SolarCity Launches Microgrid Service, Available Worldwide

GridLogic™ combines distributed solar, batteries and controllable loads to give municipalities, remote communities, military bases and hospitals cleaner, more resilient, more affordable power


Mar 16, 2015

SAN MATEO, Calif. — SolarCity® (NASDAQ: SCTY), America’s #1 solar power provider, today unveiled GridLogic, a microgrid service that combines distributed energy resources — solar, batteries and controllable load — to enable a cleaner, more resilient and more affordable way of providing power. SolarCity’s microgrid service ensures that any community anywhere in the world vulnerable to power outages and high energy costs—including remote or island communities, hospitals and military bases—can have dependable, clean power when the grid is down. GridLogic can operate either in conjunction with or independently of the utility grid.

As with all SolarCity products and services, GridLogic comes with affordable financing options, including payment programs with little to no upfront cost. GridLogic can provide electricity to communities for less than they pay for utility power with the added benefit of backup power for emergency services. SolarCity’s in-house grid engineering team will design and install each GridLogic project with a system of software-based monitoring and controls that manage the mix of distributed energy resources and utility power to maximize savings.

The first decade of the 21st century saw 3,496 natural disasters, nearly a fivefold increase over the 1970s. Severe weather events can cause prolonged power outages that cut off access to critical public resources—Hurricane Sandy alone caused more than 8.5 million power outages across 21 states. Communities around the world are seeking ways to continue to power critical resources and guarantee public safety and security in the aftermath of these events. GridLogic gives them a cleaner, more affordable way to do so.




SolarCity’s microgrid service is now available worldwide. Organizations interested in learning more about GridLogic can visit www.solarcity.com/microgrid to learn more, or contact the company directly at 877-695-7652 for a consultation.


Click here for the GridLogic Data Sheet


About SolarCity
SolarCity® (NASDAQ: SCTY) provides clean energy. The company has disrupted the century-old energy industry by providing renewable electricity directly to homeowners, businesses and government organizations for less than they spend on utility bills. SolarCity gives customers control of their energy costs to protect them from rising rates. The company makes solar energy easy by taking care of everything from design and permitting to monitoring and maintenance. SolarCity currently serves 16 states. Visit the company online at www.solarcity.com and follow the company on Facebook & Twitter.

Source: SolarCity

Competitive energy storage solutions arrive in Australia

Battery solutions that can rival electricity retail prices are arriving in the Australian market, with the potential to further disrupt incumbent utilities' business models. SolarQuip's Glen Morris said that batteries with "optimised equipment" can store electricity in homes for between $0.23/kWh to $0.28/kWh.

Morris is currently working with solar distributor Solar360 on rolling out a series of storage products and power electronics for storage solutions. Morris said that the time has arrived where battery storage can compete with retailers, under certain models. Morris' is currently running a three-day training program for the Australian Solar Council at Swinburne University.
"If you can store energy that cheaply, it suddenly makes it viable to put in a battery system in because it saves you money."

Solar360 is introducing a number of technologies to make cost competitive storage available to its installers. These include a storage-ready inverter from Chinese supplier SolaX, two sizes of inverter/chargers from Schneider Electric and two lithium-ion batteries from BYD.
"About a year ago I was quoting $1/kWh with storing electricity with a lead-acid battery," said SolarQuip's Morris. He described the pricing of the new solutions as being a "game changer". Morris explained a number of scenarios where these storage solutions can be cost-effective for households.
"If you're in New South Wales and you're on a variable tariff, you can have off-peak, shoulder and peak (pricing). Off peak is around $0.16/kWh, peak is around $0.53/kWh – that's from 2pm to 8pm. If you've got electricity at $0.16/kWh, even without any solar, with battery backup you can buy at that price during the day and then use it between 2pm and 8pm, then it's costing you around $0.40/kWh for that energy, instead of $0.53kWh," said Morris.

Morris, who is also the vice president of the Australian Solar Council, said that adding solar to battery systems makes the proposition even better. "You'd then be getting electricity for the low $0.30s/kWh, when you'd be paying the peak rate."

Naturally, this scenario doesn't apply right around Australia, and time-of-day pricing is currently not being offered to all households. In fact, some utilities are reported to being taking steps to actively discourage distributed storage.

In South Australia, the current generous FIT for PV is cancelled if a battery is added to a solar installation and on the Horizon Power grids outside of the SWIS in WA, technical requirements in some areas may make adding storage problematic. On top of that, utilities may take steps to discourage storage by increasing fixed charges to bills or by applying grid costs even if a residence goes off grid.
"Retailers are now in direct competition with their customers," said Morris. "The utilities will be pushing hard at all levels, technical, regulatory and political – so it's going to be a real battle."
Despite these potential hurdles, some remain bullish as to the cost reduction path that battery manufacturers are on.

