Dick Smith vs Tim Flannery, and the Solar Revolution

It turns out that Australians may not as dumb as Dick Smith would have us believe, at least as far as electricity choices are made. The self-made entrepreneur, aviator and now aspiring energy expert made much in his “Ten Bucks a Litre” documentary last week about the inadequacy of renewables – they are expensive, and intermittent, and they can’t do the job.

And in a blithe dismissal of the ability of households to act smarter, and substitute energy-hogging appliances with more efficient ones, he said there would never be enough solar panels on a household to here will never be enough panels to meet their requirement.

But Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery has another viewpoint: He says Australians are rushing to embrace solar for a simple reason – it is saving them money, because it is cheaper to generate electricity on the rooftop of their home than to source it through the massive grid. And because it also has the happy outcome of forcing dirty electricity generation out of the market.

The Climate Commission today releases a detailed 45-page report on the future of solar – a study that is likely to get buried under the frenzy of media attention on the first day of the election campaign. And that’s a pity, says Flannery, because the “solar revolution” has gone virtually un-noticed by the mainstream media, but its impact is already being felt within the electricity industry.

Flannery says the arrival of cost-competitive solar is one of the biggest things that has happened in the fight to address climate change and limit greenhouse gas emissions. “Solar is clearly is good for the battle on climate change,” Flannery told RenewEconomy in an interview. “It is replacing old, polluting infrastructure with new, clean infrastructure. For me, solar is the big story. It is way above everything else (that has been achieved).

Flannery dismisses the ideas promoted by the likes of Dick Smith – who with the aid of images from dancing “greenies” at a Bellingen festival – likes to promote the idea that renewables are expensive and intermittent, and therefore of not much practical use. Flannery says such ideas are “well outdated”. From the perspective of individual consumer, he notes, rooftop solar is already cost competitive with the grid.

Flannery says solar will challenge utilities, and the centralized generation model of the electricity sector, and will have the same impact as the internet has had on the media, where the viability of printed newspapers is threatened by the popularity of online information.


“This is coming, like it or not,” Flannery says. “And nothing short of banning solar PV will prevent it. We can have a stable grid with a lot of solar PV. We may have to look at what the future is for major utilities, and this is a significant issue because it looks at how we run a new grid. But it is not insurmountable.”

Flannery’s comments echo the conclusions of a range of international investment banks, independent analysts, as well as the biggest utilities and generators in the US and Europe, who all conclude that solar will become a “no-brainer” for consumers (be they homes or businesses).

Smith’s message was that renewables were expensive and intermittent, and therefore couldn’t do the job. It’s a conclusion typical of those who advocate, as Smith does, that the only solution is nuclear, and who cannot see beyond the current centralised model of generation. It’s at odds with most modern thinking, even including the conclusions of the 100% renewables scenario completed by the Australian Energy Market Operator.

But technology has moved on, and so have costs. The Climate Commission report concludes that solar PV is already providing the most affordable form of electricity production for retail consumers – a conclusion already arrived at by international investment banks, independent analysts and the biggest utilities and generators in the US and Europe, who all conclude that solar will become a “no-brainer” for consumers (be they homes or businesses).

Instead of a market dominated by a few large producers or electricity providers, Flannery says there are now countless numbers of “pro-sumers”, householders and businesses that produce their own electricity. That changes the financial model for existing utilities, he says, because it lowers demand at peak times when they are used to making most of their money.

“The economic model that we run the power industry doesn’t work any more,” he says. And the industry faces an even bigger challenge with the arrival of batteries, which he suspects will be competitive within a few years.

“This is an evolutionary thing – and the one thing that we can do is to make sure that we have a stable electricity supply. We will need the right elements in place to make sure that (those elements) are delivered in time – and we can look to Germany for that.” One of the key issues is the cost of the grid, and how it impacts those who do not have access to solar.

The Climate Commission report has a couple of interesting graphics which we thought we would highlight. The first is this, looking at the amount invest by each country in 2012 in solar, and the country’s relative solar resources. It should be pointed out that the $3.8 billion spent in Australia came almost exclusively from households. Much of the investment in other countries would have come from commercial investments in larger scale installations. The table at the end highlights the extent of solar hot water usage, which still dominates solar PV by a large factor.

