GLOBAL ENERGY STORAGE FORECAST, 2016-24

By 2024, roughly 45GW / 81GWh of energy storage will be installed globally, excluding pumped hydro. Although this will represent a tiny fraction of total installed generation capacity, the electricity system will look fundamentally different. At utility-scale, energy storage is being used to displace less efficient generation capacity. Meanwhile, fast growing uptake in behind-the-meter energy storage looks set to transform the relationship between consumers and utilities.

Utility-scale storage deployments dominate in terms of total installed power output (MW) in 2016. They make up 84% of total installed capacity. Behind-the-meter energy storage becomes increasingly important throughout the 2016-24 period, and in 2021 it becomes the larger of the two market segments.

The top five markets are Japan, India, the United States, China, and Europe: other. They represent 71% of the global total in 2024 for storage installed.

Between 2016 and 2024, some $44bn will be invested in storage, compared to $3.9 trillion in power generation capacity.

Solar+Storage Microgrid at US Air Force Forward Operating Base of the Future
20 September 2016

SolarStorage at US Airforce Base
Ideal Power Inc., a developer of power conversion technologies, and EnerDel, a lithium-ion battery manufacturer and energy system integrator, have teamed up to create a mobile hybrid solar plus battery energy storage system for the United States Air Force aimed at reducing the diesel fuel used to power forward operating bases (FOB). Researchers in the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Dayton Research Institute recently launched the joint year-long program where they are demonstrating technologies capable of powering remote military installations that normally depend on the regular delivery of diesel fuel via convoy, often in hostile locations.

EnerDel selected Ideal Power’s Grid Resilient Multi-port 30kW Power Conversion System (30B3) for this project. EnerDel’s Mobile Hybrid Power System (MHPS) integrates the 30B3 with an 8kW tent-mounted solar array to form a portable microgrid. The project supports the U.S. Air Force’s Energy Strategic Plan, which seeks to improve the resiliency of their FOBs and reduce dependence on diesel-powered generators. The project has been successfully operating at the 319th Training Squadron’s Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training (BEAST) facility at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and is currently powering lights and air conditioning systems for ten FOB living quarters. The microgrid has been undergoing rigorous testing for the past seven months and could eventually be deployed at Air Force locations across the globe....

http://www.solarnovus.com/solar-storage-microgrid-at-us-air-force-forward-operating-base-of-the-future_N10374.html

Musk's Tesla Plans to Unveil Solar Roof With Storage, Charger in October

...Tesla Motors Inc. plans to introduce a new combination of solar power, battery storage and electric-vehicle charging systems at an event near San Francisco on Oct. 28.
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The product fits into his long-term vision of helping provide green homes that run on solar energy and use battery storage to help power systems, including charging electric cars, even after sundown. He announced in August that SolarCity is developing a “solar roof,” a roofing product that incorporates solar technology without using standard photovoltaic panels.

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Volkswagen debut I.D. concept electric car with 600 km range
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2016

Volkswagen is embarking on its journey to the future at the Paris Motor Show with the world premiere of the visionary I.D., a highly automated electric car that will be able to cover a distance of 249 to 373 miles on a single battery charge. The production version of the I.D. is due to be launched in 2020 at a price on a par with comparably powerful and well-equipped Golf models.

Volkswagen is looking even further ahead with this concept car: in “I.D. Pilot” mode, it is capable of fully automated driving, a technology that should be ready for series production in 2025. Volkswagen has also set itself the goal of selling a million electric cars a year by 2025 and the production version of the I.D. will make a decisive contribution towards this ramp-up of e-mobility.

Volkswagen has made electric mobility and fully automated driving conspicuous with its innovative exterior design language and with the interior, too: the conventional driving environment has been transformed into the interactive center of a mobile lounge, or a supremely versatile Open Space. The spaciousness of this area and the intuitive, clear functionality allow you to experience mobility in a completely new way.

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The I.D. is the first vehicle to showcase Volkswagen’s iconic new design language for compact electric vehicles. The exterior and interior design preview the year 2020 because while the vehicle is currently a concept, the I.D. is expected to be on our roads within the next four years, and its fully automated driving capability gives us a glimpse of the year 2025. Thus, the I.D. is a standard bearer for the progressive Volkswagen brand strategy called “Think New”. This strategy is based on four central areas of innovation, which are also reflected in the new Volkswagen design approach for electric vehicles:

Smart Sustainability: Volkswagen is advancing the development of innovative high-volume electric cars
Automated Driving: Volkswagen is going to make cars even safer and more comfortable thanks to automated driving
Intuitive Usability: Volkswagen has put its focus on vehicles that are intuitive to operate and feature new display and control concepts;
Connected Community: Volkswagen will interconnect humans, cars and the environment with a Volkswagen user identity in future

A vehicle concept for a new era

The I.D. is Volkswagen’s first compact concept car based on the new MEB vehicle architecture. MEB stands for Modularer Elektrifizierungsbaukasten (“Modular Electric Drive kit”) and it was conceived for pure electric vehicles....

