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ROUNDUP: Samsung SDI supplies Hawaii project, Statkraft trades FTM in UK, GE launches ‘Reservoir’

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Artist’s rendering of GE Reservoir units. Image: GE.

Samsung SDI supplying AES’ 100MWh Hawaii project

6 March 2018: Hawaii’s largest solar-plus-storage system, a 28MW PV farm linked with a 100MWh five-hour duration battery storage system, will be equipped with batteries from Samsung SDI, developer AES has confirmed.

Korean media including the Korea Herald and Yonhap News reported earlier this week that Samsung SDI, the country’s largest manufacturer of advanced lithium-ion batteries, would be supplying battery modules to the project, which is being delivered by AES Distributed Energy (AES DE), a subsidiary of AES Corporation, for nonprofit transmission firm Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC).

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A spokeswoman for AES confirmed to Energy-Storage.News that “Samsung SDI has been chosen as a supplier”, with the system set to include around 13,000 Samsung SDI battery modules. Also supplying the project on Kauaʻi's south shore, will be SunPower, which will provide its scalable Oasis Power Plant solution, after also being selected by AES DE.

Lāwa’i Solar and Energy Storage Project broke ground in late February, as reported by Energy-Storage.News. While the largest solar-plus-storage project on the islands of Hawaii, it is far from the only project being built to supply dispatchable solar to the grid, with the first solar-plus-storage PPAs signed as far back as 2016 when EnSync Energy Systems sold a portfolio to AEP OnSite Partners, an American Electric Power subsidiary for an undisclosed amount. Also that year, Tesla-SolarCity began work on a 52MWh utility-scale energy storage system for a 12MW solar farm, also on Kauaʻi Island.

The Lāwa’i  project will provide 11% of KIUC's generation capacity and increase the portion of renewables in its mix to 60%. The price of power will be US$0.11/kWh, significantly below the cost of existing diesel generation.

Statkraft spies value in UK front-of-meter trading contracts

7 March 2018: Statkraft, the European hydro-electric power generator established in 1895 and more recently a significant generator of renewable energy, has made its first push into front-of-meter energy storage.

Rather than develop or own a project, its opening gambit will be the provision of electricity trading optimisation services for a 6MW battery in England. This will include enabling access to the Firm Frequency Response (FFR) market, which is among the many grid and network services batteries can provide that are currently undergoing an overhaul from operator and coordinator National Grid.

Statkraft has signed the Optimisation Service Agreement with UK developer, Grid Battery Storage Limited (GBSL). Located in Dorking, Surrey and scheduled for completion by September this year, the 6MW / 6MWh project forms part of a 22MW portfolio being delivered via an agreement between GBSL and engineering company Siemens. It is expected to be followed by three more projects by early 2019. Meanwhile GBSL and Siemens are also targeting the behind-the-meter C&I sector together, offering energy storage ‘as-a-service’.

“Statkraft is committed to being the leading partner for clients seeking to maximise returns from storage and flexible generation projects,” Pieter Schipper, senior VP for market access and continental assets at Statkraft said.

“We accomplish this by leveraging our trading teams’ expertise in managing renewables generation in short term energy markets, and our advanced asset optimisation and algorithmic trading capabilities.”

In March 2016, Statkraft reveleaed it had invested around €4 million in a project to pair batteries from Ads-Tec with one of its hydropower sites in Germany. That 14,000 battery module system is used to balance power from the 100-year old Dörverden hydro plant to maintain a grid frequency of as close to 50Hz as possible.

GE launches ‘Reservoir’ solution on 4MWh scalable platform

7 March 2018: GE has launched a 1.2MW / 4MWh energy storage system platform available in a 20ft box which the company claims will improve battery life cycles, increase efficiency and reduce installation costs and timescales.

Branded the ‘Reservoir’, GE said it has been developed with the company’s Global Research Center, integrating power and digital technologies, with each 1.2 MW / 4MWh Reservoir Storage Unit considered a building block of a complete solution. It incorporates GE’s Battery Blade modular stack design, a balancing unit called Blade Protection – which GE said can extend battery life “by up to 15%” through careful management and is suitable for both AC and DC-coupled systems.

GE claims it has an all-weather design and high-efficiency cooling for the batteries, while also using proprietary controls technologies, Predix and Edge, which pull in available data to consistently feed back information to optimise the system. All units will be factory built and tested.

The launch builds on an already high level of involvement in the energy storage sector for the engineering and technology giant, also known as General Electric. Other examples include GE being among the main investors in Germany’s Sonnen, GE recently launched its own gas-battery hybrid storage solution, signed a deal with UK developer Arenko for a 41MW project in England and invested, along with EDF, in Off-Grid Electric, a US company providing solar-plus-storage to rural populations in the developing world. 

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