POWER March 2021 - 22

ENERGY STORAGE
searcher at the University of Münster
in Germany, said they are close to producing
a battery that won't catch on fire
thanks to its incorporation water, along
with a hydrophobic zinc salt.
The battery could be especially ben2.
The Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility is located at the site of Vistra Energy's natural
gas-fired Moss Landing Power Plant in California, owned by Vistra since it acquired the facility's
previous owner, Dynegy, in 2018. Phase 1 of the energy storage project was connected to
the power grid in December 2020. The 300-MW/1,200-MWh battery energy storage system is
among the world's largest. Phase 2 of the project is expected to begin operating this year, adding
another 100 MW/400 MWh of capacity. Courtesy: Vistra Energy
Then there's the demand function from
the end-users. If you're the owner/operator
of a fleet, and you're [deciding]
what type of vehicles you're going to
have, then it's feasible [hydrogen] could
be implemented. "
Hardware, Software, Reliability
The hardware involved with energy
storage-batteries,
inverters, etc.-receives
a lot of attention in storage discussions.
Shamik Mehta, director for
product marketing for Data Platform,
told POWER, though, that " software is
one of the most important BESS components.
The software controls and sets
limits on how much each cell can be
charged to, discharged to, how fast to
charge or discharge, and more. "
Mehta said the software " has to detect
the state of charge and depth of
discharge of each individual cell and
monitor each cell's health and temperature.
When a typical battery pack
can run up to tens of thousands of
cells, this quickly becomes a challenge.
Whether it's energy arbitration, demand
response, or other energy storage applications,
the software and its associated
algorithms decide the right times to
charge and discharge, controlling how
much, far, or fast to charge or discharge
each cell and pack, and when. "
" Where the battery really has a
place is in reliability, " said Anthony
Shaw, CEO and founder of Progeneration
Energy, a Texas-based energy
project developer. " I think storage is
the next evolution. If you're comfort22
able
with solar, then the next step is
to ask about the storage aspect. Right
now, for many, storage is kind of a nice
to have. The assumption is that if the
battery is being used simply to store
excess power, it doesn't pencil. "
Shaw told POWER about a project
his company worked on-a facility that
" wanted the added benefit of backup
power. For them, having a storage comeficial
for utility-scale energy storage,
said Chunsheng Wang, director of the
Center for Research in Extreme Batteries
at the University of Maryland and a
co-author of a paper that was published
in the journal Science. " We think this
has potential to compete with lithiumion
batteries, " Wang said.
Zinc-air batteries typically have not
been used for grid energy storage because
of their chemical instability and
relatively short lifecycle, the group
said. But Wang said these batteries
could be safer than lithium-ion cells
because they incorporate nonflammable
water and " open cell architecture, "
rather than a closed structure. Wang
said zinc also is less environmentally
destructive to mine and produce compared
with lithium.
Roberto Denti, operations director
at Greece-based storage developer
Systems Sunlight, told POWER that
while most of the focus in energy
storage " has been on the consumer
automotive sector, there is significant
opportunity for development in the industrial
sector-more specifically, the
" Hydrogen is by far the most exciting recent
technology to be advanced by industry. "
-Brian Restall, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners
ponent made sense. " He said the cost
of batteries has been an issue, but technology
advancements are helping in
that regard.
" They're moving in the right direction,
and they're moving very fast, " he
said. " The cost of [initiating] scaled production
is probably the next step. "
Zinc Air-a Breakthrough?
An international group of researchers in
January announced they had reached
a breakthrough in the development
of zinc-air batteries, an alternative to
lithium-ion that could be cheaper to
produce and involve fewer mining challenges.
The group, led by Wei Sun, a rewww.powermag.com
renewable
energy sector,
to
create
safe, reliable, and sustainable batteries
for heavy-duty applications such as energy
storage for solar and wind farms.
The opportunity also lies in other areas
where industrial batteries are needed
such as shipping, electric buses, and
automated guided vehicles, " or AGVs,
which is Sunlight's market.
" By developing new technologies
that will usher in a clean energy future,
we will hopefully see a wide-scale
adoption of energy storage applications,
leading to a fully electrified industry, "
Denti said. ■
-Darrell Proctor is associate
editor for POWER.
POWER | March 2021

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POWER March 2021

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