London bus depot to provide vehicle-to-grid power during peaks

 

E-buses (Source: The Driven)

A North London bus depot is on the verge of becoming one of the world’s largest vehicle-to-grid (V2G) virtual power stations. The Northumberland Park bus garage will be transformed to be part of UK’s Bus2Grid project. 

The project will enable electric buses parked at the garage to plug in and feed stored electricity back into the grid to provide grid balancing during times of peak demand. It was announced by British energy firm SSE Enterprise and is being conducted in collaboration with bus operator Go-Ahead London. 

A trial will test 28 electric double-decker buses, which are capable of returning over 1MW of electricity back into the grid. The project could then be expanded by the end of 2021 to include the capability of connecting up to 700 electric vehicles to the grid, supplying as much as 25MW of electricity. 

Read more: 

- London bus garage becomes one of world’s largest vehicle-to-grid sites. The Driven, August 14, 2020. 

– London bus garage becomes world’s largest vehicle-to-grid-site. SSE Enterprise. Accessed August 18. 2020.

UK relaxes rules to allow more storage on the grid that makes way for “liquid air” storage

Highview Power cryogenic energy storage system

As the UK moves to net zero emissions by 2050 it is going to need much more battery storage to stabilise the grid as the number of solar and wind energy plants increase. So much so, the government is to relax the planning laws to make it easier to develop larger battery storage systems. The legislation will be introduced to remove barriers for storage projects above 50MW (megawatts) in England and 350MW in Wales. 

This will allow the UK company Highview Power (and others) to plan to build much larger electricity storage systems. Highview Power makes cryogenic storage plants that use [renewable] electricity to cool air to a liquid and store it in insulated tanks. The liquid air is then warmed by stored heat from the process to expand the gas 700 times to drive turbines which can add electricity back to the grid when required. 

The advantage of this system over chemical batteries is that it can be stored for days and can supply power for an extended period of time whereas chemical batteries can only supply power for a short period of time. Also, most of the materials and infrastructure needed are easy to obtain so the manufacture of this cryogenic battery is simple and possibly more sustainable (i.e. does not need rare metals). 

Video of Highview Power Cryogenic Energy Storage System 

Read more: 

- UK hopes to ramp up battery storage and boost renewables by loosening planning rules. CNBC, July 15 2020.  

– Highview Power to build Europe’s largest battery storage system. The Chemical Engineer, November 29, 2019. 

– Highview Power to build UK’s first “liquid air” energy storage facility. RenewEconomy, October 24, 2019. 

– Highview Power: https://highviewpower.com/.

Big batteries may soon play a major role in Australia’s main grid

Ballarat's big battery (Source: RenewEconomy)

Stand-alone big batteries may soon be playing a critical role in eastern Australia’s massive electricity grid as recommended by the Australian Energy Regulator recently. The grid needs major upgrades as it transitions to a clean energy future.

The big batteries have been in Australia for less than three years with the big Hornsdale Tesla battery starting the trend and showing us that these batteries have many more features than just energy storage. This battery was followed by four others on the main grid at Lake Bonney, Dalrymple North, Gannawarra and Ballarat. 

These batteries have shown that they: allow the output of wind and solar to be “stored” and “firmed”; provide much needed competition in the frequency and ancillary services market; play a key role in grid security; reduce costs and improve reliability for off-grid iron ore mines; reduce overall grid costs; respond within milliseconds to power failures or peak demand; and cause power engineers to admit there is a smarter future than relying on ageing and slow responding coal generators (RenewEconomy).

Big batteries are therefore seen as ‘virtual transmission’ lines that can absorb excess solar and wind power at times of oversupply and instantly inject power at times of demand. This therefore reduces the need for extra poles and wires. Now they are ready for the next stage – playing a critical link in providing much-needed increased capacity between the various state grids. 

This is now the view of the Australian Energy Regulator, which has encouraged transmission companies to look into battery storage technologies as an option for the numerous grid upgrades that have been recommended by the Australian Energy Market Operator to ease the transition to a renewables-dominated grid. 

Read more: 

- “Big batteries get ready to play main role in next stage of clean energy transition.” RenewEconomy, April 1, 2020. 

- “Battery storage nearly there as smarter, cheaper choice for grid upgrades.” RenewEconomy, October 1, 2019.

"South Australian home battery scheme now half the size of Tesla big battery"

Tesla Powerwall 2 (Source: One Step Off the Grid)

The South Australian government’s Home Battery Scheme has reached a major milestone, securing 5,500 installations and orders, and adding significant new storage capacity from the “virtual power plant” [VPP] technology that enables their resources to be combined.

