the life span. As trade-off, the lower voltage of 3.3V/cell reduces the specifi c en-ergy to slightly less than Li-manga-nese. In addition, cold temperature reduces performance, and elevated storage temperature shortens the ser-vice life (better than lead acid, NiCd or NiMH). Li-phosphate has a higher self-discharge than other Li-ion bat-teries, which can cause balancing is-sues with aging.

Figure 6 summarizes the attributes of Li-phosphate.

Figure 6: Snapshot of a typical Li-phosphate batteryLi-phosphate has excellent safety and

long life span but moderate specifi c

energy and elevated self-discharge.

Courtesy of BCG research

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

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

go to 4,000mAh; however, the spe-cifi c power and the cycle life may be compromised.

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

Nickel is known for its high specifi c energy but low stability; manganese has the benefi t of forming a spinel structure to achieve very low internal resistance but offers a low specifi c en-ergy. Combining the metals brings out the best in each.

NMC is the battery of choice for power tools and powertrains for ve-hicles.

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

Figure 7 demonstrates the character-istics of the NMC.

Figure 7: Snapshot of NMCNMC has good overall performance and

excels on specifi c energy. This battery is

the preferred candidate for the electric

vehicle.

Lithium nickel cobalt alumini-um oxide (LiNiCoAlO2)The lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide battery, or NCA, is less com-monly used in the consumer market, however high specifi c energy and spe-

cifi c power, as well as a long life span, get the attention of the automotive industry. Less fl attering are safety and cost.

Figure 8 demonstrates the strong points against areas for further devel-opment.

Figure 8: Snapshot of NCAHigh energy and power densities, as well

as good life span, make the NCA a can-

didate for EV powertrains. High cost and

marginal safety are negatives.

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

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

Figure 9 illustrates the characteris-tics of the Li-titanate battery.

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

The secret of NMC lies in combining nickel and man-ganese. Nickel is known for its high specifi c energy but low stability; manganese has the benefi t of form-ing a spinel structure to achieve very low internal resistance but offers a low specifi c energy. Combining the metals brings out the best in each.

BATTERY BASICS


ature performance and life span. Efforts

are being made to improve the specifi c

energy and lower cost.

Cross-chemistry comparisonsFigure 10 compares the specifi c en-ergy of lead, nickel- and lithium-based systems. While Li-cobalt is the clear winner by being able to store more capacity than other systems, this only applies to specifi c energy. In terms of load characteristics and thermal stability, Li-manganese and Li-phosphate are superior.

As we move towards electric pow-ertrains, safety and cycle life will be-come more important than capacity.

IN FOCUS: THE LITHIUM ION CATHODE

Similar to the lead- and nickel-based architecture, lithium-ion uses a cathode (positive electrode), an anode (negative electrode) and electrolyte as conductor. The cathode is a metal oxide and the anode consists of porous carbon. During discharge, the ions fl ow from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte and separator; charge reverses the direction and the ions fl ow from the cathode to the anode.

Figure 11 illustrates the process.

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

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

Sony’s original lithium-ion battery used coke as the anode (coal product), and since 1997 most Li ion batteries use graphite to attain a fl atter discharge curve. Developments also occur on the anode and several additives are being tried, including silicon-based alloys. Silicon achieves a 20% to 30% increase in specifi c energy at the cost of lower load currents and reduced cycle life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 11: Ion fl ow in lithium-ion battery

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

BATTERY BASICS


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

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

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

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

cost will only be known after hav-ing gone through a few generations of batteries for vehicles with elec-tric powertrains, and more is known about customer’s behavior and cli-mate conditions under which the bat-teries are exposed. ■

Table 2: Characteristics of the four most commonly used lithium-ion batteries

Specific energy refers to capacity (energy storage); specific power denotes load capability.

Specifications Li-cobalt Li-manganese Li-phosphate NMC1

LiCoO2 LiMn2O4 LiFePO4 LiNiMnCoO2

Voltage 3.60V 3.70V 3.30V 3.60/3.70V

Charge limit 4.20V 4.20V 3.60V 4.20V

Cycle life2 500 500–1,000 1,000–2,000 1,000–2,000

Operating temperature Average Average Good Good

Specific energy 150–190Wh/kg 100–135Wh/kg 90–120Wh/kg 140-180Wh/kg

Specific power 1C 10C, 40C pulse 35C continuous 10C

Safety

Thermal. runaway3 150°C (302°F) 250°C (482°F) 270°C (518°F) 210°C (410°F)

Cost Raw material high Material 30% less High High than cobalt

In use since 1994 2002 1999 2003

Researchers, manufacturers Sony, Sanyo, FDK, Saft NEC, Samsung, Hitachi UT, QH, MIT A123, Sony, Sanyo, Nissan Valence Motor

Notes

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

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

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

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

High power, average specific energy, ele-vated self-discharge

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

Very safe, needs cell balancing and V protection.

Safer than Li-cobalt. Needs cell balancing and protection.

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

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

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

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CASE STUDY: FLOW BATTERIES & LITHIUM


The transformation of the energy sys-tem is an enormous challenge facing utilities. The shift from conventional energy resources to more intermit-tent renewables creates the need for changes throughout the system.

Storage technology will play a key role in stabilizing and enhancing the modern grid. Furthermore, storing clean electricity is no longer a theo-retical idea but can be shown to pro-vide benefi ts for grid operators and other stakeholders.

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

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

Two battery technologies, one storage system — the shape of things to come

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

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

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



Germany’s total installed wind ca-pacity stands at about 40GW, which is roughly 10% of the country’s elec-tricity supply. Germany’s wind mar-ket has been able to grow to this size — the largest in Europe and also one of the largest in the world by in-stalled capacity — thanks to favour-able policies, regulatory frameworks and incentives under the govern-ment’s Energiewende.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



storage system based on two battery technologies, lithium-ion and vana-dium redox fl ow.

