Morning Brief: First-of-a-kind utility plan could transform Southeast grid, energy storage news

Also in the brief: Zinc batteries from Eos, flow batteries from Invinity, residential storage programs from Arizona Public Service and Green Mountain Power.

October 9, 2020 Eric Wesoff

The Arizona Corporation Commission approved the state’s first residential battery storage program — an incentive pilot proposed in August by the Arizona Public Service Company. Green Mountain Power (GMP) said its growing network of stored energy in Vermont, including home batteries and other resources, has reduced customer costs by about $3 million so far in 2020. The Arizona pilot will offer incentives of $500 per kilowatt of installed storage, up to $2,500, with the intent of encouraging Arizona residents to purchase and install energy storage, according to ACC commissioner Lea Márquez Peterson. The budget and size of the pilot remains to be determined. Advocates for the solar and storage industries hope the new incentive will serve to encourage more residents to install storage alongside rooftop solar — pairings they say have lagged behind overall solar adoption. Source: Utility Dive

The California Energy Commission (CEC) selected UK-based Invinity Energy Systems for funding as part of an initiative for long-duration, non-lithium energy storage with the use of its vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) technology. CEC also awarded modular microgrid energy solution company, BoxPower, a $1.2 million dollar grant to further develop its software and hardware solution at 15 microgrid sites in California.The CEC received 23 proposals and selected eight for funding, with four of the winning eight including VFBs supplied by Invinity. The project sites in California are comprised of 7.8MWh of Invinity VFBs. Invinity’s long-duration batteries will be paired with renewable energy to perform services including peak shaving, demand charge reduction and provision of back-up power. Source: Power Engineering

Eos Energy Storage expands battery deployments in Nigeria: Eos, a manufacturer of safe, low-cost, and long-duration zinc battery storage systems, announced an expansion of its partnership with Nayo Tropical Technology., a West African mini-grid engineering, procurement, and construction company. Eos will deploy additional units of its systems, rated at 125 kW/500 kWh, to four rural microgrid projects in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2021. Eos recently executed a letter of intent for a merger with a SPAC Source: T&D Engineering

First-of-a-kind utility plan could transform Southeast grid: Utilities in the Southeast are rallying behind a surprising cause: a new electricity market that could boost renewable energy in a region still dominated by fossil fuels.The push from the area’s energy giants to buy and sell their excess electricity could help them meet net-zero carbon targets but also change a business model they have relied on for decades. The so-called Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM) would expand one major utility company’s trading system to create a platform for buying and selling excess wholesale electrons every 15 minutes.The effort could open pathways for clean energy to the Southeast’s dominant investor-owned utilities: Dominion Energy Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and Southern Co. Also involved are public power providers Tennessee Valley Authority, Missouri-based Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. and Santee Cooper. Souce: E&E News

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