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1. Xtreme Power: A Super-Battery For Hawaiian Wind Farms
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2. Daily Sprout
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3. 10 First Solar Utility Deals in the U.S.
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4. First Solar Signs on PG&E for 300MW of Desert Sunlight Project
Xtreme Power: A Super-Battery For Hawaiian Wind Farms
Jeff St. John - Energy Storage
The developer of the project, First Wind, just got a $117 million Department of Energy loan guarantee for the project, and Xtreme Power says it will be managing not only its battery, but the entire wind farm's output via a home-built smart grid network.
Xtreme’s Evolution
Xtreme's PowerCell chemistry was born in a 1990’s joint venture of Ford Aerospace and defense contractor Tracor that was shelved after its target market — California's zero-emissions vehicle fleet — collapsed in the wake of the state's decision to back off its ZEV mandate. Xtreme, backed by about $25 million from investors including Sail Venture Partners and the state-run Texas Emerging Technology Fund, bought the technology in 2004 and put its first 500-kilowatt PowerCell in place at the South Pole Telescope, an extreme environment to be sure, in 2007. Since then, it has also tested a 1.5-megawatt PowerCell at another 30-megawatt wind project on the island of Maui.
Xtreme has made some extreme claims for its technology. According to CEO Carlos Coe, PowerCells act more like capacitors, charging and discharging at high speeds, while at the same time keeping the qualities that make batteries better than capacitors for long-term energy storage. Combined with Xtreme's own power electronics, PowerCells can yield a 90-percent or better "AC-to-AC" energy efficiency, he said — that is, a measure of the input and output of grid-friendly alternating current from the system, rather than the direct current that batteries actually accept and provide. The PowerCells also have deep discharge capability combined with long cycle life, and Xtreme is also working on a line of portable batteries, he said.
As with all new battery technologies, the proof will be in the deployments, with close attention being paid to how long, and for how many cycles of varying depths, the systems can operate before degrading.
Energy Storage Economics
Coe wouldn't give any price figures for the PowerCell, saying that costs vary too much from project to project, not to mention application to application. But Sam Jaffe, analyst at IDC Energy Insights, said that Xtreme has been targeting $500 per kilowatt-hour as a profitable price point for grid storage systems, though he expects the Hawaii projects to exceed that, given their novelty.
At $500 per kilowatt-hour that compares well to costs of about $800 per kilowatt-hour for sodium-sulfur batteries, the primary battery technology now widely deployed for grid backup, or between $622 to $1,500 for flow batteries, another technology competing for grid-scale markets, Jaffe said. (Pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage are cheaper, but require hard-to-find canyons to dam and fill up with water, or underground caverns to fill with air, while batteries can be placed next to wind farms or at utility substations.)
As for lithium-ion, it hasn't been deployed for grid storage at a wide scale, although projects are being planed — Southern California Edison got a DOE stimulus grant to back up wind farms with an 8-megawatt lithium ion battery from A123 Systems, for example.
The lithium ion battery industry could be scaling up to the point where it can compete at grid power — laptop-sized lithium ion batteries are available for about $250 per kilowatt-hour. But Jaffe noted that putting together a megawatt-sized lithium-ion battery is a much greater challenge when it comes to one of the main drawbacks to that chemistry, its potential for thermal runaway. Xtreme Power's batteries, on the other hand, work at room temperature, Coe said.
There's one thing for sure — as solar and wind power grow, they'll place bigger demands on the grid to absorb their on-again, off-again power. Experts including Energy Secretary Steven Chu say storage will play a critical role in the country's renewable energy growth, and DOE has targeted energy storage for $120 million of its $4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants. A California energy storage bill that would require utilities to store about 5 percent of their peak generation capacity by 2020 could be the start of increasing requirements that renewable power projects back themselves up with storage of some kind, Coe noted.
Island grids pose particular challenges to integrating big amounts of wind power, Coe said. First, they need to clean up the power to grid quality through power electronics. Then, they need power to "up-ramp and down-ramp" through the times where the wind dies down and picks up again — a cushion of sorts against big fluctuations that would otherwise require firing up fossil-fueled generators. Most wind farms today have natural gas-fired power plants standing by to cover those fluctuations. Hawaii, on the other hand, generates 90 percent of its power from burning oil.
Eventually, if you've got a big enough battery, you can shift loads, Coe said — storing power at night, when the wind tends to blow the hardest, and putting it back onto the grid in the afternoon, when power consumption tends to reach its peak. Today's wind farms tend to manage all of these tasks separately, if at all, Coe said.