This system helps to increase the ef-fi ciency of the wind farm, increase lo-cal consumption and improve power grid stability.

The energy storage facility, situated by the wind farm, comprises several containers holding the lithium ion battery modules and battery man-agement systems, while one of the sheds contains the vanadium redox fl ow batteries, including their tanks. There is also a visitors building on the site. Below ground, a 10km cable has been laid, connecting to the local utility’s power grid.

While the 200 private investors in the community wind farm fi nanced its wind turbines, the hybrid stor-age facility is fi nanced and operated by the joint venture Energiespeicher Nord GmbH & Co.

System integration Besides the batteries and control elec-tronics, Bosch is also responsible for system integration and for testing dif-ferent operating variants in Braderup. These include using part of the stored power for the wind farm’s own con-sumption and to stabilize power grids, as well as marketing the power in the frequency regulation market and trad-ing on the electricity exchange.

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

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

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

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

Flow v lithium ionEach battery type has different key performance benefi ts. The fl ow bat-tery can store electricity for long discharge times — ideal for self-consumption — cost-effectively. The lithium ion batteries can optimally store electricity for short-to-medium discharge times, and with a high effi -ciency, making it suitable for applica-tions such as frequency control.

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

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

Bosch bought the lithium ion bat-teries from Sony. Nuremberg-based Vanadis Power and its affi liate in the US, UniEnergy Technologies, sup-plied the vanadium redox fl ow bat-tery system.

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

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

Depending on the strength of the wind and the battery’s state-of-charge, the control unit developed by Bosch distributes the power gener-ated by the turbines among the dif-ferent batteries.

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

further improvements in time will en-able the balancing system loads intel-ligently.

Since installation in July 2014, Bosch has conducted various per-formance-related tests. Initially, each battery was characterized to meas-ure important parameters such as effi ciency, energy at different power levels, response time, accuracy, self-discharge rates and auxiliary losses, for instance. The combined system was then characterized. In addition, periodic visual on-site inspection of the different electrical, mechanical and safety subsystems has been per-formed to ensure the highest quality.

ChallengesOne of the biggest challenges in terms of getting the project complet-ed concerned overcoming the offi cial regulations required to build and op-erate an energy storage system. Per-missions from the different local au-thorities concerning fi re protection, building permission, and so on, were required which proved time- and also cost-intensive.

Other challenges included the de-velopment of an energy management system which operates a combination of two battery systems, integration of more than two thousand battery modules and reliable operation of the system.

However, the system has achieved the primary objective of gaining ex-perience with large stationary stor-age systems and characterizing their abilities.

The core concepts from Braderup are already being replicated and applied in other projects. From Bosch’s point of view, the biggest challenge is the fur-ther development of the market, espe-cially the regulatory framework.

As the hybrid battery energy stor-age installation at Braderup demon-strates, a range of possible technolo-gies for deployment in energy storage systems are commercially available. The benefi ts they bring and services they provide are clear. Their applica-tion, however, depends on the market framework that determines clear-cut business cases for using these tech-nologies and their profi tability for investors. ■

With a power output of over 2.2MW, the hybrid storage system is capable of storing enough power to cover the electricity needs of about 40 homes for a week.

The core concepts from Braderup are already being replicated and applied in other projects. The biggest challenge is the further development of the market, especially the regulatory framework.

EVENT REVIEW: ENERGY STORAGE 2015


The theme of energy storage as a con-ference and event has taken off in Eu-rope refl ecting the increasing impor-tance of the subject and the meetings. The two largest annual conferences/events are held in Dusseldorf in the spring — catering mostly to a profes-sional, business audience — and Mu-nich in the summer, which is more to end users.

This year’s Dusseldorf meeting sig-nalled a coming of age for the event which almost doubled in size from the year before. “The last time I came here this was a fraction of the size, this event seems to be growing exponentially,” one delegate told En-ergy Storage Journal. The conference organizer’s fi gures back this up and the conference and trade fair attracted some 1,800 specialists from 48 na-tions. There were over 80 speakers and almost 100 exhibitors.

Talk of a breakthrough in the energy storage industry tends to be a gener-alization and cliché that is bandied around too much — we’ve had far too many brave new worlds of futures

dominated by fuel cells, electric vehi-cles and the like.

That said the underlying theme of the conference — energy storage at the verge of a breakthrough — cer-tainly sounded as being more than plausible. Many speakers made the point that energy storage at the grid level was now clearly way beyond the pilot programme or test project stage and that government and research fi nding was giving way to full com-mercial projects.

“This has to be why a breakthrough is possible,” said one delegate. “What’s gone in in Germany, and parts of the US for that matter, is now going on around the world — the rapid up-take in renewables, particularly solar power, means that we’re living with an increasingly decentralized energy industry, energy storage is needed for the stabilization of networks. The al-ternative, say gas-fi red peaker plants, is cumbersome, expensive and infl ex-ible.”

The issues of cost and profi tability were never far away from discussions

at the conference. “Many studies that question the cost-benefi t ratio of en-ergy storage units, ignore their double use,” said Dirk Uwe Sauer, professor at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives at the RWTH Aachen University.

“They only take into consideration the advantages of energy storage for one’s own consumption or only the stabilizing effect of storage units for networks, in the form of voltage regu-lation for example.

“However, if it is possible to imple-ment both functions simultaneously in a profi table manner, energy storage will spread more rapidly than many experts are predicting.”

There was a call in some of the ses-sions for creating the right political framework conditions — as well as new business models — that can take the multiple uses of storage units into consideration. “Tasks that are techni-cal in nature, such as standardization, would still have to be continuously worked on, but are no longer a cru-cial obstacle with regard to market

Looking for that breakthrough moment

Energy Storage 2015

March 9-11, Dusseldorf, Germany

EVENT REVIEW: ENERGY STORAGE 2015


growth,” said one speaker. Hildegard Müller, chair of the Ger-

man Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) said: “We are moving from being a centralized energy industry to a strongly decentralized one — even though we’re not replacing the cen-tralized energy industry completely. This will make us heavily reliant upon the system-supporting charac-teristics of energy storage units. To use these for the energy transition however, storage units also have to be capable of effi cient operation. The BDEW is calling upon the govern-ment to implement measures to re-move the obstacles that are standing in the way of energy storage.