The second graph is a bit of fun – and highlights some of the individual records for each state. Whatever happened to Tasmania?

Source: Renew Economy

LiFePO4 DIY ESS - Cutting Usage Peaks in Half

Last wednesday, for testing purposes and after charging the day before, I switched my ESS ON before leaving to work and this is what it did ... It shaved high consumption peaks in half (more than half actually if you look at the Energy Graph below this one) 

Power Graph

Energy Graph

PV storage market to reap $19 billion by 2017

From US$200 million in 2012, the photovoltaic storage market is projected to be worth $19 billion in 2017, mainly driven by the German energy storage subsidy, reports IMS Research. While Germany is set to lead the residential sector, Asia and the Americas will dominate the utility-scale market.



From just $200 million in 2012, the U.K.-based research firm expects the photovoltaic storage market to be worth $19 billion in 2017. Meanwhile, it forecasts that global photovoltaic storage installations will, on average, boast over 100% annual growth for the next five years, to reach a cumulative capacity of nearly 7 GW.

Overall, Germany is expected to lead the residential and commercial sector; however, with an anticipated 2 GW by 2017, Asia and the Americas will dominate the utility-scale sector.

While Germany is forecast to install almost 2 GWh of effective storage capacity in its residential sector during the next 5 years, markets like the U.K., Italy, North America, Australia and other smaller European markets are set to account for the remaining around 3 GW of expected capacity by 2017, PV analyst Sam Wilkinson tells pv magazine.

IMS Research primarily attributes the anticipated rapid growth to Germany’s new incentive program, scheduled to come into effect on May 1. "Because domestic electricity rates now significantly exceed residential feed-in tariff rates, there is strong interest in increasing self-consumption in residential PV systems to maximize the financial return of the system," comments Wilkinson in a statement.

Wilkinson adds that 8 MW of photovoltaic systems with storage were installed in Germany last year. "The introduction of the widely anticipated subsidy will quickly accelerate uptake by making the lifetime cost of PV systems with storage cheaper compared to those without it."

According to IMS Research figures, the subsidy for a typical German household with a photovoltaic system including storage will bring electricity costs down to under $25,000 over a 20 year period, compared to just under $30,000 without it.

Specifically, the company calculates that the typical electricity costs for a German household with no photovoltaic system will be around $50,000 over a 20 year period; compared to just over $25,000 for a household kitted out with a 5kW photovoltaic system (inc. FITs at the current rate); just under $30,000 for a household with a 5kW photovoltaic system (inc. FITs at the current rate) with storage, but without a storage subsidy; and just under $25,000 for a household with a 5kW photovoltaic system (inc. FITs at the current rate), with storage and a storage subsidy.

As aforementioned, Germany is expected to be the dominant market player in the residential and commercial sector, and is likely to account for nearly 70% of all storage installed in residential photovoltaic systems in 2013. However, its leadership is set to be challenged by other regions as they develop opportunities.

"We do expect that other countries will follow Germany’s example and adopt similar subsidy schemes to promote the use of PV energy storage – particularly where there is a case for promoting self-consumption and grid stability," Wilkinson says.

"Even without subsidies though, storage can be an attractive proposition in conjunction with residential PV systems in some markets, such as the U.K., where the market is forecast to begin growing quickly in 2014, when the price of batteries is predicted to have fallen sufficiently to make PV storage financially viable."

Regarding utility-scale photovoltaic storage solutions, IMS Research forecasts that the market will add over 2 GW annually by 2017. Asia and the Americas are expected to lead the way.

"Storage is also predicted to be used in larger systems, in order to improve the integration of PV into the grid, increase the financial return of PV systems and meet the increasingly demanding connection requirements that some countries are imposing on intermittent electricity sources like PV," writes the company in the statement.

According to the "Grid Scale Battery Storage Market 2013-2023" study recently released by Global Information Inc. and Visiongain, demand for grid energy storage will reach $113.5 billion in 2017, up from $2.8 billion. "Representing close to a 5,694 percent increase in capacity, grid storage will reach 185.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of capacity compared to 3.2 GWh in 2012," says the report in a statement released.

Meanwhile, it says the global grid scale battery storage market is forecast to reach $1.17 billion in 2013.



