market leader aes energy storage projects strong future growth - electrical energy storage systems

In early August, I stored energy in North America (ESNA)
Meeting in San DiegoOne key take-
He left the keynote address of Ronald Nichols, president of Southern California Edison.
On one occasion, he categorically asserted that there was a viable and cost for every utility represented by the participants in the crowd
Today there are valid storage opportunities somewhere on their grid.
It's a revolutionary statement and something that surprised most industry observers a few years ago.
However, this statement may not surprise the leader of AES Energy Storage.
Those of us who have a long memory will remember that AES has been providing utilities all the time.
For more than a decade, projects deployed, under construction or under development in seven countries have expanded the size of storage projects.
The company currently has the largest lithiumion battery-
Global energy storage projects (
30 MW and 120 MW)
-Establish partnership with San Diego Gas and Power Company (SDG&E)
To help meet peak power demand within the Southern California service area.
AES Energy Storage also shows that it has delivered more than 4 million MW of power
Service time so far.
Any other competitor in the battery storage space has no record of remotely approaching this.
Given the importance of AES Energy Storage in the market, it is still very small, consisting of about 70 core team employees focused on the development of storage solution platforms.
AES sells its advon on energy storage platform and related services to multiple customers, including utilities and regional business units of AES (
Parent company of AES Energy Storage)
In 17 countries, utilities such as SDG & E and Arizona public services, as well as other entities undertaking the development of power projects.
The company now wants to strengthen and consolidate its first-mover advantage, recently announcing the flux-
Joint venture with Siemens.
To learn more about the organization's goals and to learn a little bit about the direction of the storage industry, I sat down with John zakhulank, president of AES Energy Storage, have a short conversation at ESNA.
Joining forces with Siemens zahurankk-which has been in the business since its inception more than a decade ago-is keen to discuss the logic behind Fluence, the newly established 50/50 joint venture between AES and Siemens
He pointed out that Siemens has brought two major advantages: the existing global influence complements the existing business of AES in 17 countries (
Owns assets such as power plants and distribution companies)
Strengthen ties with the commercial and industrial markets (
So far, AES Energy Storage is mainly concentrated in the utilities market).
Last year, the business unit also established partnerships with Mitsubishi and Eaton to help expand its advon on storage project to more overseas markets, especially in Asia.
Zahurankk commented that Fluence trading is a natural extension of its global expansion strategy.
Market opportunities will soon be found, where do he think the biggest market opportunities are and how will the global storage market develop?
Zahurankk noted that the company first screens the market for locations and customer types that may get high value from storage.
In many cases, this is to determine the cost of avoiding investment in new infrastructure for electricity networks.
In other words, how expensive would the next best solution be if storage was not inserted into the picture?
Answering this question and determining the economics of potential projects often requires building a complex business case because the storage itself is dynamic: It's about when and how much it costs
Compared to the depth and time you release the asset and the resulting value, the asset is charged.
Do you want capacity (
Multi-kilowatt quick release)or energy (
In the form of kilowatts for a longer period of time)
Or a combination of the two?
In fact, the answer may be all of the above, and the value proposition may change as new resources (
Renewable energy or other)
Add to the grid.
This flexibility and how it adds flexibility is at the heart of energy storage.
Another challenge is that the market is also dynamic: prices change with changing supply and demand dynamics.
Some parts of the opportunity can appear or disappear as quickly as other resources (
Particularly large assets generated)
Retire or add.
In addition, some of the storage conditions can also be changed by the quick and ruthless tapping of the regulatory pen-good or bad.
Behind these dynamics that affect the speed and scale of the market is the basic demand for fast, clean and flexible power resources to support the aging grid and the new world of renewable energy generation.
Zahurankk pointed out that the first profitable Beach position for energy storage is often very short --
Duration applications such as frequency regulation: provides services that instantly charge/discharge to keep the grid stable.
However, as the cost of the battery and the system continues to decline, storage becomes appropriate and the cost goes down.
Effective for a wider range of applications.
Zahurankk said that the market has become really popular, and the market in many parts of the world is now at this turning point.