On the Horizon
Coe added that Xtreme will also be providing a smart grid network management system for the utility, Hawaiian Electric Company, to manage the wind farm, PowerCell storage device and all. Building batteries might seem like enough for a company with some $25 million in funding, but Jaffe said that anyone making grid batteries better be finding ways to link them up with utility's control systems, both legacy and "smart grid" enabled, in ways that make them trouble-free to operate as part of the overall grid system.
Xtreme is nothing if not big in its ambitions — the company is seeking financing for a $425 million plant to roll out an eventual 2,000 megawatts of batteries per year, and has gotten state backing to build it on an old Ford Motor Co. site in Wixom, Mich.. Solar developer Clairvoyant Energy expects to build a solar panel plant, using Oerlikon Solar equipment, on the same site. Coe said that Xtreme and Clairvoyant are working on integrating solar and storage, though he wouldn't provide details.
Image courtesy of Xtreme Power.
Daily Sprout
Katie Fehrenbacher - Misc
$154M in Fed Funds for NRG’s Clean Coal Project: “Secretary Chu Announces Up To $154 Million for NRG Energys Carbon Capture and Storage Project in Texas,” which is the third round of the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). — release.
Senator Dick Lugar’s Energy Plan: “U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar said today that he is drafting a practical energy plan that would meet many climate improving goals, without cap and trade, by conserving energy and saving people, businesses and government money. — Lugar’s site.
Markey and Hundt on How to Recreate the Telecom Boom for Energy: “Creating the right framework for our communications networks led investors to commit about $850 billion to rebuild those networks. With the right set of policies, it is reasonable expect a similar explosion of private sector investment in the energy sector.” — Talking Points Memo.
Batter Maker PowerGenix Links With U.S. Army: PowerGenix says its Nickel-Zinc rechargeable batteries will be tested by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) “as a possible replacement for the lead-acid "6T" batteries currently in use.” — release.
KB Home Pre-Wiring for EVs: Home builder KB Home announced today “that it will begin offering an option to pre-wire its new Built to Order homes to accommodate charging stations for homeowners' electric vehicles.” — release.
10 First Solar Utility Deals in the U.S.
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
| Utility | Size | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Department of Water and Power | 55 MW | Los Angeles, CA |
| Pacific Gas & Electric | 550 MW | Carrizo Plain, northwest of California Valley, CA |
| Pacific Gas & Electric | 300 MW | Desert Center, CA |
| PNM | 22 MW | Five sites in PNM’s New Mexico service territory |
| Sempra Generation, PG&E | 58 MW | El Dorado, NV |
| Southern California Edison | 550 MW | Desert Center, CA, and San Bernardino County, CA |
| Southern California Edison | Around 1-2 MW per rooftop | The first two rooftops in SCE’s solar rooftop project, in Fontana, CA and Chino, CA |
| Southern California Edison | 7.5-21 MW | Blythe, CA |
| Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association | 30 MW | Colfax County, NM |
| Tucson Electric Power | 500 kW | Tucson, AZ |
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Cleantech Financing Trends: 2010 and Beyond
Renewable Energy Charging Up Electrical Transmission Tech
First Solar Signs on PG&E for 300MW of Desert Sunlight Project
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
Back in August, utility Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that it had inked a contract with First Solar for 250 megawatts from the Desert Sunlight project, as well as 300 megawatts from the so-called Stateline project in northeastern San Bernadino County. First Solar spokesperson Alan Bernheimer told us this morning that the SCE agreement remains unchanged. “We’ll build the whole project together,” said Bernheimer, with one substation and one interconnection for electricity feeding to the two utilities. “As we complete 10-megawatt blocks, they’ll go online, assuming transmission infrastructure is in place,” he explained, with each utility getting “10 megawatts here, 10 megawatts there.”
First Solar says in its release today that the Desert Sunlight project — which the Bureau of Land Management has fast tracked in the permitting process and which is proposed for a site located on some 4,410 acres of public land — could be completed as early as 2013.
PG&E has recently been rounding up a herd of solar power suppliers as part of an effort to achieve the state-mandated goal of generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. That effort has seen a few setbacks, however, as some of the startups contracted by PG&E have struggled in the economic downturn — laying off staff and turning their focus to different markets. Last year, two startups that had deals with PG&E (Optisolar and Ausra) ended up selling off planned projects to First Solar. Ausra was sold to French nuclear giant Areva last month.
As the thin film solar leader and a barometer for solar stocks, First Solar represents one of the sturdier horses in the solar race (although its earnings report last month indicated the company’s seeing rising competition and weaker margins). Today’s deal comes as the latest in a string of utility agreements for the company. In all, First Solar says it now has power purchasing agreements for 1,700 megawatts of utility-scale power projects in North America.
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