Source: PV Magazine

Germany to Support Solar Energy Storage with New 25 Million EUR Subsidy

Just saw this article this morning in the last days tweets & thought:  This good news comes at a good time because my DIY ESS Kit is almost ready ! ;-)

April 18th, 2013

NEW YORK CITY -- Germany will subsidize consumers' purchases of battery systems to store power from solar panels through a 25 million-euro ($32.6 million) program to promote wider use of renewable energy, according to the German Solar Industry Association.
The government will pay 660 euros a kilowatt of storage capacity under a program that begins May 1, the trade group said today in a statement. The systems will also stabilize the flow of electricity into the grid.

Correction: "The government will pay 660 euros a kilowatt of storage capacity"  : Energy is measured in kWh : they meant here 660 EUR of incentive per kWh, which is prettty good !

Storage is a policy-driven market, Brian Warshay, an analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance in New York, said today in an interview.

“I’d expect for the incentive, which is set at a pretty healthy rate for most systems, to be used up quickly,” he said.

Editor's Note: For more information about this subsidy and the energy storage market, see our recent in-depth articles here:


Solar Storage Market Set for Rapid Growth

March 28th, 2013

LONDON -- News that Germany plans to launch a €50 million solar storage incentive is the latest indicator that solar storage's time has come.

Under the program, German owners of solar systems with storage will be entitled to a low-interest loan from KfW, the state-owned bank, and a repayment allowance from the Ministry of Environment, which will cover 30 percent of the battery system's cost. The program will apply to newly-installed PV facilities with storage and solar plants with storage systems installed after December 31, 2012. Systems under 30 kW will be eligible for the subsidy.

Although lack of emissions trading revenue for the Energy and Climate Fund is said to be currently delaying the program, it is predicted that it will soon move forward, possibly by the originally specified date of 1 May.

This incentive will make almost any emerging energy storage technology capable of tying into a PV array cost-effective, according to Brian Warshay of Lux Research. Subsidizing a storage system's energy capacity rather than its power capacity, as does California's Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), is a more logical approach, says Warshay, because the solar shifting application requires more energy than power. Germany's incentive will benefit technologies capable of longer discharge duration such as molten salt and flow batteries rather than most lithium-ion batteries, Warshay said.

Research firm NanoMarkets believes the growth of the solar storage market is driven by declining costs for PV modules and reductions in government support for solar power. Without attractive subsidies, self-consumption can be more valuable than selling power and storage becomes desirable. NanoMarkets predicts that demand for storage in the residential and commercial sectors will soon show rapid growth.

A Growing Need

According to IMS Research's recent survey of over 400 purchasers of PV inverters including distributors, installers, integrators, EPCs and wholesalers, the need for energy storage in solar systems is growing fast. Although energy storage is still a young market, nearly one third of respondents said they expect to be using storage in over 40 percent of the PV systems they install by 2015.

Survey respondents from Germany, Italy and the UK identified energy storage as more critical than any other requirement for future PV inverters. When IMS asked what the main driver for the adoption of energy storage would be, the most common response was a reduction in battery prices helping to drive system prices down and make storage financially viable.

IMS found that over 60 percent of respondents believed that an acceptable increase in system price for the inclusion of energy storage would be between 10 percent and 29 percent; however, almost 30 percent of respondents indicated they would be willing to pay even more.

Grid Benefit

According to the 2013 Storage Study from the Fraunhofer Institute, carried out for German solar trade body BSW-Solar, battery storage systems used in conjunction with a PV system can increase the absorption capacity of existing power grids by up to 66 percent.

“The positive effects that decentralized photovoltaic battery systems have on the power grid cannot be overstated,” said Dr Christof Wittwer, head of the Intelligent Energy Systems department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

“The success of the Energiewende depends on the use of solar batteries as grid-assistive short-term storage capability,” said Jörg Mayer, managing director of the German Solar Industry Association. “What we need now is the initial spark for the development of decentralized battery storage systems, so that we can quickly achieve progress in terms of technology, and above all in terms of costs. With an increasing production of batteries, solar storage systems will quickly come down in price, thus enabling savings in grid expansion.”

