Energy storage

Four US energy firms have planned an $8 billion wind storage project that includes a 1.2GW compressed air storage system.

The companies, Pathfinder Renewable Wind Energy, Magnum Energy, Dresser-Rand and Duke-American Transmission, plan to construct a 2.1GW wind farm in Wyoming to bring power to Los Angeles in California. High voltage lines would send the electricity to a salt-cavern compressed air site in Utah and then be released at times of peak demand in the Los Angeles area.

Southern California Edison (SCE) commissioned the largest lithium-ion battery storage system in North America on 24 September at its Monolith substation in Tehachapi, California.

The utility plans on running the 8MW/32MWh facility for the next two year to test the performance of the batteries in real-world conditions. It will also test how to automate and integrate the operations of the storage facility and its power onto the grid.

The first stage of California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) flagship energy storage target will be fully procured, according to the Commissioner responsible for its implementation.

In October 2013 CPUC approved a mandate requiring the state’s three large investor-owned utilities – Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric - to procure 1.325GW of energy storage by 2020. CPUC will issue in December its first competitive solicitation for the scheme, and with 136MW up for grabs demand is expected to be strong.

Australia’s solar industry has established the Energy Storage Council, an industry representative body for the country’s energy storage firms.

The council is aimed to bring companies together and promote standardisation across the energy storage industry, PV-Tech reports.

California’s energy storage firm BioSolar and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) are to partner for the development of polymer-based supercapacitors.

The partners aim to develop supercapacitors for reducing the cost of storing energy from solar power.