“For example, the current network charge controls results in storage unit operators having to still pay for the system services made available by them. A contradiction in itself.”

Peter Röttgen, manager of E.ON Innovation Center Energy Storage, said: “The prognoses for long-term market development of energy units are fl uctuating considerably. But all the studies are in agreement concern-ing a single thing: over the medium to long term, storage units for restruc-turing our energy system are essential and reduce costs. However, this won’t happen overnight. Installing them will require a decade or more.

We cannot wait but have to intro-duce the technology now and build up the required knowledge piece by piece in the process.

Another important message of the conference came from an animated discussion following a keynote speech by Anil Srivastava, CEO of Leclan-ché. His point, very simply, was that too much focus was being put on the advantages and disadvantages of in-dividual storage technologies and not enough on grasping the broad picture.

Realism was needed.“Different storage applications

often require different capabilities. While some areas of application need high output and quick reaction, others demand inexpensive storage technolo-gies with a high capacity. Frequently these various features need to be com-bined seamlessly with each other.

“These days, many people are on the lookout for a kind of miracle sys-tem that fulfi ls all their requirements equally as well,” says Srivastava.

“Until such a concept exists, bat-teries, for example, will continue to be used in devices to which they are not ideally suited and oversized stor-

age systems or a reduced service life will continue to be endured. During my more than 20 years’ experience of working in the energy industry, I have never come across any miracle technol-ogy. This is why I am convinced that we should no longer invest merely in making certain types of storage devices stand out from their competitors.”

Instead, he proposed that we would achieve more by using smart software to integrate the strengths of different storage technologies seamlessly into hybrid systems. This applies to both stationary applications and e-mobili-ty.

The search for the best possible sys-tem design does not merely extend to solutions developed for use in vehicles or homes.

Srivastava argued that if we are to develop an effi cient, fl exible grid ar-chitecture able to manage large quan-tities of fl uctuating renewable energy, a package of measures is actually needed: “Instead of trying to man-age fl uctuations in electricity demand and supply by continuously increasing power line capacity, we must tackle the problem at its source.

“On the supply side, this involves using storage systems as an intelligent network resource, a practice that is

more economical than equipping each individual generator of renewable en-ergy with their own storage option. On the demand side, major energy consumers must be given more fi nan-cial incentives from the government to reduce peak loads.

“This would lead to a grid and stor-age system architecture that overall is more benefi cial to the economy than an uncoordinated set of yet more in-tertwined networks and a plethora of privately owned storage solutions.”

The conference was also a success in other ways,

Hans Werner Reinhard, managing director of Messe Düsseldorf said: “For the fi rst time, fi ve professional conferences and a trade fair took place in Düsseldorf at a single loca-tion. Together, the Energy Storage Eu-rope, the IRES Conference, the OTTI Conference Power-to-Gas, the VDE Financial Dialogue Europe and the Storageday covered the entire range of energy storage topics.

“The meeting point for the energy storage industry has ultimately been es-tablished in Düsseldorf, the heart of the largest energy region in Germany.” ■

The next Energy Storage Europe is in Düsseldorf from March 15-17, 2016.

“We are moving from being a centralized energy industry to a strongly decentralized one — even though we’re not replacing the centralized energy industry completely. This will make us heavily reliant upon the system-supporting characteristics of energy storage units.”

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


ESA’s 25th Annual Conference and ExpoDallas, Texas, USA • May 27-29

For more than two decades, the ESA has hosted the forum for industry engage-ment and advancement, and the annual conference has drawn rapidly increasing attendance in recent years.

Due to this growing interest, ESA’s 25th Annual Conference and Technology Expo is set to be on May 27-29, in Dal-las, TX at the Hyatt Regency — opening up more space for the expanding exhibi-tion hall and even more room for key-note sessions and panels.

Oncor Electric Delivery Company will be the host utility for this year’s event, giving attendees the added ben-efi t of visiting sites to see energy stor-age systems in action and learn about the company’s bold proposal for as much as 5GW of energy storage to be deployed across the state.

Contacthttp://annual-conference.energystorage.org/about

2015 Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition Sydney, Australia • June 3-4

Changes in the clean energy industry and the growing importance of NSW to the market have prompted Exhibi-tions & Trade Fairs (ETF) to bring the event to Sydney.

The event will focus on the energy storage industry at all levels — for utilities, energy businesses, building management and the emerging electric vehicle markets. Following the success-ful 2014 event in Melbourne, Austra-lian Energy Storage Exhibition will continue its focus on the latest state-of-the-art energy storage technologies, but also expand to incorporate ‘Lighting & Building Automation’ and ‘Emergent Business Technologies’ zones to offer trade visitors the most comprehensive energy solutions for their businesses.

We are pleased to confi rm our as-sociation with the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), which is a

group committed to advancing the role of energy storage through policy, edu-cation, and research. Although Austra-lia shares many traits with California, we are being left behind by technology, so there are many things we can learn from California’s experiences and the progress and knowledge of the CESA.

The two day conference will feature over 40 speakers who will discuss the most recent trends and developments in energy storage. This is the only event of its kind in Australia and we invite everyone involved in the energy storage and allied industries to attend.

Contactwww.australianenergystorage.com.au/conference

EES — International Exhibition for Batteries, Energy Storage Systems and Innovative Production (co-located with Intersolar 2015)

Munich, Germany • June 10-12

Electrical Energy Storage, the interna-tional exhibition for batteries, energy storage systems and innovative produc-tion, is the industry hotspot for suppli-ers, manufacturers, distributors and us-ers of stationary and mobile electrical energy storage solutions. It takes place annually with Intersolar Europe, the world’s largest exhibition for the solar industry, in Munich, Germany.