The 5,500 home battery systems already installed or on order can store up to a combined 62MWh of electricity, the equivalent of around half of the state’s Tesla big battery, officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve.

The South Australian government aims to install 40,000 additional residential battery systems through its VPP scheme, which it is supporting with the provision of subsidies of up to $6,000 per system. Owners of home batteries in the VPP scheme are paid a premium price for their energy when it is needed during peak demand times. Batteries can release the energy immediately thus providing effective grid support and helping avoid blackouts.

The home batteries’ VPP together with 3 big grid scale batteries (with three more being built) will help South Australia balance wind and solar power through grid services. Having ample storage of renewable energy helps the South Australian government move towards its goal of net 100% renewable electricity by 2030.

Read more: South Australian home battery scheme now half the size of Tesla big battery. RenewEconomy, January 14, 2020.

South Australia now has 3 big batteries and they made $1 million over two days!

Source: RenewEconomy

The Lake Bonney big battery (20MW/52MWh) in South Australia is now in full production. It combined with the two other big batteries: Hornsdale Power Reserve (100MW/129MWh) and Dalrymple North battery (30MW/8MWh) to jointly make A$1million over two days. This occurred on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 December 2019 when Australia was experiencing the three hottest days ever recorded on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of that week.

The Lake Bonney battery started full production in late November and was therefore ready to support to the eastern Australian grid. During this very hot week, electricity demand was great and consequently the prices went very high. This high pricing also coincided with low electricity generation from wind and solar. As a result, expensive gas and diesel generators were needed to meet demand. Being both dispatchable and fast responding, batteries were well placed to take advantage of this volatility in pricing.

South Australia aims to have net 100% renewable electricity by 2030 so large batteries are seen as a move towards this. Therefore “a fourth battery in South Australia, a 10MW/10MWh battery installation at  Lincoln Gap wind farm is set to join the grid in the new year, while  Sanjeev Gupta’s Simec Zen Energy plans a bigger 135MW battery at Port Augusta and Tilt Renewables is also considering a 20MW/40MWh battery at its Snowtown wind park.” (RenewEconomy).

Read more:
- Infigen says Lake Bonney battery now in full production. RenewEconomy, December 12, 2019.
- South Australia big batteries earn $1 million over two days. RenewEconomy, January 15, 2020.
- Tesla big battery delivered a $22 million profit in 2018. RenewEconomy, May 14 2019.

Alternative green electricity storage options being considered in the USA

Source: What's next in long-term energy storage, Vox.

Lithium-ion batteries are not the only way to store renewable electricity. The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) is funding research by 10 organisations to create long-term energy storage systems that cost US$0.05 per kilowatt hour or less.

It is called the DAYS (Duration Addition to electricitY Storage) Program. The DAYS Projects fall into two categories: 1. Systems that provide daily cycling in addition to longer duration, less frequent cycling 2. Systems that do not provide daily cycling, but can take over when daily cycling resources are either filled or depleted.

A list of DAYS Projects is provided here but please refer to the links below for more information.
- 1. Sulphur Flow Batteries.
- 2. Innovative electrolyzer/fuel cell combination using hydrogen peroxide for storage instead of hydrogen.
- 3. Zinc-bromine flow batteries.
- 4. Thermovoltaics. Using PV panels to make electricity to heat carbon blocks.
- 5. Electricity to magnesium manganese oxide.
- 6. Pressurising water underground.
- 7. Liquid Air Energy Storage.
- 8 to 10. Three other electricity to heat programs aim to raise the efficiency of storing electricity as heat then using it to heat a gas to drive turbines. (DAYS Project Descriptions, ARPA-E).

Further reading:
- Department of Energy announces new projects to extend grid energy storage. APRA-E, September 18, 2018.
- APRA-E: Duration Addition to electricitY Storage (DAYS): Project Descriptions (pdf)
- Energy Storage 2020: It’s not just about lithium-ion batteries any more. CleanTechnica, January 5, 2020.
- U.S. research teams aim for long-duration storage at $0.05/kWh. PV Magazine International. December 30, 2019.

UK solar farm's inverter provides an overnight reactive power service

Source: NS Energy

Lightsource BP in the UK has been trialling the first night-time reactive power from a solar farm. This was achieved by using: “Specially modified electrical inverters installed at the solar facility [which] were able to transform power taken from the grid overnight – while not in use for their usual purpose of generating power from sunlight – and then feeding back optimised voltage to the grid.”

