Overview of the energy storage solutions presented at the event

The energy world is fundamentally changing towards increasing renewable energy capacities.

The growing attention to environmentally-friendly power supply solutions was evident in the remarkable turnout at the Intersolar Europe 2023 industry event, which brought together over 100 thousand participants from 166 different countries. Given that the event was focused on the topic of ensuring the possibility of round-the-clock clean energy consumption, quite a few energy storage solutions were presented. 

So, we are sharing an overview of the energy storage solutions and the main trends in the technology in an expert review from Ievgen Didichenko, co-investor and CBDO of KNESS.

• Who are the main stakeholders of the technology?

Electricity producers from renewable energy sources

Combining the operation of solar and wind power plants with energy storage allows producers to settle imbalances that arise as a result of unstable operation of photovoltaic or wind farms and errors in forecasting electricity generation. In addition, producers can use energy storages to accumulate electricity during its peak production, when the grid cannot accept the corresponding amount of energy, and subsequently sell this stored electricity during peak consumption hours. This is extremely important, as it allows renewable energy producers to optimize the sale of their products, namely electricity. It solves one of their main problems – the incapacity to increase their market share and generation volumes due to restrictions by the grid operator during certain operating hours due to the need to balance the daily schedule as a whole.

Consumers

Electricity storage systems can provide consumers with a sustainable energy resource and at the same time optimize the electricity consumption price.

• What is the most common technology among exhibition solutions?

Almost all of the solutions presented were short-term energy storage solutions based on lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) technology. The main focus of these solutions is on household and small commercial segments. Medium-term/long-term energy storage technologies are still at the research and testing stage. However, we are confident that long-duration energy storage will soon move to the commercialization stage and market entry. This is because this tool will make it possible to implement the energy transition

• What trends and noteworthy aspects of the ESS category can be identified?

The exhibition featured both manufacturers that develop individual components of energy storage systems and those that assemble systems from available components.

LFP technology is quite easy to scale. Since such items consist of cells that are assembled into battery modules, depending on the scale, the modules can be assembled into systems of different sizes and capacities. Selecting different combinations of series and parallel connection of battery modules, manufacturers presented systems with different voltages from 700 to 900 V or even 1500 V.

Battery systems that are connected in parallel in modules with high capacity at low voltage (3.2 V) were presented. Such modules are combined a centralized PCS (inverter) via separate modular DC/DC converters. This approach eliminates the need for a separate active balancing system, but the economic feasibility of such a solution should be taken into account.

Among the exhibitors, one particular solution stood out with a noteworthy advancement in unit capacity for battery cells. We are talking about a battery with a 560 Ah cell. Therefore, in the general trend, the unit capacity of cells remains at the level of 100 — 300 Ah.

• ESS safety solutions

Quite a few ESS manufacturers use liquid cooling, which, on the one hand, makes the solution sealed and compact, but on the other hand, can reduce system reliability by adding new risks and technical complexity.

Interestingly, one of the companies presented a solution that monitors gases that are products of electrolyte decomposition, claiming that this approach to detecting incorrect operation of LFP batteries allows to prevent damage at early stages and avoid situations with cell combustion or explosion.