Page 14 - ESJ – ENERGY STORAGE JOURNAL

NEWS

UK deploys country’s first Pb-A and

Li-ion hybrid ESS for peak shifting

A 325kWh hybrid lead from the University of Infinite Renewables was of battery innovation to
acid and lithium ion energy Southampton, delivered the the lead member, and In- help create the best condi-
storage system has been 100kW bi-direction power novate UK the fund holder tions for battery companies
deployed in the UK to de- conversion unit, and the for the project. The Uni- to grow.”
liver peak shifting services battery management system versity of Sheffield was the There have been a few ex-
through a partnership that comes from energy storage lead academic partner for amples of lead and lithium
includes the Infinite Group, specialist Swanbarton. the project, contributing used together: GS-Yuasa
University of Sheffield, In- Peter Stephenson, sen- PV inverter hardware and has been supplying dual
novate UK and GS Yuasa, ior technical co-ordinator software. chemistry telecoms base
the companies announced at Yuasa, told ESJ: “For Andy Bush, chairman of station systems in Asia
on February 6. the same power output — ILA, said: “In Europe alone, since 2015; Hoppecke has a
The ADEPT (advanced 100kW for example — it demand for battery energy large scale demonstration
multi-energy management is possible for us to supply storage is set to jump by at system in Germany; and
and optimization time- four hours of dual chem- least 10 times in the next German start-up BOS in-
shifting platform) was built istry storage for the same few decades. We need gov- tends to deploy 20,000 hy-
at GS Yuasa’s manufactur- price as two hours of pure ernments to focus on poli- brid battery units in the fu-
ing facility in Ebbw Vale, lithium ion storage.” cies that support all forms ture.
Wales. The ADEPT concept —
The platform includes a consisting of micro-grids Monbat granted licensing
75kWh lithium-ion bat- with a variety of genera-
tery system of 36 GS Yuasa tion types and storage in rights to bi-polar technology
LIM50 modules alongside the range of 200kW to
a 250KWh valve regulated 2MW — is being expanded Bulgarian lead acid battery garia.
lead acid battery system of to nine sites in Wales with firm MonBat announced on The plan has been put in
240 Yuasa SLR500 cells. support from the Welsh Eu- February 20 it had acquired front of Vratza municipal-
HiT Power, a spin-off ropean Funding Office. the licensing rights to the ity “to research the local
full suite of GreenSeal bi- authority’s interest in such
polar technology from Ad- future projects”, a state-
“In Europe alone, demand for battery vanced Battery Concepts, ment says.
energy storage is set to jump by at least the US firm that has six MonBat Group, which
10 times in the next few decades.” companies on its books. began life in 1959 with a
lead-acid battery plant,
It follows the announce-
ment the firm plans to build now has recycling plants
Lead battery consortium a 2.4GWh bipolar lead bat- and also makes lithium-ion
batteries.
tery plant in Vratza, Bul-
refocuses to break lithium
domination of ESS market Wirtz deal opens nickel zinc battery
manufacturing using lead processes
The Advanced Lead Acid be a huge spike in demand
Battery Consortium, the for this mainstay of battery US lead battery equipment uses for production to
organization charged with energy storage technology.” designer and manufactur- allow Zaf to manufac-
coordinating research into A feature of the consor- er Wirtz Manufacturing ture nickel zinc batteries
lead battery development, tium will be greater collabo- has invested an undis- with traditional lead acid
has re-launched with plans ration with governments, closed sum into start-up processes.
to promote the chemistry’s leading research universities Zaf Energy Systems, the Wirtz CEO John Wirtz
use in energy storage sys- and industry, together with nickel-zinc battery maker said the partnership
tems. the introduction of more announced on February came after experiments
Along with a name change demonstration projects, 14. with Zaf’s electrodes had
to the Consortium for Bat- demonstrating the capabil- Zaf will use the un- showed its plates could
tery Innovation, the organi- ity of lead batteries in new disclosed seven figure be produced at similar
zation is preparing to unveil applications. investment to expand its production rates as that of
new research plans and a In early 2017, GTM Re- manufacturing capacity lead acid technology.
programme of work pro- search published a report on from hundreds of batteries Last year, Zaf received a
moting lead batteries for the state of the US energy a month to up to 2,000 pledge from the Missouri
energy storage applications. storage market through batteries a month in its Department of Economic
Alistair Davidson, CBI di- 2016. Joplin, Missouri, facility. Development Fund for
rector, said: “There is a real The study found lithium The investment involves $600,000 to spend on
potential for innovation to ion accounted for 95% of cash, equipment and the staff, expand production
develop advanced lead bat- deployed systems in the internal processes Wirtz and new partnerships.
teries to meet what is set to grid-scale battery market.

12 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2019 www.energystoragejournal.com