Covering the entire value chain of innovative battery and energy storage technologies — from components and production to specifi c user applications — EES is the ideal platform for all kinds of stakeholders in the rapidly growing energy storage market. The focus at EES is on energy storage solutions suited to energy systems with increasing shares of renewable energy sources.

A conference track of several days, co-organized with Intersolar Europe Con-ference, is accompanying EES 2015. The energy storage sessions cover the entire spectrum of energy storage related as-pects stretching from global market analysis, to technologies, from small and large-scale applications, to second-hand use concepts and the recycling of batteries. In addition, issues related to safety and battery production technolo-gies are presented.

ContactSabine KloosTel: +49 7231 [email protected]

Sydney, home to 2015 Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition

FORTHCOMING EVENTS


Advanced Automotive & Industrial/Stationary Battery ConferenceDetroit, Michigan, USA • June 15-19

Join us at the leading international forum where automakers and energy storage system developers discuss the recent progress in advanced battery technology and its implementation in automotive, stationary, and industrial applications.

The 2015 Advanced Automotive & Stationary Battery Conference will fea-ture two parallel technology focused symposia and two parallel application focused symposia.

Technology focused symposia: Large Lithium Ion Battery Technology & Ap-plication (LLIBTA)• Chemistry track: cell materials and

chemistry• A thorough examination of material

development and advanced high-en-ergy cell chemistries

• Engineering track: cell and battery engineering

• An inside look at cell, module, and battery design, as well as electrical, mechanical, and thermal compo-nents and integration for modules and packs

Application focused symposia• Automotive symposium• A review of the expanding xEV and

xEV-battery technology and markets and of competing technologies

• Industrial/stationary symposium• A focused look at the emerging mar-

ket for advanced batteries in utility, telecom and industrial applications

Contact+1 (530) [email protected]

International Flow Battery Forum Glasgow, Scotland • June 16-17

The meeting place for fl ow battery de-velopers, suppliers and users.

Our next planned IFBF 2015 will be the sixth conference in this series.

It always is a great opportunity for all those interested in fl ow battery re-search, development, manufacture, op-eration and commercialization to meet and discuss almost everything about fl ow batteries.

The 2015 programme and other information will be available soon at: www.fl owbatteryforum.com/

Energy Storage China 2015 will be the unique energy storage confer-ence and expos in China not only to motivate and infl uence policy mak-ers, experts, decision makers and a and manufacturers in the renewable energy and energy storage industry in China, but also serve as a deal making and business development platform.

Energy Storage China will be the top class networking event to syn-chronize the energy storage business in China with a global reach. The event will focus on applications, solutions and projects for renewable energy integration, power transmis-sion and distributions, smart grids, microgrids, off grid and decentral-ized energy, cost effi ciency and bankability etc

Face-to-face networking to explore your demands on advanced technology from China will be your key to localize the business with onsite Chinese solution providers. Energy Storage China 2015 will welcome more than 700 visitors enjoying presentations from over 60 speakers from home and abroad.

Key reasons to attend• Get INSIGHTS into all relevant

areas of energy storage: Applica-tions including grid integration of renewable energy, energy storage solutions including chemical, thermal, mechanical and power to gas, political scenarios, future energy supply, global energy storage market trends and issues concerning the fi nancial and eco-nomical framework

• NETWORK– the Energy Stor-age China provides the perfect platform to network during the conference, the accompanying trade fair and the exclusive net-working dinner

• LEARN from the key stakeholders how your company can gain com-petitive advantage from recent in-dustry and market developments in China and globally

• MEET top decision makers from the energy storage and renewable energy industries, policy makers and other key stakeholders includ-ing leading research institutions

• DISCUSS the important issues related to the advancement of energy storage in China and globally

Energy Storage China 2015 will think globally and break industry boundaries to exploit the com-mercial potential of energy storage applications. We will invite lead-ing experts in energy storage from home and abroad in a bid to present a fantastic Energy Storage China 2015 for you!

ContactTed He, Messe Düsseldorf (Shanghai)Unit 1209, Landmark Tower I 8 North Dongsanhuan Road, Beijing 100026,People’s Republic of China

Tel: +86-10-6590-7101Mobile: +86-18500-288-499Email: [email protected]/[email protected]

Beijing, China • June 2-5

Energy Storage China 2015

Glasgow, next meeting point for the International Flow Battery Forum

SEPTEMBER 15 – 17, 2015THE EXPO FOR ADVANCED BATTERIES RETURNS TO NOVI, MI, USA IN 2015

WWW.THEBATTERYSHOW.COM [email protected]

JOIN THE INDUSTRY’S LEADING EXHIBITION AND CONFERENCE!CONTACT US TODAY TO SECURE YOUR PRIME EXHIBITION BOOTH LOCATION

Follow us @thebatteryshow

Join the groups on LinkedIn

Watch us - TheBatteryShow

450+ EXHIBITORS AND 5000+ ATTENDEES EXPECTED!

Co-located with

“There was constant traffic and bandwidth from both the domestic and international customers at our booth. I found this an excellent platform for networking, evaluating options and gaining a sound insight for future development. And…yes we are committed with a larger booth and additional staff next year!”

Peter J. Gunia, BD & Sales Manager - Americas, Saft Batteries, Vehicle Business Unit


EVENTS: AUTUMN PREVIEW

World of Energy SolutionsStuttgart, GermanyOctober 12-14

The World of Energy Solutions is an international trade fair and conference – and thus an important platform for speeding up the change to alternative energy sources. It addresses all players involved in the manufacturing of bat-tery and energy storage systems for mobile and stationary implementation.