Former Sustainable Energy Association CEO Ray Wills said that battery technology, such as lead acid and lithium-ion, are mature technologies and that for lithium-ion, increases in production for industries such as e-mobility and consumer electronics driving major increases in production volumes.
"We've seen a 600% increase in production of solar panels over the last five years and the consequence was that solar panels came down in price more than 80% over the course of several years," said Wills, "and we'll see that sort of development with batteries as well."
This will impact on battery payback periods, potentially leading to a boom in installations. "What we know at the moment is that batteries installed in the home have a payback of round and about nine to ten years, so when we see batteries drop behind a five-year repayment, we're going to see a very rapid uptake." Wills' prediction is for batteries for family homes to reach that point some time in 2015.

Source: Renew Economy

DIY ESS Registration Approved at the US DOE International EnergyStorage Database website

After registering friday at the DOE International Energy Storage Database website, I got a reply and approval for my DIY ESS entry

Here is the email letter I received last night from the company approving new entries: Strategen Consulting, LLC, in Berkeley, CA

DOE International Energy Strage Database

On the DOE Internatinoal Energy Storage Database you can now find my Project link:

http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects?utf8=%E2%9C%93&technology_type_sort_eqs=Lithium+Iron+Phosphate++Battery&technology_type_sort_eqs_category=Battery&technology_type_sort_eqs_subcategory=Lithium+Ion+Battery&technology_type_sort_eqs_name=Lithium+Iron+Phosphate++Battery&country_sort_eq=France&state_sort_eq=&kW=&kWh=&benefit_stream_inf=&ownership_model_eq=&status_eq=&siting_eq=&show_unapproved=%7B%7D&order_by=&sort_order=&search_page=1&size_kw_ll=&size_kw_ul=&size_kwh_ll=&size_kwh_ul=

and can Download the PDF file of this new entry:

DOE International Energy Storage Database

DOE International Energy Storage Database

DOE International Energy Storage Database

Fighting Blackouts: Japan Residential PV and Energy Storage Market Flourishing

San Diego, CA -- In the past, a PV system with battery storage was associated with the off-grid system — not connected to the utility grid. The battery stores the energy produced by the PV system and when the sun goes down, electricity is drawn from the battery. In Japan, the battery became attractive to store electricity from "the grid," to reduce electricity bills.

After the devastation of the Tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Mach 2011, Japan became painfully aware of the importance of both safety and maintaining a steady supply of electricity. The combination of a PV system and battery storage gives consumers the ability to produce, store and supply electricity throughout the day at their own home for power outages and emergencies. However, the system can bring economic benefits — electricity bill reduction — during normal days.

Like California, utilities in Japan offer Time-of Use (TOU) rates. How homeowners can reduce electricity bills can be illustrated by using Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) current (non-summer) TOU rates for all-electric homes with a PV system.

- Purchase and store electricity from the grid at off-peak hour (11 pm – 7 am) at ¥11.82/kWh [US $0.12]

- Sell PV-generated electricity to the utility at the FIT premium rate of ¥38.0/kWh [US $0.38]

- Use PV-generated electricity during day time, otherwise paying at ¥30.77 (10 am – 5 pm) [US $0.31] and use stored electricity between 7 and 10 am and between 5 and 11 pm, otherwise paying ¥25.2/kWh [US $0.25]

With the battery storage, PV homeowners can ultimately buy electricity at the lowest rate (¥11.82/kWh or $0.12/kWh) and sell at the highest price (¥38/kWh or $0.38/kWh).

The key domestic PV makers, Panasonic, Kyocera and Sharp, all now offer lithium-ion battery storage along with a PV home system to meet consumers’ demand. Their goal is to move beyond PV and expand into a total Home Energy Management System (HEMS3) arena.

Kyocera started offering PV plus lithium-ion battery storage to homeowners in early 2012 with a target of selling 10,000 units from April 2012 to March 2013. Panasonic also released home battery storage systems that can be connected to Sanyo’s (now Panasonic) HIT PV system. The battery has a capacity of 4.65 kWh and is priced at ¥1.218 million MSRP [US $11,984].

In April, Kyocera released the largest residential lithium-ion battery in Japan. The battery has the capacity of 14.4 kWh, which is priced at an MSRP of ¥4.45million [US $43,784]. This large capacity allows it to power a home refrigerator, TV, computers, lights and cell phone chargers for up to 24 hours.