Studied To Death — Solar Customers Don't Harm Non-Solar Ratepayers
September 27, 2016
By Tony Clifford

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...here’s the argument the utilities want to prove: Solar customers, by consuming their own energy, are avoiding paying for upkeep on the grid, which (in this argument) means those costs shift to non-solar ratepayers.
Frankly, it’s a compelling sell. If I didn’t know better, I’d probably resent solar customers, too. After all, why should solar customers get the grid for “free” while I’m paying for its upkeep?

Now that they’ve got your dander up, the utilities go in for the kill: This freeloading scenario demands that they charge solar customers special charges (monthly fixed charges, solar tariffs, etc.) so equity for all ratepayers can be maintained. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to show their claims are true.

In fact, 16 states have commissioned cost-benefit analyses on whether having solar consumers on the grid negatively affects non-solar customers (the list misses the studies in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana). Only one study has given even the hint that ratepayers are harmed (Louisiana), and that study was done by a firm so closely tied to the fossil-fuels industry as to be easily discounted.

And yet some states refuse to believe the evidence of their own studies. In recent years, Nevada commissioned two studies that showed solar is a benefit to all consumers. Earlier this year, they commissioned a third study in the hopes that it would show something different.

We’ve seen the same pattern in other states where the fossil-fuel interests are so entrenched that they can fight tooth-and-nail to keep their monopoly power on electrical distribution. Let’s take Maine for an example....

DC Court Judges ‘Very Skeptical’ of Challenges to EPA’s Clean Power Plan, NRDC Says
September 28, 2016
By Jennifer Delony


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The Clean Power Plan would put in place regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in the U.S. by more than 30 percent by 2030.

Ten judges heard the case, which was set up earlier this year for expedited processing. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed the lawsuit challenging the plan as soon as it was published officially in the Federal Register last October, and 26 states joined the suit with West Virginia. Eighteen states, along with environmental groups and power companies, became parties to the case to argue on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a statement to the press Tuesday night, Morrisey said that the arguments of the petitioners covered a “wide variety of legal defects” in the Clean Power Plan, which the EPA established under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. “If the court agrees with any one of [those defects], we will prevail,” Morrisey said.

(NRDC's) Doniger said that the court “understood that the big fiction in the [challengers’] case is that the power industry was just stable and happy delivering coal-fired power and nothing was changing until the…EPA came along with the Clean Power Plan.”
He added that the court understood that the power industry, in fact, is changing quickly and the Clean Power Plan builds on what the industry is doing already.

“The reality is that, even though the [U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS)] has ruled that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and even though SCOTUS has ruled that [111(d) of the Clean Air Act] applies to power plants, the other side is still looking for some way to avoid facing the music,” Doniger said....

Here's how the changing energy field is impacting TVA and other utility companies
September 15th, 2016 by Dave Flessner


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"The world is rapidly changing," TVA Chief Financial Officer John Thomas told a conference of TVA executives in Chattanooga on Wednesday. "It used to be we could rely upon 3 to 4 percent annual load growth, so we were continually adding major new power blocks (from nuclear, coal, gas and hydroelectric generators) because we knew we would need them sometime in the future. With the significant changes we are seeing now — and the potential of even negative load growth in a few years — it makes all of us very concerned about making any long bets."

Energy conservation, appliance efficiency and self-generation has combined to cut per capita consumption of electricity in most households as Department of Energy efficiency standards have improved the performance and reduced the power consumption for everything from electric washers and dryers to electric light bulbs and computers. The summertime power peak reached by TVA this year was 7 percent below that reached in 2007, even though temperatures were the same and TVA has added thousands more residential and commercial customers over the past nine years.

"In California, our economy continues to grow, but we haven't had any real growth in electricity demand in 20 years, and we're now seeing negative growth in power demand," said Geisha Williams, president of Pacific Gas & Electric, one of the nation's biggest electric utilities with more than 5 million customers.

Williams said the decoupling of economic growth and electricity usage has come from state policies, technology changes and consumer preferences. California already has 250,000 rooftop solar installations where homes and businesses generate their own electricity or heat their own water. More than 6,000 new rooftop solar units are being added every month.

"We have a new rooftop solar installation added about every seven minutes ...