All areas are dealt with, from raw materials to turnkey battery systems. Be a part of our network and use our innovative platform to promote your research approaches, products, tech-nologies and applications.

The three exhibition areas are:• BATTERY+STORAGE: Battery and

energy-storage technologies• f-cell: Fuel cell and hydrogen tech-

nology• Future mobility solutions: Mobility

technologies, applications and con-cepts

The World of Energy Solutions con-ference, which takes place parallel to the trade fair, is not only a basic com-ponent of the overall event, but also a who’s who from research and indus-try. In over 100 presentations German and international experts will report about current developments in hydro-gen and fuel cells, battery and energy storage technology, as well as about future mobility solutions.

Both conferences also place a strong emphasis on successful case studies and specifi c issues of a practical na-ture.

Contact www.messe-stuttgart.de/en/wes/

Interbattery, The Battery Conference Seoul, South KoreaOctober 20-22

The biggest international conference in Korea, The Battery Conference, will be held as a concurrent event alongside In-terBattery. The Battery Conference will present optimal opportunity for shar-ing information and technology with global opinion leaders from all over the world.

Get a unique insight into the latest global corporate trends and policies re-lating to the cell industry, and experience in-depth analysis of technologies, policies and market trends home and abroad.

The battery conference attracts top industry players from countries around the world. Hear from and mingle with secondary cell industry leaders from cor-porations like Samsung SDI, and interna-tional energy policymakers.

Achieve multiple goals at one event – expand business opportunity at Inter-Battery 2014 while grasping worldwide market trends at The Battery Conference.

ContactInterBattery Secretariat Offi ceTel: 82-2-6000-1087/8241Fax: 82-2-6944-8309 [email protected]

Energy Storage Summit Japan Tokyo, JapanNovember 12

The Energy Storage Summit Japan 2014 brought together leading international researchers from Europe and the US with experts from India, China and Ja-pan to discuss energy market deregula-tion and the opportunities this presents for Japan.

Additional topics covered included energy storage applications and solu-tions for renewable energy integration, power transmission and distribution, smart grid, micro grid, off grid and decentralized energy supply, as well as the cost effi ciency and bankability of energy storage solutions. Details about the event will be published at: http://www.worldenergystorage.com/

3rd Dresden conference ‘Energy in the Future’ Dresden, GermanyNovember 10-11

Innovations in energy research become more and more important to secure the future of economy and society. Energy resources have to be used in a most ef-fi cient and cost-saving way.

The 3rd Dresden conference ‘Energy in Future’ will present the latest re-search results in the fi eld of energy stor-age and energy effi ciency.

We are happy to invite you to partici-pate in this conference, to meet renowned scientists and economic experts and to take part in the accompanying exhibition.

Contactwww.zukunftenergie-dresden.de/en.html

3rd Annual Energy Storage India Conference and Expo December 2015

The 2nd annual Energy Storage India Conference and Expo, hosted by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) from December 3-5, 2014, in New Del-hi, was a successful event that brought together 532 industry professionals and 65 speakers from 15+ countries.

It was the largest such gathering ever held in India, and highlighted the many opportunities available in a fast-grow-ing market.

The 3rd such conference and expo should be held again in December.Visit www.worldenergystorage.com/ for more information about the 2015 event.

This is the largest grid energy stor-age event in North America. It will provide”• Critical insights into market devel-

opments and technology integra-tion

• 1500+ leading customers, technol-ogy providers, and partners

• 40+ conference sessions, hands-on workshops, and site tours in the Silicon Valley

Our 2014 programme focused on the convergence of transportation, distributed, and utility-scale applica-tions.

ContactDaniela Knoll – director, Messe Düsseldorf North AmericaE-mail: [email protected]: +1 312 621-5838

San Diego, California • October 13-15

Energy Storage North America

JUNE 10–12, 2015MESSE MÜNCHEN

www.ees-europe.com

MEET THE LEADING ENERGY STORAGE COMPANIES

EUROPE’S LARGEST ENERGY STORAGE EVENT CONNECTS WITH THE WORLD’S LEADING SOLAR EVENT IN MUNICH!

290 ENERGY STORAGE EXHIBITORS | 40,000 VISITORS | 150 NATIONS

EES EUROPE | INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION FOR BATTERIES, ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMSAND INNOVATIVE PRODUCTION

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HEROES OF THE GRID: MARIA SKYLLAS-KAZACOS


Troubled times. That’s probably the only way to describe the Greece that Maria Skyllas was born into in 1951. The aftershocks of the country’s civil war, which had cost some 100,000 lives and displaced almost a million people, had left the country in chaos.

Her father, George Skyllas, decided to head for the freedom of Australia and in 1954, Sydney became the fam-ily’s new home. In an age when it was uncommon for girls to go to univer-sity Maria Skyllas’ intelligence shone through. At the University of New South Wales and she enrolled to study Chemical Engineering, later switch-ing to Industrial Chemistry (which still turned out to be predominantly Chemical Engineering).

Maria graduated with a fi rst class degree and the University Medal in In-

dustrial Chemistry in 1974.While at university, Maria’s parents

decided to send her to Greece to see her grandparents in Kalymnos. To her surprise, Maria fell in love with the country. On her return she urged her parents to move back to Greece once she and her sister had graduated.

However, the move back home proved to be just a brief interlude.

Political turmoil caused by friction with Turkey over the division of Cy-prus sent the family back to Australia after just eight months. In that time, however, Maria had got a job as a chemist at E R Squibb and Sons Phar-maceuticals in Athens and she stayed on for a few more months to complete work while at the chemicals fi rm.

The return to Sydney left Maria at a loose end. She knew she wanted more

intellectual stimulation than dealing with day-to-day problems of produc-tion and personnel matters. One of her professors, her eventual lifelong friend and mentor, Barry Welch, encouraged her to do a PhD, researching the elec-trochemistry of molten salts.