Kyocera has teamed up with Rakuten, Inc., which operates the nation’s largest internet shopping site, to offer a PV system (poly-Si) and a lithium battery (7.2 kWh) set for homeowners at an affordable price. Rakuten provides options with different sizes of PV systems with the battery, and installed system price (after tax) varies from ¥2.94 million ($29,730) with a-2.28 kW system to ¥4.168 million ($42,153) with a 6.27-kW system. These systems are installed by one of the nation’s largest installers, Nippon Ecosystem, which is part of Itochu Corp.

Residential battery systems remain expensive to average homeowners. To solve this issue,One Energy Corp. has just begun the nation’s first residential energy storage leasing service. Like SolarCity or SunRun’s PV leasing service in the U.S., this requires zero upfront payment to homeowners. The company is a joint venture between Orix, NEC and Epco. NEC provides lithium batteries, whose technology is used for Nissan Leaf electric vehicles.

Besides the energy storage leasing service, One Energy also offers “Yanekari (PV rooftop space leasing)” service. A homeowner can lease a storage system with 5.53 kWh of capacity at between ¥3,045 ($31) to ¥5,145 ($52) a month from One Energy while offering the roof-space to One Energy, making a monthly revenue of ¥2,500 ($25). The image below illustrates how a customer could use an energy storage system to offset the high cost of purchasing energy during peak times.




One Energy currently offers this leasing service in the TEPCO region only and is planning to expand to the Kansai region by the second half of this fiscal year and eventually expand nationwide.

NEC started mass production of residential storage systems in February. Besides partnering with One Energy, the company sells home batteries directly to homebuilders and building material distributors with the goal of selling 15,000 units during this fiscal year.

The company stated that PV homeowners will start storing PV electricity in batteries even more as the FIT rate gets lower in the future, creating a more self-sufficient and less grid-dependent environment.

It is declining, but the national government provides upfront, capacity-based rebates (¥15-20/kW) and a net FIT of ¥38/kWh on excess electricity generation for 10 years) for PV home systems. The government also currently provides a subsidy for lithium-ion battery storage for homeowners. The subsidy is one third of the installed system cost or up to ¥1 million ($10,823).

The hot and humid summer is approaching in Japan. Some of the nation’s utilities have just raised electricity rates and many of them will request that consumers limit and/or shift electricity consumption from peak to off-peak to control raising fossil fuel cost caused by the shutdown of nuclear power plants. With PV + battery systems, homeowners are moving to take energy matters into their own hands in defense against rolling blackouts and rising electricity bills.

Source: Renewable Energy World

Oups, under 0 ....

The Price of Storing the Sun: Solar Incentives for Energy Storage

Energy storage is too expensive for use in grid-tied residential solar. At least, that’s the current thinking. Though installing distributed storage in each home would help mitigate solar’s intermittent power supply, preventing large local spikes and drops in power supplied to the grid, it’s a tough financial case to make with traditional energy storage. Unlike off-grid solar, where energy storage is necessary to guarantee constant power, grid-tied energy storage mitigates system level issues caused by high concentrations of distributed renewable generation. To incentivize consumers to adopt storage as a way to mitigate this issue, a mechanism must be put in place to pass some of the value created by distributed, grid-tied storage from the system operator to end users.

Greentech Media recently published an interesting article covering this topic. They broke down some of the avoided costs and subsidies associated with residential solar systems:
SGIP: California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP). SGIP offers $2 per watt for energy storage systems, which at a four hour discharge rate is equivalent to $500 per kWh.
Federal Tax Credit: This 30% tax credit applies to solar systems, but the real question is whether this could include the battery system as well. This shaves off about a third of the system costs.
Time of use benefits: In California, PG&E offers optional rate plans where users pay less if they reduce consumption during peak hours. Batteries can be combined with this plan to offer consumers substantial savings over time. According to the Greentech Media article, the benefits from this add up to about $500 per kWh over the lifetime of the batteries.

Theoretically, this would mean that a system could cost over $1400 per kWh, or $7000 for a 5 kWh system, and still provide a breakeven value proposition for consumers under the time of use pricingoffered by the CA system. By installing the system, they would get the added benefit of having a backup power supply in the event of a blackout. It should be noted that these numbers assume the ITC benefits could apply to an energy storage system.

Residential energy storage has multiple value streams that benefit both the end users and the utilities. Incentives like SGIP are an attempt to capture these benefits, but storage must be cheap enough to stand on its own, or it must be supported by a system that charges those who receive the value. Energy storage must pay for itself or it will never be a long-lasting solution.



Source: Aquion Energy