energy storage systems

A partnership to advance lithium-ion fire safety and standardisation in India begins this month with a training and knowledge-sharing virtual seminar on electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

The event will bring together key fire safety stakeholders, including those in fire services, academia, associations, standards organisations and research institutes, among others.

The seminar is the first event following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by safety science leader Underwriters Laboratories and the National Fire Service College (NFSC).

NFSC is an Institute of Excellence for training fire and emergency service professionals in Nagpur, India. 

UL and NFSC will explore collaborative opportunities with other regulatory organisations relating to battery fires in electric mobility (e-mobility) and grid energy storage systems.

The two organisations signed the MoU on 30 July as part of the ongoing fire research study ‘Battery Fires: Study of Response Strategy of Indian Fire Services’. 

Dr. Judy Jeevarajan, director of the Underwriters Laboratories Electrochemical Safety Research Institute, said: “Given India’s accelerated use of lithium-ion batteries, it is critical for the nation’s fire services to be prepared with the right knowledge, equipment and infrastructure to handle any emergency fire situations.

“This collaboration is a major step towards creating battery fire safety awareness.”

The NFSC memorandum builds upon an ongoing partnership between UL and the government of India that include a MoU with the Bureau of Indian Standards to strengthen India’s standardisation system. 

UL battery safety experts will lead a training workshop in November on the various safety aspects of lithium-ion batteries and discussions will begin on the development of a battery fire safety NFSC course curriculum.

Power generation firm Vistra has completed the second phase of its record-breaking lithium-ion energy storage systems in Monterey County, US.

The 100MW expansion of the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility brings the facility's total capacity to 400MW/1.6GWh— the largest of its kind in the world.

The battery system is being used to bolster reliability to California's grid using technology from LG Energy Solution.

Curt Morgan, chief executive officer at Vistra said: "This facility provides a solution California desperately needs and this expansion was able to come online at the right time, as the summer heat intensifies and demand for electricity is at its highest. 

“The state's laudable immense build-out of intermittent renewable power has both lowered emissions and presented a reliability challenge. 

“Our Moss Landing battery system helps to fill the reliability gap, storing the excess daytime power so it doesn't go to waste and then releasing it to the grid when it's needed most." 

The project was announced 15 months ago, with construction started in September 2020.

Phase one of the project, a 300MW/1.2GWh system made up of more than 4,500 stacked battery racks or cabinets, was connected to the power grid and began operating on 11 December.

The site has the space to support even further expansion up to 1.5GW MW/6GWh using Vistra’s existing site infrastructure, including existing transmission lines and grid interconnection. 

The 100-MW/400-MWh Phase II expansion is operating under a 10-year resource adequacy agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). Phase I has a similar 20-year resource adequacy agreement with PG&E.

Earlier this month, Florida Power and Light's (FP&L) announced its Manatee Energy Storage Center in Manatee County, Florida was 75% complete, with 100 of its 132 battery units installed and all 132 inverters in place. 

When the Manatee site is completed and connected to the grid at the end of this year it will have capacity of 409MW/900MWh.

Repurposing lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles (EVs) into energy storage systems can help meet the world’s power needs as early as 2030, research by Greenpeace East Asia shows.

The organisation is calling for manufacturers to track the sale and re-collection of all their batteries, and introduce life cycle as a core performance metric for product design, emphasising standardisation and recyclability. 

Construction has begun on the world’s biggest utility-owned lithium-ion energy storage systems by California, US, -based Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Tesla.

Work on the 182.5MW/730MWh system at PG&E's electric substation in Moss Landing, Monterey County will be designed, constructed, and maintained by PG&E and Tesla, and will be owned and operated by the US utility.

German manufacturer Tesvolt is supplying 2MWh of its lithium-ion energy storage systems to Europe’s largest electric car charging park in the German state of Hilden.

The ESSs at Kreuz Hilden junction park will deliver power to 114 charging stations, including 40 V3 Tesla Superchargers and 22 fast charging stations from Dutch supplier Fastned with a combined charging power of up to 350kW.