Then, she fell in love. Maria met Michael Kazacos, a graduate in ana-lytical chemistry, at a local Greek club near the university. They married soon after, in early 1976, while Maria was in her second year of her doctorate. Their fi rst son Nicholas was born in October 1977, just days after she had completed her last experiment for her PhD.

In 1978, PhD in hand — and with a prestigious CSIRO Postdoctoral Fel-lowship, the Skyllas-Kazacos family moved to America, where both Maria

The vanadium redox fl ow battery is proving an invaluable storage tech-nology underpinning the increased use of renewable energy. Its remark-able inventor is Maria Skyllas-Kazacos.

Lady Vanadium: Maria Skyllas-Kazacos

Preliminary results were promising, but further long-term testing would still be needed before a practical 3M vanadium electrolyte with energy density of over 35 Wh/kg would be available for commercial application

In the V-Fuel lab in 2008 with husband Michael and son George

To demonstrate the vanadium bat-tery in a mobile application, a 36V vanadium battery prototype was in-stalled in a commercially available electric golf cart at UNSW in 1994 where it was subjected to two and a half years of off-road testing by the development team. Here, Mi-chael Kazacos demonstrating the VRB powered golf cart at the UNSW campus in 1997



and Michael began working in differ-ent departments within Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jer-sey. Both grandmothers each joined the family for several month-long stints to help look after Nicholas.

Working in John Broadhead’s bat-tery group, Maria gained valuable experience in lead acid batteries and identifi ed a new ionic species that forms as an intermediate during the charge-discharge reactions at the posi-tive electrode. The result: her fi rst sin-gle author paper published in the Jour-nal of the Electrochemical Society that was to later earn her the Royal Austra-lian Chemical Institute’s Bloom-Gutt-mann Prize for the best young author under 30.

Despite a permanent position at Bell Labs on offer, in 1980 the family moved back to Australia after Maria won the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II fellowship. This enabled her to con-tinue her research in liquid junction solar cells in the School of Physics and the University of New South Wales. The birth of her second son George followed. In 1982 Skyllas became a lecturer in the School of Chemical En-gineering and Industrial Chemistry at the university.

Meanwhile, professor Bob Robins invited her to join a research project on lead acid batteries funded by a Na-tional Energy Research Development and Demonstration Council of Aus-tralia grant.

Then she had her eureka moment with vanadium.

Chlorides of vanadium were gener-ated in 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström. He named the new element vanadium after the Germanic goddess of beauty and fertility, Vanadis.

The use of vanadium in batteries had been suggested earlier by NASA researchers and by others in 1978, but no one had previously used vanadium redox couples in a working fl ow bat-tery. A reason for this was the low sol-ubility of pentavalent vanadium com-pounds in acidic solutions that would limit the practical energy density of such a system.

The fact that vanadium exists in sev-eral oxidation states however, made it an excellent candidate for a single element fl ow battery that might over-come the problem of cross contamina-tion observed with the Fe/Cr battery by NASA researchers in the 1970s and 80s.

“The early NASA work on the Fe/Cr system that drew my attention to the new fl ow battery concept,” says Ma-

Her preliminary studies with VCl3 solutions in H

2SO

4

showed good reversibility for the V(II)/V(III) and V(IV)/V(V) couples but further research was needed to optimize the solution chemistry to achieve a practical system

Top: Expo 88, family with vanadium redox battery display Below: Early team photo shows postgraduate student Maria, Franz Gros-smith, Michael Kazacos and Miron Rychcik



ria. It all began with a MSc student, Robert Brand, who was working on the Fe/Cr fl ow battery with profes-sor Martin Green, a world leader in silicon solar cells at the University of New South Wales.

She continues, “Bob asked me to co-supervise him for his thesis and it became quickly obvious that cross-contamination was an inherent prob-lem for all fl ow batteries that use a different element in the two half-cells.

“This could only be overcome by us-ing the same element in the two half-cells, so a quick examination of the periodic table and the electrochemical series produced a short list of potential candidates. My colleague, Bob Robins, had been working on the extraction of vanadium from various minerals at the time, so vanadium seemed a good starting point.”

Maria began some preliminary elec-trochemical studies on vanadium elec-trolytes to confi rm its viability. Her preliminary studies with VCl3 solu-tions in H2SO4 showed good reversibil-ity for the V(II)/V(III) and V(IV)/V(V) couples. However, further research was needed to optimize the solution chemistry to achieve a practical sys-tem. Her fourth year honours project student, Elaine Sum, screened a num-

ber of supporting electrolytes during 1984 and confi rmed that sulphuric acid gave the best results, although the low solubility of V(V) compounds still appeared a limitation.

She says: “In parallel with this, with my colleagues Robert Robins, Martin Green and Anthony Fane, we jointly applied for a grant under the Austra-lian National Energy Research, Devel-opment and Demonstration Council (NERDDC) to further investigate the feasibility of an all-vanadium redox fl ow battery for remote area power systems.”

The application was initially unsuc-cessful, but was granted the following year. With new funding, Maria set out to explore the possibility of produc-ing concentrated V(V) solutions by oxidizing 2M VOSO4 {Vanadyl sul-phate) a much more soluble form of vanadium. Together with the newly appointed research fellow, Miron Ry-chcik, a 2M vanadium electrolyte was produced and tested, the results giving rise to the fi ling of the fi rst all-vanadi-um redox fl ow battery patent in 1986.

This was the start of a 25 year pro-gramme that continues to this day. During the early years, development efforts were hampered by the lack of suitable off-the shelf membranes and

other cell components. In particular the use of VOSO4 for electrolyte pro-duction was found to be uneconomi-cal from the outset.

One of the fi rst tasks was to develop a process that would allow the use of the much cheaper V2O5 compound for electrolyte production ($5/kg com-pared with more than $400/kg for VOSO4).

