POWER September 2023 - S17

SEPTEMBER 2023 | WWW.POWERMAG.COM
The POWER Interview: Benefits of Adding
Storage to Solar Power Systems
U
tilizing energy storage with a
solar power system is a way for
power generators to help balance
the supply of energy with demand
for electricity. Energy storage can be
used during periods when the sun isn't
shining, and it also help support periods
of high demand for power along the grid.
Many residential and commercial and
industrial solar power system owners
are looking at ways to connect their system
to a battery so they can use that energy
at night, or for backup energy in the
event of a power outage. As solar power
becomes less expensive, and more
widely available, the market potential
for adding storage to those systems will
grow as well.
Two members of the Hitachi Energy
team-Maxine Ghavi, senior vice president
and Head of Grid Edge Solutions,
and Marija Vujacic, PhD, Product Manager
for Battery Energy Storage Systems-recently
provided POWER with
their insight into the solar-plus-storage
market, touching on current trends for
pairing the technologies and what the
future could hold.
POWER: What are the major trends
you're seeing in the solar-plus-storage
market?
Ghavi: Solar-plus-storage has been
recognized as one of the key solutions
towards ensuring more affordable,
secure, and sustainable energy.
Historically, the main application for
the
solar-plus-storage
market
has
been backup power or fossil fuel replacements
in microgrids, while more
recently the main drivers seem to be
demand charges mechanism and timeof-use
rates with the latter driving a
longer BESS duration trend (beyond
the 4-hour mark).
Project boundaries such as battery
price, net-zero policies, investment tax
credits, local governments' incentive
programs and more have a huge impact
on the deployment scale of this technology.
Recent geopolitical tensions and
the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted
the need for energy independence and
triggered a set of initiatives, which will
support continued market growth of this
technology through the next decade. In
the U.S., recent changes to the Inflation
Reduction Act allow solar-plus-storage
developers to choose between investment
tax credits and be more strategic
and flexible with how they're designing
and financing such projects.
POWER: Will there be growth in solar-plus-storage
outside of utility-scale
projects (i.e., residential or commercial/industrial
applications)?
Ghavi: From a market scale perspective,
the front-of-meter market is significantly
bigger than behind-the-meter.
However, the latter one is expected to
become one of the key markets as the
rising energy price trend together with
natural disasters in recent years have
raised awareness of self-generation
and consumption in the residential and
C&I sectors. This will be particularly the
case in the regions with strong public
awareness for energy transition.
POWER: Are there battery technologies
that will be used as a replacement
for (or alternative to) lithium-ion?
Ghavi: Lithium-ion will remain the dominant
technology, which has benefited
from the growing demand for electric
vehicles. Looking forward, new technologies
such as solid-state batteries
or new chemistries such as sodium ion
batteries might become available and
present more raw material and environmentally
friendly alternatives. Aside
from batteries, there are also other energy
storage technologies that look promising
such as green hydrogen, which can
add value in terms of self-sufficiency for
storage durations from days to seasons.
Multi-vector energy systems might leverage
thermal storage as a cost-effective
solution in the storage capacity range
www.re-plus.com
from hours to weeks.
POWER: How important is adding
storage to a solar (or other renewable
energy) project when it comes to grid
integration and ancillary services?
Vujacic: Storage adds a fundamental
value in balancing the variability
of solar generation while at the same
time enabling higher consumption of
a self-generated renewable power. It
enables bidirectional active power exchange
with the grid, which enables
storage to provide a wide range of applications
that cannot be provided by
solar-only systems such as stabilizing
and operating isolated renewable-driven
power systems. Special battery energy
storage systems that can emulate
the behavior of rotating machinery and
act as the grid-forming element provide
system strength and virtual inertia
in large, interconnected grids. Hence,
storage can pave the way towards
100% renewable energy penetration
and a successful removal of current
fossil based synchronous machines.
POWER: What are the cost advantages
to having storage adjacent to a solar
farm, as opposed to a standalone
storage system?
Vujacic: The cost advantages vary
greatly from project to project. By
pairing solar systems with storage certain
economic benefits are achieved
from a single interconnection process,
which can be a lengthy and costly process.
Locational factors such as grid
constraints, load profile, electricity
prices, grid services market and more
have great impact in the overall cost
modeling of such systems. In addition,
multi-assets control and monitoring
paired with an energy management system
with accurate demand planning and
generation forecasting create additional
revenues for co-located projects.
-Darrell Proctor is a senior associate
editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).
17
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