Sandia National Laboratories has released a Request for Proposals for third-party testing of stationary energy storage applications. The deadline for application is April 3, 2015.
Manufacturers, integrators and consumers of stationary energy storage are encouraged to apply for third-party testing of storage solutions.
Sandia will determine the appropriate scale of the validation activity and the test plan to be followed, and will carry out in-house evaluation and public reporting of the results from such testing. The industrial partner will be expected to provide batteries for testing and to participate in project discussions and data review efforts.
Additional information is available at the Federal Business Opportunities website.

The Oregon Dept. of Energy is partnering with the U.S. DOE Office of Electricity’s Energy Storage Program, and Sandia National Laboratories, to offer funds for an energy storage demonstration project in Oregon. Up to $250,000 in federal funds will be matched by up to $45,000 in state funds from ODOE and Oregon BEST.
The deadline for submitting proposals is Oct. 16, and the award is expected to be announced Nov. 2.
The demonstration aims to enable installation and continuous operation of an electrical energy storage system, or ESS, with a capacity of 500kW/500kWh or greater, connected to the transmission or distribution system. No preference is given to one energy storage technology over others; however, preference will be given to projects that demonstrate two or more of the following five high-interest applications, or “use cases:”

1. T&D upgrade deferral/management of peak demand
2. Service reliability/resiliency
3. Power quality/voltage support
4. Grid regulation
5. Renewable energy firming, ramp control, energy shift

Proposals are encouraged from utilities, energy storage technology vendors, energy service suppliers and electric customers including, but not limited to, municipalities, universities, and commercial and industrial businesses. Applicants that are not electric utilities must have a committed utility partner or include a letter of support from the interconnecting utility. A minimum cost share of 50 percent is required. ODOE prefers projects that can be interconnected to the electric transmission or distribution system within 18 months of the award and the project must operate for a minimum of one full year.
More information is available from ODOE at http://www.oregon.gov/energy/Pages/energy-storage.aspx#Energy_Storage_RFP_Updates.

The NAATBatt International Board of Directors will present the 2016 NAATBatt Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service to Dr. Imre Gyuk, Energy Storage Program Manager of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Office of Electricity (DOE OE) Delivery and Energy Reliability, and Prof. Detchko Pavlov at the NAATBatt 2016 Annual Meeting & Conference’s Gala Dinner March 2, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells at Palm Springs, California.

According to the NAATBatt’s announcement of the awards, Dr. Gyuk has been central to the advancing energy storage during the past 13 years. Under Dr. Gyuk’s leadership, the Electrical Energy Storage research program within the DOE’s Office of Electricity identified and funded dozens of new stationary energy storage technologies, several of which are used today in unsubsidized, commercial projects, producing significant benefits for the electricity grid and for electricity consumers. “Without Dr. Gyuk’s leadership and the seed funding of new technologies that he oversaw and directed, it is difficult to imagine that the energy storage market we know today would look anything like it does or, perhaps, would exist at all. Dr. Gyuk and his programs epitomize the essential role of government in supporting the transition of important, new technologies from the laboratory to commercial viability in the marketplace. Dr. Imre Gyuk is the winner of the NAATBatt 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award-Public Service.”

Also receiving a NAATBatt Lifetime Achievement Award will be Prof. Detchko Pavlov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Electrochemistry and Energy Systems, for his contributions to the processes in lead-acid battery manufacture and operation, and the oxygen cycle reactions in valve-regulated lead-acid batteries.

Read more about NAATBatt’s Industry Awards here.

R&D Magazine has recognized Sandia National Laboratories researchers’ work in developing innovative battery testing with the annual R&D 100 Award.

As principle investigator of the Precision High Power Battery Tester, Dr. Summer Ferreira was presented with the R&D 100 Green Tech Special Recognition Award.

The PHPBT uses high-precision charge/discharge test measurements at up to 200A current to capture electrochemical measurements such as coulombic efficiency with greater accuracy than was previously possible at currents applicable to EV and stationary storage applications. The goal is to detect minute signs of battery degradation earlier than previous testing, providing insight into a battery’s long-term capabilities and enabling engineers to better select feasible technologies from those needing more development.

With support from the Dept. of Energy’s Office of Electricity (DOE OE) and ARPA-e, PHPBT research was done in conjunction with Arbin Instruments, Ford Motor Company, and Montana Tech. Arbin has since commercialized the PHPBT technology.

R&D Magazine presents the annual R&D 100 awards to honor the year’s 100-most innovative technologies as selected by an independent panel of more than 70 judges.

On June 12, 2017 UniEnergy Technology (UET) and Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNNL) jointly received the prestigious EPA / American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Challenge Award. The achievement being recognized is the development and commercialization of an advanced Vanadium flow battery. Using an ingenious mixed acid electrolyte, research at PNNL, funded by DOE’s Office of Electricity, over a five year period succeeded in cutting the cost of the storage system in half, doubling the temperature window, and roughly doubling the energy density. UET licensed the technology, perfected the manufacturing process, found financial partners and has started to commercialize the system. As a flow battery the UniEnergy battery separates power and energy. Power is produced in a reversible fuel cell and the energy resides in the vanadium electrolyte stored in large tanks. As a result the company was able to produce a long duration, four hour battery with long life time and little degradation. More than 100 megawatt hours of UET systems are deployed, ordered, or awarded.

The ceremony took place at Washington’s National Academy. The Green Awards Program recognizes individuals and organizations on a national level for successfully researching, developing, and implementing outstanding green chemical technologies. Five awards were presented at the event. Dr. Imre Gyuk, director of OE’s Energy Storage Program, joined the UET/PNNL team on stage during the award presentation.

The Sandia National Laboratories storage program is involved in several field validation projects using the technology. A blog providing further details on the award is available on the DOE-OE web site: https://energy.gov/oe/articles/unienergy-technologies-and-pnnl-recognized-advancing-energy-storage-national-level.

The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai‘i Authority (NELHA) in partnership with Hawai‘i Electric Light Company (HELCO), the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity (DOE-OE), the Ulupono Initiative, and UniEnergy Technologies (UET) have announced their intent to install a 100kW/500kWh advanced vanadium energy storage system (ESS) later this year at the Hawai‘i Ocean Science and Technology Park (HOST Park) administered by NELHA. Read more.

EPB has energized a 100kW/400kWh Vanadium Redox Flow Battery as part of a national research effort to explore the best use of cutting edge technologies that could be implemented across the United States to modernize the power grid. EPB’s project constitutes a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The battery system for the project is provided by UniEnergy Technologies (UET), a U.S. manufacturer. Read more.

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.

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

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.