Storage will increasingly play a pivotal role in the solar industry. Private and public firms are figuring out ways to bundle storage with solar in economically attractive ways. But storage is more than just a way to store electricity harvested during the day. Storage systems will be used for multiple revenue streams and applications like grid balancing and demand response.
At the Growth Company Forum: Energy Storage Edition, energy storage experts shared their visions for the future and the opportunities for bringing the solar and storage together. Here is some of what they said:
Sunverge Energy CEO Ken Munson discussed the battery market and price points, saying many suppliers estimate price points based on typical market expectations, and they may or may not pan out in reality. There is also the question of what hardware (and software) any given price point includes. Does it include just the battery or all of the BOS, as well?
Whatever the case, “a cheap battery is not the answer,” Munson said. “If we focus on the cheapest battery we can put in a box, at the cost of reliability and safety, then we are all heading for a big surprise down the road.”
Growing Energy Labs, Inc., otherwise known as GELI, develops software to integrate, network and economically operate energy storage systems. The software, which works with any energy storage hardware, makes operational decisions based on the price of power and energy in addition to the electrical status and activity of the grid and other system components.
“EPCs have been connecting panels to inverters forever,” said Andrew Tanner, VP of GELI. “Why can’t they connect to a battery? You just need some software.”
But for any software to be fully effective, it needs heaps of quality data from which to operate. Tanner called for further transparency from battery suppliers, particularly when it comes to long-term reliability testing. Determining the reliability of a battery is a “nine-dimensional problem,” Tanner said, with numerous variables, and suppliers need to offer more data.
Ready to fill the data void, Voltaiq can help suppliers achieve more transparency with its predictive analytics for better batteries. The company can also save manufacturers’ time by eliminating repetitive data management tasks.
“People don’t understand how storage will act when it’s out in the field,” said CEO Tal Sholklapper. “It takes thousands of tests to analyze batteries, but there’s no one place holding data, so it can’t be utilized to help improve the next generation of batteries,” he said. Currently, much of the data is sitting in silos, being unproductive.
Avalon Battery co-founder Matt Harper asked attendees to consider the value of batteries. While so-called value can be found in various places on both sides of the meter, Harper suggested that what really matters is a customer’s utility bill and whether the battery system is sufficiently reducing that cost.
“What are the specific qualities of a site that determines whether a battery will bring value or not?” he asked.
When assessing the usefulness of a battery, detailed power-usage charts that model the profile of any given site can be an important evaluative tool. Some utilities, however, are making the collection of such data more difficult, panelists said, or reducing the frequency of data from 15-minute intervals to 30-minute intervals.
Manal Yamout , VP of policy and markets at Advanced Microgrid Solutions, presented on the company’s unusual plan to develop behind-the-meter storage systems that give utilities, rather than customers, control. The concept aggregates many storage systems for utility use to regulate the grid.
“Typically when we think of behind-the-meter, you think about 5 to 10-kW systems,” Yamout said. “But to scale, you need to knock on a lot of doors.” The company focuses on 250 to 500-kW systems.