Her pioneering work thus saw her rolling up her sleeves to personally take charge of tasks such as producing electrolytes, novel plastic electrodes, and new modifi ed membranes, as well as developing mathematical models and designs for battery technology and components, through to proto-type testing and manufacturing trials in conjunction with industrial licences.

From early on in her research career, Maria had a particular concern with the environment: “As a physical scien-tist and engineer, I suppose the most important social contribution you can make is to the environment — particu-larly from my own area of expertise as distinct from the medical or other social areas.”

Her battery has the lowest ecological footprint because it doesn’t use toxic metals.

She became a senior lecturer in 1986, associate professor in 1988 and profes-sor in 1993. In 1987, a small feature article on her battery in the university magazine attracted the interest of the local media in Australia and almost overnight, the vanadium redox fl ow (VRF) battery was featured in newspa-per articles around the world.

Around that time Maria had also given birth to a third son, Anthony. At that point her husband, Michael, de-cided to leave his job in the Analytical Laboratories of the State Department of Health to join the research team at the university and also provide more support with the family. The partner-ship provided valuable continuity to the research team, which can be dif-fi cult in universities where there is a heavy reliance on fi xed term grants and research contracts.

In the wake of the media attention, Australian vanadium mining company Agnew Clough acquired an exclusive international licence to the VRF bat-tery technology that led to three years of industrial funding to further devel-op the battery technology at the Uni-versity of New South Wales.

But, fi nancial problems in the com-pany led to the return of the technol-ogy to the University in 1991. Two years later, construction fi rm Thai

Maria was keen to explore new electrolytes for a high energy density VRB and in 2001, fi led the fi rst patent on a new vanadium polyhalide fl ow battery that led to the Generation 2 vanadium bromide fl ow battery with almost double the energy density of the original vanadium sulphate system

The Thai Solar Demonstration House showing researcher Rui Hong in front of the vanadium redox battery room in 1994



Gypsum Products was granted a li-cence to the technology for south-east Asia.

Around the same time, Kashima-Kita Electric Power Corporation, a subsid-iary of Mitsubishi Chemical Corpora-tion, was drawn to the technology as a way to use vanadium waste extracted from power station soot.

Using orimulsion produced from vanadium-rich Venezuelan pitch as the fuel for the power station, large quantities of vanadium waste from the soot could be recycled into an electro-lyte for vanadium redox fl ow batteries that could be used for load-levelling at the power station.

This valuable synergy led to the granting of a licence to Kashima-Kita Electric Power Corporation and Mit-subishi Chemicals in 1993 that was followed by a fi ve year R&D collabo-ration programme between the Japa-nese companies and the University of New South Wales research team, lead-ing to further advances in stack de-sign, improved materials and control systems.

She continued at the university and since 1993 has been professor at the School of Chemical Engineering and industrial chemistry director of the Centre for Electrochemical and Min-erals Processing, which she founded.

From 1993 a number of fi eld trials of the vanadium battery were under-taken both by UNSW and the univer-sity’s licensees in Thailand and Japan. As part of the R&D collaboration programmes with the licensees, regu-lar trips between Sydney, Bangkok and Japan maintained a close relationship that culminated in several fi eld trials, the fi rst of which was the installation of a 5kW/15kWh battery in the fi rst vanadium-powered solar demonstra-tion house just outside of Bangkok.

The battery was made at UNSW by members of the development group that included Michael Kazacos, Rui Hong, Chris Menictas, John Chieng, Jim Wilson and Rod McDermott. In-tegration into the Solar House was done with the assistance of Rob Lar-gent from the School of Electrical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, who was also respon-sible for the design and fabrication of the battery controller that managed the pumps and battery operation.

To demonstrate the vanadium bat-tery in a mobile application, a 36V prototype was installed in an electric golf cart at UNSW in 1994 where it was subjected to over two and a half years of off-road testing by the devel-

opment team. A new improved 3M vanadium solution had been undergo-ing bench-testing since late 1997 and was subsequently evaluated in the golf cart battery.

Preliminary results were promising, but further long-term testing would still be needed before a practical 3M vanadium electrolyte with energy den-sity of over 35Wh/kg would be avail-able for commercial application.

Further research into air regenera-tion of the positive electrolyte was also explored as a means of doubling this to over 70 kW/kg.

In 1998 however, the vanadium bat-tery patents were sold by the Univer-sity of New South Wales to the Austra-lian listed company Pinnacle VRB, but rather than speeding up the commer-cial development of the battery, cor-porate restructurings and take-overs followed that ended with the patents being acquired by the Canadian com-pany VRB Power and later Prudent Energy in China, with no further in-volvement of the UNSW team in its commercialization.

In the meantime, however, Maria was keen to explore new electrolytes for a high energy density vanadium redox fl ow battery and in 2001, fi led the fi rst patent on a new vanadium polyhalide fl ow battery that led to the second generation vanadium bromide fl ow battery with almost double the energy density of the original vana-dium sulphate system.

The technology was licensed to the Australian company V-Fuel, however diffi culties in attracting investment

income in Australia saw the company folding in 2010 with the patent rights returned to the University. Further de-velopment of the G2 V/Br is continu-ing as part of an R&D collaboration between UNSW and Nanyang Tech-nological University in Singapore and progress has been made with new low cost bromine complexing agents and membranes.

Maria Skyllas-Kazacos’s contribu-tion to the development off fl ow bat-teries is widely recognized.

She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a fellow of the Royal Australia Chemical Institute and of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. She is a chartered professional engi-neer, a member of the Electrochemi-cal Society of the USA and has been a member of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association.

In 1999 she was made a member of the Order of Australia. Her research has gained her many honours includ-ing the R K Murphy Medal in 2000, again from the Royal Australia Chem-ical Institute, the Chemeca Medal of the Institution of Engineers Austra-lia and the Castner Medal that was awarded by the UK Society for the Chemical Industry in 2011.

