Transcript Archie DeBunker & Dennis Witmer  Grid environment— ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦  Renewables Firming (Wind and PV) Frequency Stabilization Energy Arbitrage (buy low, sell high) Transmission upgrade deferral (GVEA.

Archie DeBunker & Dennis Witmer
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Grid environment—
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Renewables Firming (Wind and PV)
Frequency Stabilization
Energy Arbitrage (buy low, sell high)
Transmission upgrade deferral (GVEA BESS)
Alaska
◦ Save Diesel
 Allow very high penetration of wind (much greater than 100%
of peak demand)
 Diesels off operation
 Load shifting to save fuel after wind event
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Alaska needs are different—but our market isn’t
big enough to drive product development
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Ends of the scale don’t require much investment risk—
ideas are cheap, commercial products can produce profits
to support incremental R&D
“Pre-Commercial” phase is especially dangerous for energy
products—requires significant capital investment at high
risk.
Different than software development
◦ Real hardware needs to be developed—good engineering skills
required—and you limited by chemistry and physics
◦ Must compete with existing commercial products (electrical grids,
diesel generators)
Inventors turn to capital markets for investment
Customers are important to convince investors that there
is a real market, but customers are not the source of
sufficient funding to drive product development.
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Commercial products have:
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Fixed Price
Fixed delivery date
Fixed specifications
Warrantee
If product lacks any of the above, it is not a commercial
product
Commercial products are cheap and they work
Most energy storage devices are not real commercial
products yet
A brochure describing technical specs can be made in
Adobe InDesign—it does not mean that a real product
exists—specifications may be more aspirational than real
There is almost always a gap between the hype and the
hardware in pre-commercial products
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If cheap, reliable energy storage is possible, Alaska needs it
Product developers need to understand our needs so their products will
work here—but will be developing products for larger markets
Pre-commercial products are very likely not to work as well as
advertised
Product failures must be expected—
◦ Failure to deliver on purchase order
◦ Failure to meet initial specifications
◦ Rapid degradation or other failures in the field
This is research—the product we get is information about the energy
storage systems
Funding should be intended for R&D—not from operations.
Recognize that suppliers are more interested in investors than in
customers—we really aren’t that important to them now
Supplier independent thinking—it’s the job of the developer to provide
us with a product that works, and if they can’t, we try another supplier—
or another technology.
A number of large utilities in the lower 48 are following storage for grid
applications—Duke, SMUD, EPRI—perhaps worth visiting.
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How much is energy storage worth?
◦ How much diesel fuel can be saved? (modeling?)
◦ How long will storage system last? (Need testing data)
Back of envelope calculations—show that many energy
storage systems are too expensive for load shifting
applications
More sophisticated modeling is needed to assess value for
stabilization applications
Electrochemical systems often degrade more rapidly under
high current density conditions
Modeling can be used as a screening tool to properly size
systems, and screen out systems that are unlikely to be
economical
Cannot answer basic questions about hardware—need to
find other sources of information on systems.
25000
20000
15000
O&M $
Cap $
10000
Fuel $
5000
0
EMD 3000 Base
Case
EMD 3000 + EX EMD 3000 + New EMD + Max NW 2Eng + Max Wind
Wind
Wind
With PP Bat
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Energy storage is becoming part of the US grid
market
◦ Recent changes to FERC rules that allow third parties to
provide frequency stabilization services and bill for
them.
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Dozens of companies are developing products
for this market
Many of the companies are small, and are
chasing capital.
Money is flowing—about $600 M in investment
across the industry, mostly in past few years
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Pumped Hydro
Compressed Air
◦ Underground
◦ Above ground—SustainX Isothermal Storage
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Flywheels
◦ Beacon Power had failures, went bankrupt, is back
under new management
◦ Powercorp has flywheel system, but appears to be
tentative about marketing unit
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Batteries
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NGK Sodium Sulfur battery appears dead
◦ Two fires, appear to be preparing to shut down and
recall all batteries in the field
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Lead Acid and Advanced Lead Acid
◦ Xtreme Power
 Appears to be using advanced lead acid battery
technology developed for automotive applications
◦ Ecoult Lead Carbon battery
 Appears to have much better deep discharge and
partial charge performance—but high quality graphite
can be expensive
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Still appear to be quite expensive and may
suffer from relatively rapid degradation
A123, Altairnano, and numerous other
suppliers exist
Automotive applications are main driving
force—but stationary applications might be
able to use reconditioned automotive
batteries
Use in peak shaving applications, not for load
shifting
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Prudent Energy
◦ Vanadium has become quite expensive, but major cost
of small systems (UAF sized) is in balance of plant
◦ Larger system being demonstrated in California at onion
processing plant
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ZBB appears active but emphasized power
electronics rather than battery technology
Redflow gave initial results from a community
based demonstration, but gave no economics
Premium Power attended, but did not present
Numerous new companies are attempting to
develop flow battery technologies
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Zinc Air
◦ Nice presentation, but apparently unchanged from
past three years
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Aquion
◦ Appears to be the darling of the VC crowd
◦ Some slippage in schedules, but appears to be
aiming for demonstration later this year
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MIT liquid metal battery
◦ Lots of interest, but still keeping fairly low profile.
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Recent change in ownership of company
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Battery shipped to Kotzebue is currently being
described as a “mistake”
◦ New investors are putting $60M into company
◦ Deal completed October 2011
◦ Previous management is gone
◦ Transflow 2000 difficult to work on in field
◦ Fittings that loosened during shipping are impossible to
access
◦ Lack of requested plastic shrink wrap around unit allowed
salt water intrusion during shipping—may lead to electrical
problems
◦ Issues between old management and new management
were brought to a head over discussions on how to support
the unit
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Discussions with Premium Power reps at ESA meeting, and with
KEA in May—PP wants the unit back.
Company is stepping back from product, focusing current work
on basic understanding of technology
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Have hired a flock of consultants to help with product development
Running stacks to failure, and conducting FMA
Discovering issues at deep discharge levels, high current densities
Admitted that promised storage levels on Transflow 2000 had never been
verified (FAT showed about half of 2.8 MW-hr capacity)
Backing away from trailer mounted system to smaller 125 kW Conex based
systems
Will not be shipping any product from factory before end of 2012
Proposed shipping a 125 kW stack to Kotzebue in 2013, balance in 2014
Promise that their units will meet specs, whatever they turn out to be