There is no doubt that 2014 was one of the best years in regards to positive energy storage. The prices of lithium-ion batteries are continually dropping and new technologies are surfacing, ensuring that the future will be littered with clean energy technologies.
The best performing and most definitely the standout of the year is California. The state has been one of the biggest proponents of pushing renewable energy forward and has even continued to push on with its 2020 mandate of 1.3 GWh.
Each of the companies on this list are leading the way in terms of energy storage and are assisting local governments across the U.S. to improve their regional renewable industry.
Top ten energy storage events of 2014
- The LCR or Southern California Edison’s Local Capacity Procurement would get the top spot due to its power constrained region in West Los Angeles Basin. In November, the SCE produced a total of 250MW of storage which is five times above its mandated requirement.
- SGIP or Self-Generation Inventive Program in California takes the second spot because of its role in distributing multi-megawatt consumer-owned storage projects. $415 was signed by California Governor in June to keep this project going all the way to 2019.
- Last May, a new ruling from the California Public Utilities Commission required investor-owned utilities to align their battery-packed solar systems with the new meter scheme. This was a big win for Tesla and SolarCity.
- GTM published a report called The Future of Solar-Plus-Storage in the US stated that it is very likely the US will generate over 318 MW of behind the meter solar-plus-storage capacity installations before the year 2018 is over. This would surpass the total of $1bn by the end of the year.
- On the East Coast, cities struck by Superstorm Sandy (such as New York City) focused on redirecting millions of dollars towards the installation of new energy storage systems. The thermal energy storage systems will be connected to backup generators.
- Tesla announced in September that they were opening a new plant in Nevada and aimed to invest up to $5bn to double the production of lithium-ion batteries. These would primarily be used for Tesla’s vehicles but 15GWh annually will go to the stationary energy storage market.
- Advancements to aid the areas where lithium-ion batteries fail were successively launched in 2014. $1bn investment in inorganic types of lithium-ion batteries was announced by Alevo, Ambri announced plans to develop liquid metal batteries, and Aquion announced their developmental plans for sodium-ion technologies.
- AES Energy Storage launched the Advancion modular energy storage system. This would bring to reality a 100 MW battery project alongside a gas-powered Alamitos Power Center. This would start the trend of replacing natural gas-powered peaker plants with grid-scale batteries.
- 2014 also saw some failures and in this case the year saw the bankruptcy and closure of Xtreme Power and Silent Power. LightSail had to lay off several staff members back in April.
- MESA or Modular Energy Storage Architecture was launched in October. UL Standards – these are for energy storage policies – were also introduced in November and GTM Research has joint hand in hand with the Energy Storage Association to keep providing updates in the industry.
This article was originally published by Eddy Buckley on AmericanSolarQuotes.com
