A new Sandia software, called Quest, can help utility companies and corporate project developers assess how much money adding an energy storage system will save them.
The QuESt news release “Sandia app assesses value of energy storage for businesses, utilities” was published on May 19.
So far the release has been picked up by the Albuquerque Journal, KRQE (Albuquerque’s CBS affiliate), KOAT (Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate), PV Magazine, Daily Energy Insider, ScienMag, Bioengineer and more.
A Federal energy project funded through the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity has initiated workshops designed to help state utility regulators determine best practices in policies to enable carbon-free energy storage technologies and, in particular, long duration energy storage, as renewable energy standards ramp up towards a fossil free grid.
Alliant Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Iowa Economic Development Authority are jointly supporting a battery-storage solution in Decorah, Iowa that aims to connect customer-owned solar while maintaining reliable electrical service across the community.
Yuliya Preger, PhD, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Energy Storage Technology & Systems at Sandia National Laboratories, whose work is centered on the safety and reliability of lithium-ion batteries for grid-level energy storage applications, recently conducted an interview with Battery Power Online. They spoke about the role of the Energy Storage Technology & Systems department at Sandia National Laboratories, how modeling helps predict and prevent LIB safety failures, and where she believes the battery safety field is headed.
Prof. Sanjoy Banerjee of City College of New York and City University of New York Energy Institute, Sandia National Laboratories, Urban Electric Power, Inc., Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy Office of Electricity, Energy Storage Research Program won the 2019 US Environmental Protection Agency Green Chemistry Challenge Award in the Academic category. The team was recognized for creating large-scale zinc-manganese oxide batteries that can be recharged thousands of times without the typical decrease in the length of the battery’s life-time. These batteries do not have some of the limitations of lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, and they use materials that are abundant and common in existing supply chains. Sandians Tim Lambert, Mathew Lim, Igor Kolesnichenko, and Babu Chalamala, along with Prof. Igor Vasiliev from New Mexico State University were also involved in this research project.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, along with Dr. Imre Gyuk, Director of the Energy Storage Program at the Office of Electricity, Department of Energy, and members of the Sandia National Laboratories Energy Storage Systems team, were in Cordova, Alaska for the ribbon cutting of Cordova Electric Cooperative’s battery energy storage system. The goal for the Cordova Electric Cooperative is to be 90% renewable by 2025.
https://www.webcenter11.com/content/news/Cordova-cuts-ribbon-on-new-energy-future-511104161.html
The Sterling Municipal Light Department is marking a major milestone related to the department’s two energy storage systems. In March, SMLD celebrated over $1 million in avoided costs to the light department, thanks to the two systems.
“We would like to thank our partners who made all of this possible,” said SMLD General Manager Sean Hamilton. “They include SMLD commissioners, staff and operations crew, along with the Town of Sterling; Judith Judson from Mass. Department of Energy Resources; Dr. Imre Gyuk of the U.S. Department of Energy; Daniel Borneo and Dr. Raymond Byrne of Sandia National Laboratories; Todd Olinsky-Paul of CEG and CESA; MMWEC; Scott Reynolds, of Reynold’s Engineering LLC ; Mike Barrett of PLM; Josh Teigiser of Origis Energy; Sachin Patel of Last Mile Energy, Arlen Orchard and SMUD for project technical information, and Jared Carpenter and Jim Frawley for grant technical information.”
https://www.telegram.com/item/20190419/sterling-light-storage-units-mark-milestone
Babu Chalamala, manager of Sandia’s Energy Storage Technology and Systems Department, provided testimony at the State Capitol in Sacramento, on Feb. 13, at a State Assembly briefing on Zero-Carbon Grid by 2045.
The well-attended briefing, hosted by a former LLNL scientist and current Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D-Hayward), sought to explore the challenges California must address as it moves towards its zero-carbon electricity grid and 100 percent renewable generation goals by 2045.
Babu was asked to provide an overview of current and future energy storage technologies that will be necessary to accommodate the influx of intermittent renewable generation into the grid, as well as the role of bulk storage and distributed storage. Other panels and speakers included executives from the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, California Independent System Operator, SoCal Edison and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Sandia National Laboratories has improved the predictability of lithium-ion battery safety through understanding the common aspects of thermal safety over a diverse range of safety-related measurements. A series of two open-access articles in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society describe recent work funded by the Office of Electricity Energy Storage Program.A model is developed that provides improved predictions based on a diverse range of safety-related measurements available in the literature including a change in the heat-release behavior responsible for more rapid heating at higher temperatures. This accelerated heat release at higher temperatures must be considered for thermal runaway models to yield meaningful predictions of cascading failure scenarios, which are of concern for grid-storage applications as well as for backup power applications and also electric vehicles. The enhanced model yields excellent predictions of laboratory-scale calorimetry measurements from many researchers published over two decades, encompassing graphite samples with material properties spanning the range utilized as negative electrodes in commercial lithium-ion cells.
Full length papers at: http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/165/16/A3878.full.pdf+html; http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/165/16/A3891.full.pdf+html
On October 24, 2018, the Hon. Bruce Walker, from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity, came to Sandia to discuss his department’s mission and goals. Mr. Walker discussed the Office’s role in meeting the Nation’s growing demand for reliable electricity by overcoming the challenges of an aging electric grid and addressing supply chain vulnerabilities. Watch the video.