In 2009 she was also invested as Grand Lady of the Byzantine Order of Saint Eugene of Trebizond, recon-necting her to her Greek Byzantine heritage.

More than 20 medium to large-scale VRB systems had been installed by Sumitomo Electric Industries in Japan,

Family photo in 1999 when she became a member at the Order of Australia Awards: with husband Michael, sons Anthony, Nick and George, and parents George and Kaliopi Skyllas



US, Europe and Australia for the stor-age of wind and solar energy and for load levelling at power stations and back-up power. The largest of these was a 4MW/6MWh vanadium battery integrated with a wind farm on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Several companies are manufactur-ing or are in the process of setting up production of vanadium redox fl ow batteries in China and Europe, while a grant from the US Department of Energy was awarded in 2010 for the installation of a 6MWh VRB instal-lation at the Painesville Municipal Power Plant in Ohio using the UNSW technology.

Several other companies, including Cellstrom, a subsidiary of the German company Gildemeister, Cellenium in Thailand and Rongke Power in China, have already implemented vanadium

redox battery technology over the past decade.

Chinese corporation Prudent Energy recently bought patents and assets of Canadian company VRB Power Sys-tems as part of plans to develop and commercialize vanadium batteries throughout China and North Ameri-ca, while other groups have also been developing vanadium redox fl ow bat-teries using original UNSW patents that expired in 2006.

Since that time, Maria and her team have developed and patented some improved designs that will help to achieve signifi cant cost reduction to make the battery economically viable for a wider range of grid-connected applications.

In 2013 the University of New South Wales licensed these improvements to another Chinese company, Vanadis

Energy, which has set up a factory to produce vanadium redox battery sys-tems for global markets.

Maria has over 250 publications including more than 40 patents and patent applications and is professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales where she continues to supervise up to 10 PhD and honours students in aluminium smelting and fl ow battery projects. She is also con-tinuing to assist the university with new licensing enquiries for the im-proved VRB technology developed at UNSW over the last few years.

With several companies commercial-izing the vanadium redox fl ow battery, she is being sought after for techni-cal advice and personnel training for engineers and scientists to help them develop, install, commission, operate and maintain vanadium battery instal-lations for a wide range of energy stor-age applications.

A recent project could be seen as full-circle progress of the vanadium redox fl ow battery that Maria has played such an instrumental role in developing. In the coming months a 30kW/120kWh commercial vanadi-um redox fl ow battery storage system will be installed at the new UNSW Tyree Energy Technologies Building that features a 120kW solar array on the roof, funded by a Solar Flagship research infrastructure grant, awarded to professor Vassilios Agelidis.

The building showcases a range of energy technologies developed at the university. The battery — supplied by Cellstrom — will be connected to the building grid and used to demonstrate its performance in a range of energy storage applications including renew-able energy storage and load shifting.

One area she believes the technol-ogy as having real benefi t is within re-mote microgrids in conjunction with renewables, in Australia where there are plenty of remote communities and mining towns, and also the thousands of island grids worldwide, most of which rely heavily on expensive diesel fuel for generating electricity.

Despite the success of the vanadium redox fl ow battery around the world, Maria is little changed — a generous open person, quick to acknowledge the names of those who have helped her. She regards her role as mother and more recently as grandmother, to be the greatest blessings and her life’s greatest achievements. Each week she says she looks forward to babysit-ting her grand-daughters Eliana and Kristyn. ■

Today, Maria is a professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales where she continues to supervise up to 10 PhD and honours students in aluminium smelting and fl ow battery projects.

Her particular concern with the environment found its research counterpart: her battery is the most eco-friendly battery in the world having the smallest ecological footprint as well as providing an excellent fi t with renewable energy sources

Something for the bookshelf … or the littlest room

Steve Levine’s latest book “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” tells the story of a race among top US scientists to develop a battery that could change the face of the car forever. Even if you don’t believe lithium ion variants will be that solution, the book provides a great insight into the challenges of scientifi c advancement — particularly the diffi culty of translating victories in the lab to the manufacturing line.

In all the media jabber about Tesla’s giga-factory and the excitement about where it was going to be located — was it to be California, Nevada, Southend-on-Sea or Paris (Texas, France, Brazil etc? ) — a little known fact escaped us.

For while the Great Debate was raging, complete with hints and mysterious utterances coming from the great Musk himself, work started on May 19 last year on a plot at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Nevada where brush and vegetation were being cleared.

Oddly enough it turns out to be the new location of a giga factory. Just fancy that while the Media Debate aka Free Publicity raged on and on ...

Brace, brace, bang, bang. Another day, another lithium fi re.If it wasn’t a home going up in fl ames in New Zealand (lithium battery charger in the garage), it was one of those pesky lithium batteries catching fi re in a plane.

Again. Nobody hurt, thank heavens, but it felt like a close call to those on KLM 675 after it landed at Bangkok in March. So too for two other aircraft emergencies reported in April.

With lithium batteries everywhere in the cabins of international jets — think mobile phones, tablets and ipads — surely there’s a greater chance of a fi re than ever before?

So step forward two problem solvers — Highwater Innovations’

George Brilmyer and Mike Gilchrist, pioneers of the PlaneGard.

Unlike the existing product that looks a lot like a doggie pooper-scooper, PlaneGard resembles an executive briefcase. It uses toxic gas fi lters to keep the fl ames, heat, smoke and fl ammable solvent fumes out of the airplane cabin.

Sorted? Kind of. But what about the hold?ldldldldlldddddd??????????


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Energy Storage Journal gives a warm welcome to our new sales executive,

Jade Beevor.Jade, who’s been in sales for the past fi ve years, says she’s well prepared to deal with the hard-bitten energy storage industry. “My university experiences in drama and English will stand

me in good stead when some of the guys want to talk mean about solar, inverters,

electrolytes and those electron thingies.”

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Energy Storage Journal - Summer 2015 - issue 9

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