Zahurankk claims that storage is now ready to compete with some traditional assets.
Limitations of the traditional natural gas plant zahurankk commented that in some cases, the fossil plant can be modified to tilt up and down faster and fulfill some of the same responsibility as the battery.
In fact, it has recently been discussed how to transform and improve traditional fossil power plants such as natural gas combined cycle facilities.
By combining the new digital solution with operator training, operational flexibility can be improved.
These plants can ramp faster than conventional thermal power plants and respond to market opportunities such as providing limited duration capacity support or more ancillary services.
However, he observed that there was a limit to the thermal power plant.
In some cases it may even make sense to pair the storage with the gasfired plants.
AES recently announced a hybrid natural gas
The combustion facility, combined with storage, the Alamitos plant, will eventually have a gas on 1,284 MW-
Thermal power generation of 4-300 MW
Battery storage time (hours)1,200 MWh)
Serving Southern CaliforniaThe gas-
The first 100 MW of the new facility is already under contract and the capacity will be available to Southern California Edison under the age of 20
Annual electricity purchase agreement.
Zahurankk commented that we may see more of these commercial hybrids in the future, as they are designed for the high degree of flexibility that the grid needs increasingly.
At the same time, he noted that there was an increasing number of conversations about integrating storage and different renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar energy.
AES is currently developing a large solar/storage project on Kauai island, Hawaii-28 MW of solar energy paired with 5 MW of 20 MW of solar energy --
Duration of energy storage (100 MWh)
-That's it.
But he warned that there are no hard rules yet.
Changing market opportunities and new technologies in fact, there is no hard rule for storage applications throughout the global market.
Zahurankk said that due to the rapid changes in battery technology and the decline in cost, the Panorama continues to change, the continuous development of power grids-especially the accelerated penetration of wind and solar energy-and the changing regulatory decisions of various countries and countries.
Therefore, it takes experience to understand the best use and help utilities and other companies make the most of grid-scale storage.
Just because an opportunity was not feasible a few years ago does not mean that it will not have results today.
With increasing global familiarity and confidence, business cases are expanding rapidly.
Zahurankk ecosystem, a supplier of batteries and components, requires flexibility and advantages, indicating that the company is also constantly researching the application of new technologies, many of which are coming soon. Being a long-
Solution Provider (
The contract term is far more than ten years)
Allowing AES to integrate new technologies into its advon on platform, the architecture of which is specifically designed to accommodate this progression.
In fact, zahurankk points out that even if you do not know exactly how these technologies or specific market opportunities will play out, you must proactively anticipate the development of these technologies.
Unlike Tesla, Tesla has received supply of Panasonic batteries from many of its products
AES Energy Storage is touted as a gigabit factory and it prefers to stay more flexible and open
Ecosystem Approach, constantly testing batteries and components and selecting the bestof-
Growing from a fast-growing global market, like the solar industry a decade ago (
China will dominate in the near future).
The company has four or five different battery suppliers, their technology is actively deployed, and the products of several other companies are being evaluated.
Although it has some select suppliers, they have a long time
Zahurankk said that a certain degree of flexibility is important and desirable.
The biggest obstacle to further expansion is that zahurankk is very optimistic about the future of global energy storage and sees it as a market that has just begun.
In fact, the biggest obstacle today, he says, is not cost.
Effective opportunities
The biggest problem is that the market is not yet aware of the huge potential of storage solutions.
We can do more storage than today, just cost.
It takes time like the diffusion cycle of any product.
This needs to be recognized.
In some cases, you don't know that you have a problem if you don't know that there is a solution.
All of a sudden, it's like penicillin or antibiotics: once you know it's there, you'll find it can cure any disease.
Zahurankk claims that the only magic bullet to rapidly expand storage is very simple: "It's familiar.
However, with the existence of more evidence points, the previous "niche" products gradually moved to the mainstream.
"These are use cases," he said, "which makes the next round of adopters braver and use it on a larger scale in more squares and ways on the grid.
They can see that energy storage is "not as far away in the future as they think . "