Germany dominated the annual ees Awards that honours innovation in the energy storage markets from lead and lithium batteries to fuel cells and battery chargers.
Six of the ten finalists in the ‘Electrical Energy Storage’ category were from Germany, with two of the three winners hailing from the European country.
The 2021 winners were: SAX Power (Germany), Commeo (Germany), and Enphase Energy (US).
The virtual awards ceremony was held online on the first day of The smarter E Industry Days on 21 July 2021.
Manufacturers SAX Power, Commeo, and Enphase Energy impressed the international panel of experts with their “revolutionary, scalable and robust” solutions.
The winners and finalists will be showcasing their innovations at The smarter E Europe Restart 2021 at Messe München from 6 to 8 October.
Start-up power
Start-up SAX Power was recognised for its digital AC lithium-ion battery storage that uses novel electronic circuits that connect the battery cells by cascading H-bridges.
The solar storage units are made up of 120 battery cells with a nominal capacity of 15-ampere hours and a nominal voltage of 3.2 volts each for a total capacity of 5.8kWh.
The international panel of experts unanimously agreed on the “revolutionary aspect of the integrated DC/AC conversion and battery management system that has very high conversion efficiency and the potential to significantly change the design of battery storage systems for domestic use”.
48V applications
Commeo has developed energy storage solutions for 48-volts and applications up to 800 volts that can be scaled from 1.1kWh to several megawatt hours.
This highly modular solution combines various basic components: two cell formats with pouch and cylindrical cells, four different cell types, a control unit, and housing.
The modularity and configuration options— with up to 400 variations possible, including high-voltage applications— offered by the system were commended by the judges panel of experts.
The standardisation, flexibility, and ability to meet the specific needs of different types of users were also awarded high marks, as was the impact for small- or large-scale commercial applications.
Commeo uses renewable energy sources in the production process.
Modular battery
Enphase Energy designs and manufactures domestic and commercial solar storage solutions.
Its Encharge system is a fully scalable, modular battery storage solution based on micro-inverter architecture that can be grid-connected or work as a backup or off-grid system.
The Encharge 3T base unit has a usable battery capacity of 3.5kWh and a nominal charge/discharge power of 1.28kW.
Three base units combine to form an Encharge 10T storage system with a total energy capacity of 10.5kWh.
The panel of experts was impressed by the “unique, safe, and robust approach” that has relevance for markets suffering from an unstable power supply and harsh climate conditions.
The finalists
The finalists of the ees AWARD 2021 in the Electrical Energy Storage category were:
Commeo (Germany)
Enphase Energy (US)
Fenecon (Germany)
Leclanché (Switzerland)
LG Energy Solution (South Korea)
LogBATT (Germany)
SAX Power (Germany)
Siqens (Germany)
TWAICE Technologies (Germany)
Xelectrix-Power (Austria)