Move Fast

Nanomarkets' report entitled Storage 2013 predicts that the global market for solar storage systems will be worth US$2 billion by 2018. Dr. Eicke Weber, head of the newly-established German Energy Storage Association, has called this a “conservative estimate”. Italian energy consultancy BIP said the battery market will reach at least 9 GW of capacity by 2020 from today's 270 MW.

And the commercial sector's uptake is growing in line with the residential sector's. Nicola Cosciani, head of energy storage at Italian industrial battery maker Fiamm, says heavy power users such as cement and steel makers are looking at solar storage. “Germany and Italy will be explosive markets for residential storage and big energy users are also starting to show an interest. This is a game changer,” he said in a Reuters interview.

When implemented, Germany's incentive will result in a short but rapid boom in distributed storage, Warshay predicts. “Developers with any hopes of addressing this market opportunity will need to move quickly into Germany to establish partnerships that will help decipher the bureaucratic requirements necessary to benefit from this new policy,” he said.

Technology growth

Considerable technological innovation is expected in energy storage, yet traditional lead-acid batteries will be the main revenue generator over the next decade, accounting for more than $950 million in revenues in 2018, research firm Global Information (GI)'s Solar Storage 2013report has found. Lead-carbon technology will improve the margins on this type of battery, generating another $135 million by 2018, the report said.

There is also growing interest in the use of lithium batteries in the solar sector; GI expects these batteries to generate $235 million by 2018. Chinese solar energy storage firms seem likely to focus on lithium batteries since China is a major source of lithium. "




Energy Storage Series: Why We Need It, And Why We Don't 

April 4th, 2013

New Hampshire, USA -- It's almost a cliché that there's a "friendly debate" pitting utilities against renewable energy. But concerns on the utility side of the table are real: intermittency, potential destabilization at the feeder level, non-baseload, and peaks in generation that don't necessarily match demand peaks. Today's power infrastructure involves unpredictability in both supply and demand that is extremely difficult to manage. The choice comes down to two options: over-generate so as to not undersupply, or find ways to better match up supply and demand.

"To balance the grid and keep it in a stable condition, you're going to need energy storage," said Doug Staker, VP of business development for Demand Energy. "Every customer interaction, every presentation, one question I'm getting now: what can you do to help me with storage?" He said there's a "huge lack of information and education" about whether energy storage is ready and in what form (e.g. which technology to use, and whether it's centralized vs. distributed) "People really want to understand how to integrate energy storage into a variety of applications."

As more renewable energy comes into the power mix, "high-response energy storage seems to be the way," added Chris Wheaton, CFO of Energ2. "We think storage is an equivalent leg of the chair" alongside solar and wind energy generation.

"In general energy storage is a good thing — except that it is not cost-effective for bulk energy storage," counters Mahesh Morjaria, VP of PV technology applications at First Solar. If the goal is to manage variable energy generation, Morjaria suggests, then the whole grid can act as energy storage, if managed properly. "When part of the resource is not available or generating, other resources are able to provide the load," Morjaria said. "That's the beauty of it, in a more cost-effective manner." Storage too can provide grid flexibility, agreed Morjaria, but it's simply not yet cost-effective enough.

What's It For?

Discussing large-scale energy storage depends on what problems are being solved. "People forget what energy storage is: an enabler," explained Erick Petersen, VP of marketing at Demand Energy. It's not that grid-scale energy storage *can't* be deployed — it's a question of what do you want do with it, whether it's achieve true grid stability, or flatten loads to reduce peak congestion, or provide ancillary services. "The benefits stack up the highest as you move the edge of the grid," he said. "People get lost in the debate whether it should be grid-scale, which battery is right — the answer is, 'All of it,' depending on the problem you're trying to solve."

Reliability and Flexibility

Germany is widely accepted as having a much more robust incorporation and management of renewable energy generation. But even there, many believe the nation's energy overhaul means storage is a matter of not if but when. Wheaton thinks "the jury's still out whether Germany will have an energy storage program." Rick Luebbe, CEO of Energy2, points to a Sandia Labs calculation that problems start emerging at a 20 percent renewables mix at which point storage has to enter the discussion.