It is a way of providing a network service and in this case it is network voltage. It is also a way of adapting to a fast changing electricity network that now has a lot of solar power in the daytime. It is calculated that such an innovation will contribute to significant cost savings and additional grid capacity. Infact, Lightsource BP says reactive power could lead to £400m in customer savings by 2050.

Read more: Lightsource BP trials UK’s first night-time reactive power from a solar farm. NS Energy, November 27, 2019.

From garbage to energy at the Woodlawn Bioreactor, NSW.

This old mine pit is used to collect methane gas from garbage to run electricity generators (photo Julie May)

The Woodlawn zinc and copper mine was shut in 1998 (although the mine has reopened this year). The original mine left a large pit which Veolia (Australia and New Zealand) uses to store garbage from Sydney. The garbage is covered with soil and methane gas made from the bacterial decomposition of plant and animal matter is collected, then used to run 7 landfill gas engines (92% of the methane is captured). This bioreactor started operation in 2004.

For every tonne of waste deposited at the facility, 1.33 megawatts of clean electricity can be produced. Since opening, over 4.1 Mt of waste has been processed most of which has been used to generate green electricity.

Although burning methane has carbon dioxide as a waste product, it is 21% more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, so overall greenhouse gas effects are reduced. In addition, electricity is made from waste, a renewable resource, and production is 24/7 so it is base load power.

The landfill gas engines (photo Julie May)

Other sustainable and energy saving mechanisms and products are employed:

• The garbage is compressed into containers at two highly efficient rail transfer terminals in southern Sydney. Trains, on the original Sydney-Canberra line, carry the containers to Tarago where they are put on trucks for the short journey to Woodlawn.
• Waste heat from one gas turbine is used to warm the water of a barramundi fish farm. (Some of the fish are sold at the Belconnen Markets in nearby Canberra.)
• There is a new, separate 'waste to compost' facility, which separates out the organics from household waste to create compost and soil. The soil will be used to help rehabilitate mine tailings to grassland.
• The land supports a sheep farm which uses rotational grazing.
• The land also has 23 wind turbines owned by Infogen, producing 48MW.
• Soon the facility will have its own 2.5MW solar farm.

For more information see: Veolia's Woodlawn Bioreactor, NSW

Canberra switches on its virtual 1MW power plant

Reposit Power phone app (Source - One Step off the Grid)

Australian internet of things company Reposit Power and network operator ActewAGL Distribution said on Thursday, 30 November, they had switched on a virtual battery made up of behind the meter energy storage installed in Canberra homes that could deliver more than 1MW of power to the ACT grid, supporting it at times of peak demand.

It’s the latest of a raft of battery storage demand response projects that are firing up around the country, pulling together Australia’s rapidly growing distributed solar and battery storage resources to help get the National Energy Market through the coming summer – as well as through the transition to renewables. The providers are paid a premium rate of 100c/kWh for their home battery power.

For full article see: Canberra switches on its own Big Battery - 1MW of household variety demand response. One Step off the Grid, November 30, 2017.
See also:
- Canberra trials world’s largest residential ‘virtual’ power plant. ACT Government, November 30, 2017.
- How I learned to slash my power bill, with solar and storage.
- My House as I am part of this virtual power plant as well.

Postscripts:
- Canberra Virtual Power Plant awarded top engineering honours. Reposit Power, September 19 2018.
- Ausgrid seeks to expand virtual power plant to cut back on network costs. RenewEconomy, May 22 2019.

Energy Queensland managing distributed renewable energy to become a 'virtual power plant'

Energy Queensland is a large Queensland government-owned utility that is working with GreenSync to manage distributed renewable energy resources, such as rooftop solar, to help manage demand and drive down prices. GreenSync is a Melbourne-based start-up business which will use a cloud-based, load control internet system to manage extreme electricity demand during severe temperature events and, in general, add grid support. This will create Australia’s largest 'virtual power plant'.

There are many potential customers with rooftop solar or other distributed energy sources in Queensland. For example, the so-called Sunshine State leads the nation on rooftop solar uptake, with 34% of houses said to have put PV panels on their roofs. Distributed renewable energy customers, such as these, would be enrolled into the virtual power plant platform ahead of peak summer demand.

The Queensland government has a goal to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to have 50% renewable energy for electricity by 2030.

For more information see Energy Queensland taps people power to shore up summer grid. By Sophie Vorrath, 6 September, 2017 from One Step off the Grid.