Germany has been able to accommodate roughly 22 percent of a renewables mix, mostly variable wind and solar — and they're doing it by leveraging flexibility in their grid "without going out and acquiring a whole bunch of storage," Morjaria points out. Similarly, California's 33 percent renewables target won't rely on building massive amounts of bulk energy storage. In both cases, "they're figuring out other ways to achieve grid flexibility," he said.

In California the difference between trough and peak load on a summer day can be 20 gigawatts, Staker pointed out. "People talk about the [grid] having flexibility and capability to absorb excess generation — and that's true," he said. "But more system saturation becomes more problematic," once you have to start doing things like firming up wind power with gas peakers that by definition want to run in a steady-state condition and not vary up and down to plug intermittent gaps.

Demand Response

"Demand response has been the cure-all for all kinds of system challenges," Staker said. He recalled an effort from Baltimore Gas & Electric with a demand/response plan to reimburse customers for turning off their air conditioners for a few hours during critical peak events. But the system was one-way and radio-based, and closed-loop — no way to really know who responded. So an urban secret spread: wrap your AC in tinfoil to block the signals, and cash in the reimbursement. That, he said, illustrates a problem with demand/response: "at the end of the day, customers can just opt out."

If response time is the target, hydro and possibly compressed air make sense, balancing on a 24-hour cycle, says Luebbe. But either of those options are selective based on geography. For shorter-timeframe needs, electrochemical storage comes into play, with multiple technologies to choose from (lead/acid, lithium-ion, flow, molten, ultracapacitors, hybrid configurations). For balancing solar power into a facility or a grid, lead-acid batteries "will probably be just fine," he said, while flow and molten batteries will emerge at point-of-use to balance intermittent power from a local grid (e.g. cell-phone towers).

Still, Morjaria thinks the costs for energy storage still aren't low enough to make it feasible for this time-shifting. Even if there's a significant difference in the cost of every kilowatt-hour that can be fed into and pulled out of the grid, adding costs associated with energy storage eliminates those potential gains. "In California they're talking about PPAs on the order of $85/MWh [$0.08/kWh]. That's what they expect from solar energy," he points out. (Note that a recent deal in New Mexico was for less than six cents/kWh, and ironically for a First Solar project.) Storing energy and pumping it out adds to that cost — Morjaria ballparks it at $0.20/kWh — which quickly snuffs out any price arbitrage.

Frequency Regulation

Morjaria did acknowledge one area where energy storage is indeed viable: frequency regulation. Constantly adjusting power input to offset increased/decreased demand and keep frequency constant, responding very fast with charging and deploying energy in very short cycles — "that's where energy storage has an interesting role to play," Morjaria said. A123 and Beacon Power have explored that in NY ISO and other places, FERC has tweaked regulation to support it, and "it seems to be making some sense," Morjaria noted. But that isn't necessarily a practice that depends on variable generation from renewables.

Frequency response can stretch out some power output at the expense of some quality, but power coming from renewable sources "is simply not high enough for most independent power producers and transmission to handle," said Chris Wheaton, CFO of Energ2.

What It Costs

The big question in energy storage, Wheaton says, boils down simply: what does it cost to build more generation (to oversupply), vs. how to store and manage energy? Today it's more "economically rational" to build more generation, whether it's solar or wind or even coal, he noted. As energy storage technology costs come down — and as there is better understanding and calculation of externalized costs, such as societal impacts — "we will see those lines cross, and more utilities will go to energy storage as a more economical means to serve the grid."

Fundamentally, economics determines the decision of over-generation vs. energy storage; right now "either energy storage is not cheaper, or the payback is not enough to shift over," noted Luebbe. As the cost (dollars per kilowatt-hour) come down and energy storage costs intersect with those in over-generation, "then everyone will do it because it's economically the logical thing to do."

Part of that economic determination, Luebbe says, has to define, manage and regulate the externality of emissions. That will play out differently in different countries and economies, he noted — how will many countries hit the Kyoto Protocol targets without big changes to grid infrastructures, and how is oxygen interpreted as contributing to emissions calculations. Even the presence of some pilot stage energy storage projects "tells me we're pretty close" to that cost intersection, Luebbe said. "



Source: Renewableenergyworld.com

Why Is Net Metering Under Attack?

The utilities’ net metering math doesn’t add up.

Customer-sited (or "rooftop") solar provides less than 0.01 percent of the U.S. energy supply -- but the market is growing rapidly, and as costs continue to decline, solar is reaching homeowners of all incomes. This is cause for alarm among utilities that have been providing electric service in essentially the same way for over a century.

A total of 5.9 gigawatts of PV is now in operation in the U.S. That’s more than 271,000 installations, many of which are on customers’ rooftops. GTM Research forecasted that 3.2 gigawatts of PV solar was installed nationwide in 2012, up from 1.9 gigawatts installed in 2011. If new solar capacity added in the fourth quarter of 2012 matches GTM Research predictions, solar PV will see a 70 percent increase in installation growth in 2012 compared with 2011.

Key to solar’s growth is an arrangement known as net metering. Currently in place in 43 states and the District of Columbia, net metering allows a solar customer’s electric meter to “spin backwards” when she generates more solar energy than she uses, ensuring fair credit for the clean power delivered to the grid.

But net metering is coming under increasing attack from utilities. Here’s our perspective on what’s really going on.

Utilities across the country are experiencing major shifts in the way customers use energy, and that’s making them nervous. Growth in electricity demand is slowing across the country: the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects electricity use will increase at the anemic rate of 0.7 percent per year through 2035 -- down from the usual 2 percent to 3 percent growth per year. Beyond a reduction in sales, utilities are worried about retaining customers as solar costs drop like a rock, a situation that could be further exacerbated now that cost-effective micro-storage is predicted to be only a few years away.

The writing is on the wall: clean and reliable rooftop solar, energy efficiency, and smart grid technologies are here to revolutionize the grid. But instead of looking to get ahead of these trends, many utilities are digging in and defending their business-as-usual approach. These utilities make a guaranteed rate of return on infrastructure, including power plants and transmission lines. As a result, utilities continue to invest in conventional dirty energy resources that may become obsolete well before the plants will be retired.

Some utilities are looking to slow the growth of rooftop solar by claiming that net metering shifts big costs onto non-solar ratepayers. In a recent one-sided article in Bloomberg, for example, the three big California utilities alleged net metering is costing non-solar ratepayers $1.3 billion, but gave no details on how they arrived at that staggeringly high number.

The fact is, the utilities’ net metering math doesn’t add up. The calculations inflate the cost side of the equation, while leaving a rather important piece out of the cost-benefit analysis: the benefits. By using fuzzy math to put net metering on trial in the press, these utilities hope to convince policymakers to put a halt to common-sense solar policies.

What’s needed is a rational dialogue among the stakeholders, and an accurate and comprehensive look at the economic impacts of net metering, considering all the costs and benefits. To that end, Vote Solar commissioned Crossborder Energy, a consulting firm, to conduct a new analysis for ratepayers of the three big California utilities. The results show that net metering actually provides a system-wide net financial benefit to non-solar ratepayers, not a cost as the utilities assert.

In total, the non-solar ratepayers of all three IOUs will save more as more net metered systems are installed, up to about $92 million per year once we reach the current 5 percent net metering cap.

Why are these numbers so different from the utility claims? Well, not only did Crossborder Energy analysts look accurately at the costs side of the ledger, but they also counted all the well-documented benefits that net-metered generation brings to the grid. Those benefits include avoiding the cost of purchasing expensive conventional plants and fuel, reducing the need for investments in wires, reducing the power lost over those wires, and avoiding costs associated with meeting carbon and renewable energy requirements.

Net Metering's benefits to the grid outweigh the lost revenue from net metering bill credits. It’s actually solar customers as a group that are subsidizing non-solar customers as a group.

For many utilities, rooftop solar represents a threat to traditional business models. But the people want it, the grid needs it, and it’s helping us take on some of our greatest challenges.

Utilities will have to adapt to a 21st-century energy landscape with new regulatory structures and initiatives, innovative business models, and modernized practices making way for ubiquitous distributed energy.


Graphic from Vote Solar (View fullsize here) 

Source: GreenTech Media , Susannah CHURCHILL

Energy - Grid Usage & PV Generation graphs

My idea of Energy Storage System comes partly from here. Based on somebody who had PV system installed, very visually here, we can see that the surplus of energy produced during the day, if stored, could fill the gaps at night, and we could end up with almost no grid consumption: