Exploring 2019 Trends In Solar, Energy Storage, & e-Mobility - CleanTechnica

January 19th, 2020 by Sponsored Content 

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By Wes Doane, Intersolar North America

To ensure we deliver a compelling, relevant, and actionable conference experience this February, the Intersolar North America team has been watching how the solar, energy storage, and e-mobility industries evolved over the past year. Dive into the top trends shaping each of these markets below.

Solar Trends to Look Forward To

Analysts predicted that the global solar market would surpass 100 gigawatts (GW) in 2019. 2.7 gigawatts of solar were installed in the first quarter, which made it the quarter with the most solar ever installed in US history. Recent growth has been driven in part by the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which was decreased at the end of 2019 and motivated companies to close deals prior to the deadline.

Corporate procurement and renewable energy commitments from companies like Google and Apple continued to surprise market analysts as a major market growth driver in 2019. Corporate procurements made up nearly 25% of 2018’s projects and are expected to have made up 17% of projects in 2019.

In the past decade, US solar has grown from 25 GW to an estimated 663 GW by the end of 2019. According to BloombergNEF, that’s enough to power nearly 100 million homes in the US.

Looking Ahead

With carbon-based electric generation contributing approximately 30% to the US’s total greenhouse gas emissions, there’s a major opportunity to decarbonize the energy sector with renewables. In the 2020s, state, municipal, and corporate procurement will continue to drive market expansion as more cities announce renewable energy goals and the cost of solar continues to drop.

Energy Storage Trends that are Driving Innovation

The decline in battery technology costs is driving market growth for the energy storage industry in 2019, with lithium prices expected to fall 45% by 2021.

In Q1 of 2019, the market achieved a record-breaking 232% growth. Part of that growth can be attributed to a surge in residential storage in 2018, with deployments quadrupling year-after-year due to the increase in state-level incentive programs for solar-plus-storage projects. Despite recent residential market growth, utility-supply storage continues to stand as the largest market segment. According to SEPA, investor-owned utilities deployed the most storage of any utility type, contributing approximately 64% of megawatt-hours interconnected to the grid last year.

Emerging Battery Technologies

While lithium-ion continues to prevail as the leading battery technology (especially for electric vehicle applications), other alternative technologies continue to diversify the sector. Variations of lithium-ion (like lithium-sulfur) and innovative technologies (such as zinc-related batteries and gravity storage) are becoming more popular and—in some applications—more cost effective than traditional battery technologies.

Looking Ahead

In the next five years, experts forecast the energy storage industry will grow tenfold—becoming a $5.4 billion market. They expect that this new market expansion will be spurred by a continued decline in technology costs and an increase in state and local sustainability mandates and incentive programs.

E-Mobility Acceleration Continues!

The growth of the electric vehicle (EV) industry has quickly accelerated since its start just over 10 years ago. Last year, global EV sales reached more than 7 million vehicles, while the US sold around 330,000, Europe sold around 580,000, and China sold around 1.2 million in 2019 alone. The growth in sales is largely due to automakers expanding their electric model lines in addition to falling battery prices that increase the affordability of EVs for modern consumers. Reports show that lithium-ion battery prices have decreased an estimated 87% since 2010, considerably reducing the price point of EVs.

Market Expansion

The 2019 EV market goes beyond personal vehicles to include fleets, buses, and even ridesharing vehicles. There is a wide variety of stakeholders contributing to the growing number of zero emissions vehicles, including:

• Large corporations like UPS and Amazon, which are leveraging EVs to electrify their fleets of delivery vans.
• Ridesharing companies like Lyft, which are incentivizing drivers who own electric vehicles.
• Cities that are introducing electric buses to their public transportation systems—a market that experts predict to triple by 2025.

Looking Ahead

With the number of EVs on the road increasing, it is critical to build EV charging infrastructure that supports the expanding EV market. To smoothly transition to our electrified mobility future, many cities are investing in e-mobility infrastructure to cut emissions from transportation and help meet sustainability goals. For example, the New York Power Authority has invested $250 million in an initiative to deploy DC fast chargers in key areas to support local EV drivers.

Drivers will soon rely on ultra-fast charging methods. As a result, utilities and power providers will look for solutions to support the growing demand for power without overwhelming the electric grid.

Keep Learning

What do trends for the solar, energy storage, and e-mobility markets mean? See our full 2019 Market Trends article to get key takeaways.

Interested in learning more? Get up-to-date information on emerging technology, policy, and trends at Intersolar North America by registering for our February 4–6, 2020 event today.

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About the Author: Wes Doane is the Event Director of Intersolar North America. Focused on B2B event sales and management, Wes has deep expertise in the solar + energy storage and finance and accounting industries. He lives in Maine with his wife and two children, and still finds time to surf once or twice a year.

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Samsung drastically cuts Galaxy S20 storage options - Notebookcheck.net

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Sanjiv Sathiah, 2020-01-19 (Update: 2020-01-19)

I have been tech-obsessed from the time my father introduced me to my first computer, an Apple ][. Since then, I have grown to enjoy exploring and experimenting with any computing platform that I can get my hands on – I am the definitive early adopter! I have always been interested in how we can use technology to shape and improve our lives, most recently using it to record, mix and master my debut record, Acuity – Nature | Nurture out now on Spotify.

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GEEK TO ME: Follow best practices on file storage - Odessa American

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GEEK TO ME: Follow best practices on file storage  Odessa American

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WCSO: Woman arrested in fatal Glade Spring storage unit fire - Bristol Herald Courier

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Secondary Markets and Smaller Self-Storage Investors - Inside Self-Storage

With the self-storage development boom in overdrive the last few years, the majority of new construction has been focused in large, tier-one markets. Some of these markets, such as Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston, Texas; and Nashville, Tenn.; have brought in upward of 20 percent additional self-storage space. No doubt about it—there’s a lot of supply out there!

Headlines touting how great self-storage is have caused many new investors to jump onto the bandwagon. Over the past few years, the industry real estate investment trusts have been igniting development and inspiring others to build or buy. But they’re focused primarily on large, high-population markets. If you look where their newest projects are going up, you’ll see they’re in the cities incurring the fastest job and population growth.

Due to the high yields self-storage can generate, there’s still a lot of sideline capital pointed at larger markets. That capital is chasing newly constructed multi-story locations sold at Certificate of Occupancy or once a property is north of 50 percent physical occupancy. For small investors, it can be advantageous to let institutional money chase and fight over these deals, while the rest of us focus on the properties and markets that are off that radar screen.

With a glut of industry growth taking place, new development opportunities are now largely in the secondary and tertiary markets. But how do you know where to go? Let’s look at some key considerations.

Choosing a Market

By nature, self-storage is a submarket product. For example, in my company’s portfolio, about 86 percent of customers live within 3.2 miles of their storage location. With that in mind, it’s important to focus not on a city or region, but on a particular submarket.

This makes sense for another important reason: The majority of U.S. self-storage facilities (about 62 percent based on the last statistic I saw) are still owned by independent operators who have only one location. Most of these independently owned sites are in smaller markets. They’re attractive for small investors because they generally aren’t chased by institutional money and often have room to expand.

In fact, most of the facilities that will go up for sale in the next decade are drive-ups that were constructed in the 1980s through the early 2000s. They’ll be ripe for repositioning and expansion. These kinds of deals can provide value-added opportunities that will produce desired yields.

As these promising facilities come available, you want to look for sound submarket fundamentals. In addition to examining current supply and the amount of storage available per capita, look at population and growth trends, along with median household income and education level. Here’s what I recommend:

• Look for population of 35,000 to 40,000 or more, if possible. Population growth doesn’t have to be in the double digits, but you want to make sure the market is growing.
• Annual household income can vary, but on average, I like to see $45,000 or more.
• It’s important to look at education level. Job growth is a sure bet in technology and service sectors, and some higher education is usually required to achieve the level of future household income we want to see in a market.

You don’t have to be in a large market like Atlanta or Chicago to have strong fundamentals for self-storage. In fact, given that larger cities are where most new supply has been developed, the best opportunities to buy or expand a property are often in the outer belts and bedroom communities of these larger cities as well as in tier-two and tier-three markets.

The Time Is Now

The next decade or two should be strong for self-storage based on increasing consumer demand and population growth. You just need to be smart about where you seek opportunities. For the immediate future, this most likely means secondary markets.

When’s the best time to get into or grow a self-storage business? Yesterday. But if you didn’t do it already, that time is now. Be strategic, know your numbers and apply strong submarket fundamentals. In doing so, you’ll increase your odds of enjoying a long, successful industry career.

Mark Helm is a commercial real estate agent and self-storage investor. He began working with real estate investment trusts in the mid-1990s to locate and purchase self-storage properties before striking out on his own. He’s the author of “Creating Wealth Through Self-Storage” and the creator of “Storage World Analyzer,” a cloud-based, financial-analysis software tool designed to help self-storage operators and investors evaluate potential real estate acquisitions or development projects. To reach him, e-mail mark@helmproperties.com.

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Faith leaders, lawyer: Wage theft rampant at local cold storage facilities - Monitor

McALLEN — They keep hearing the same stories: Workers in cold storage facilities in McAllen and the surrounding area are routinely paid less than the minimum wage.

“Wage theft is an epidemic in the Valley,” said Kathryn Youker of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. She added: “People are getting robbed. It’s our neighbors, our family members.”

Youker on Friday was joined by faith leaders Elisa Alfaro of Holy Spirit parish in McAllen and Valley Interfaith and Dayra Campos of San Juan Diego Church, where they compared working conditions at some local cold storage facilities to being treated “like slaves.”

They called on the city of McAllen to ensure no company that pays workers under the minimum wage, or is guilty of wage theft, receive incentives from the city. They also called on the city to crack down on wage theft and labor abuses. A substantive meeting with McAllen Economic Development Corporation President Keith Patridge has already commenced, they said, and a meeting with McAllen City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez is expected next week.

“We have heard stories from our church, who have earned $4 or $6 an hour,” Alfaro said. She added that employers have been “forcing workers to work long hours without overtime pay.”

The main storage facilities in question are at the McAllen produce terminal on West Military Highway, where trucks weave in and out of loading docks, moving limes, nopales, tomatoes and much more. The produce terminal has not been immune to criminal behavior.

A company operating out of the terminal, Vermex Produce, was hit with federal sanctions in 2018, which all but ended the company’s time at the terminal. Previously, a federal judge ordered the same company to pay $120,000 after financial issues.

Companies could be in trouble with wage theft and other labor abuses, Youker said.

“We’ve received over 200 requests for labor abuses,” Youker said, adding that 86 of those were related to wage theft.

“Workers who do come forward are often able to recover damages,” she said. “And it’s always confidential.”

mferman@themonitor.com

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Storage and Networking Bytes: PCIe5, OpenShift, and Veeam - Datanami

(spainter_vfx/Shutterstock)

Welcome to Storage and Networking Bytes, a new Datanami feature dedicated to covering the latest in storage, networking, and backup technology. In this inaugural column, we’ll take a look at Red Hat’s new software-defined storage, Rambus’ PCIe5 progress, and the $5-billion acquisition of Veeam by a private equity firm.

Let’s start with PCIe5, the spec for which was finalized in early 2019. Now manufacturers are now getting revved up to produce PCIe5 hardware in 2020, which will be a boon for data- and processor-hungry workloads like machine learning and AI, as well as high performance computing (HPC) workloads that rely on GPUS, FPGAs, and ASICS to process data.

The original specs called for PCIe5 to be able to move data at speeds up to 64 gigabytes per second in each direction in a 16-lane configuration. That’s double the data rate of PCIe4, which hit the market in the 2016 timeframe. The PCIe5 rate is half the speed of the PCIe6, which is expected to debut in 2021 with 128 GB/s of bandwidth across a 32-lane bus.

Rambus is one of the first chip manufacturers to incorporate PCIe5. In November, the company announced its new PCIe5 interface controller and associated code, which can plug directly into products that meet version 5.2 of the PIPE (PHY Interface for the PCI Express) standard.

(Quality-Stock-Arts/Shutterstock)

“Our high-speed SerDes [serializer/deserializer]and memory interface solutions make possible amazing advancements in performance-intensive applications in AI, data center, HPC, storage, and networking,” said Hemant Dhulla, vice president and general manager of IP cores at Rambus. “Now we’ve added PCIe 5 to our industry-leading portfolio of high-speed interface solutions giving chip makers another tool to unleash the power of their designs.”

Red Hat Delivers Options with Container Storage

Red Hat this week announced OpenShift Container Storage 4, a new release of the company’s Ceph-based software-defined storage product that runs atop containers. With this release, Red Hat has bolstered the storage offering with the addition of a multi-cloud object gateway obtained with its 2018 acquisition of NooBaa.

Red Hat says the new technology creates a higher abstraction level, which gives customers the flexibility to select different data services across multiple public clouds, all from a Kubernetes-based control plane. In other words, Red Hat’s customers can move their Red Hat-based block, file, and object storage services among AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure clouds, without succumbing to the vendor lock-in that would otherwise result from using the default storage options offered by those cloud players.

The new release is expected to be a boon for users looking to move foraed with cloud storage on Kubernetes. According to IDC analyst Eric Sheppard, Red Hat is succeeding in positioning OpenShift Container Storage as the default storage option for OpenShift users.

“Red Hat integrated its persistent storage services as first class citizens into the OpenShift Container Platform, enabling customers to build the next generation of storage-intensive applications technology with many years of enterprise deployment success,” he stated in a Red Hat press release.

Veeam Bought for $5 Billion

The industry is still digesting news last week that Insight Partners has acquired cloud backup vendor Veeam Software for $5 billion. The New York City-based private equity firm invested $500 million in Veeam last year, and it liked the Switzerland-based software outfit and its story of hybrid data management and cloud backup so much that it decided to buy the whole thing.

It’s great news for Veeam, which was founded in 2006 by Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov and released its first data backup and replication tool for VMware virtual machines in 2008. Over the years, the company has expanded its offerings to the point where it was the largest backup vendor in EMEA and the fourth largest worldwide, behind DellEMC, Veritas, and IBM. In 2019, it launched enterprise backup solutions for AWS, Azure, and Office 365, and ended the year with more than 360,000 customers, accounting for 81% of the Fortune 500. Its revenues exceeded $1 billion.

Insight made some immediate changes, including appointing Veeam’s EVP of Operations, William Largent, to be its new CEO. The new owner will also move Veeam’s headquarters to the United States as it looks to take Veeam to the next level.

“Veeam’s platform is the most advanced and complete data management solution available to businesses requiring a seamless blend of data backup and recovery, data protection, data security, and data availability,” said Mike Triplett, the managing director of Insight Partners.

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Container Interface Delivers Persistent Storage - Datanami

As application containers took off in the mid-2010s, persistent storage emerged as a key barrier to adoption. With containers now entering the mainstream for handling machine and deep learning applications, more vendors are focusing on storage interfaces that can link huge data volumes along with flash memory to container orchestration platforms.

Among them is VAST Data, which this week announced general availability of a container storage interface designed to deploy and manage storage services across a range of standard container platforms. Along with making the shift to flash memory more affordable, the company said Thursday (Jan. 16) its storage interface enables “programmatic provisioning” of persistent storage volumes on container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift.

(Separately this week, Red Hat released its latest version of OpenShift container storage, billed as an “enterprise Kubernetes platform” linking to data services offered by multiple public cloud vendors, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). The accompanying object storage and scaling are touted as supporting data-intensive Kubernetes workloads running across hybrid cloud deployments, Red Hat said.)

VAST Data’s interface builds on the New York-based storage vendor’s “universal storage architecture” released in February 2019. The framework incorporates 3D Xpoint and quad-level cell flash memories along with NVMe-over-fabric.

The company said its storage algorithms are designed to reduce the cost of transferring data to those flash technologies, thereby enabling all-flash applications running in containers.

Jeff Denworth, VAST’s co-founder and vice president of products, said the storage platform implements storage CPU pooling and remote direct memory access to boost the performance of persistent storage volumes backed by the Network File System protocol. The result is a storage interface suited to leveraging containers for AI and other data-intensive workloads.

“We can now enable enterprises to bring all-flash performance and capacity at the price of [hard-disk drives] to container platforms that have adopted” VAST’s container storage interface, Denworth added.

The company further claims its container interface can stream data into single containers at a rate of nearly 9 Gb/sec., or four times the speed of legacy network-attached storage. Early customer testing of VAST’s storage interface driver and its underlying framework yielded a three-fold performance boost over all-flash storage-area networks.

The combination of persistent storage with all-flash technologies and storage fabrics also underscores how Kubernetes and various public cloud storage frameworks such as Amazon S3 are overtaking traditional approaches like Hadoop for applications like training AI models.

VAST Data’s storage interface driver for Kubernetes is available on Docker Hub.

Recent items:

AIOps and the Kubernetes Revolution

More Databases Running in Containers, Survey Finds

Cloud Looms Big for Big Data in 2020

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US battery storage prospects lifted by policy progress, cost reduction - S&P Global

Battery storage deployment in the US is set for a rapid acceleration from 2020. That is one of the key takeaways from the latest S&P Global Platts Analytics’ US Power Storage Outlook, released to clients on December 18.

In addition, while megawatt deployments in 2019 were at 2018 levels, the storage duration of battery storage assets increased in the past years, pointing to new usages.

State policies and peaking capacity needs will remain the major drivers of near to medium-term battery deployments. Platts Analytics expects more than 13 GW of utility-scale battery storage to be commissioned by 2024 in the US.

US LARGE-SCALE BATTERY STORAGE MARKET
SET FOR FAST GROWTH

Battery storage queue builds in NY

While 2018 saw new states (New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York) enacting policy support for battery storage, New York in 2019 launched its $280M financial incentive program targeting both large and small-scale facilities.

In response, developers flooded the New York Independent System Operator interconnection queue adding around 5 GW of battery capacity, with 70% of projects in downstate New York where pressure will increase to phase out old fossil fuel peaking power plants. In October 2019 the permit for a New York City project up to 316 MW/2,500 MWh or 8-hour of storage duration was approved, to replace sixteen existing fossil fuel-fired peaking units.

In 2019, the battery storage in interconnection queues maintained by wholesale power market operators (known as Regional Transmission Organizations, RTOs, and   Independent System Operators (ISOs) grew exponentially, with more than 70 GW of capacity, up from 25 GW at end-2018. However, some of the largest procurements announced were outside ISO regions (for instance in Nevada and Florida). Nevada has a long pipeline of projects, including a massive 690 MW solar PV/380 MW battery project by 2024.

Battery storage projects are making their way into an increasing number of utility Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs), as battery costs come down, technology offering becomes more mature and the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar (and associated storage) remains in place. Grid operator PacifiCorp, which serves Oregon, Washington and California, had no battery storage in its 2017 IRP, but its 2019 IRP includes 600 MW of batteries paired with solar PV by 2023.

Batteries and wholesale power markets

Increasing participation in wholesale markets will support deployments, facilitated by the implementation of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 841, which aims to level the playing field between storage and other energy resources. But further issues remain. FERC approved or partially approved a string of Order 841 compliance filings late last year. In the case of NYISO, for example, FERC approved in part and rejected in part the operator’s compliance filling, asking for further compliance filling by May 1, 2020.

In the case of PJM, the long-discussed 10-hour requirement for full capacity participation in the capacity market led FERC to open a paper hearing on the “unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential as applied to Capacity Storage Resources”. With this requirement, battery storage owners have to de-rate their asset capacity: a four-hour duration battery will receive capacity revenues for 40% of its capacity. Beyond FERC Order 841, uncertainty remains around the interconnection and participation of hybrid generation, such as solar plus storage, in the wholesale markets.

Frequency regulation remains the primary use case, even in California where curtailment has been increasing. However, these markets are typically shallow and will saturate. New deployments will have to tap into new revenue streams (price arbitrage, operating reserve, capacity, transmission and distribution grids support), as we have seen happen in the UK and Germany, and will have a greater impact on wholesale markets. In ERCOT, the very low reserve margin is prompting several developers to look at merchant projects to provide reserve and energy. Sustained low reserve margins and renewable deployments will create multi-GW economic potential for battery storage in ERCOT, as identified by Platts Analytics’ modelling.

Go deeper: Request a copy of Platts Analytics’ US Power Storage Outlook/European Power Storage Outlook

Alternative storage technologies have been in the news in the past months with Sofbank’s $110M investment in EnergyVault’s mechanical system, NEC and Ambri’s partnership to deploy liquid metal battery technology or the announcements around liquid air storage, or hydrogen storage in salt caverns in Utah.

However, we believe lithium-ion batteries will continue to dominate the market in this decade, as the electric vehicle market is helping to increase manufacturing capacity, in turn continuing to drive down prices. Alternative technologies may emerge from serving niche markets as longer-duration needs become more prevalent.

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Canada’s e-Zn Raises Millions to Commercialize Long-Duration Zinc Energy Storage - Greentech Media News

Canadian startup e-Zn has raised money to store clean energy far longer than currently available batteries allow, using cheap and abundant zinc.

On Wednesday, the company received CAD $2 million ($1.5 million) in non-dilutive grant funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, a federally funded body charged with vetting and funding cleantech hardware innovation. E-Zn used an earlier CAD $700,000 SDTC grant to build a demonstration that paired the zinc storage with a solar array. The new funding is to turn the current product iteration into a containerized package, test it in the field and refine it for manufacturing.

That builds on a CAD $3.4 million seed round announced last week. Chicago-based evergreen fund Energy Foundry led the round, joined by Toronto's MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Sustainable Chemistry Alliance and Emeraude Capital. 

“We’ve got the funds, now it's about execution,” said CEO James Larsen.

The long duration storage sector writ large has an execution problem; technologies that work in the lab, like flow batteries, have had trouble breaking into a market at price points competitive with mass-produced lithium-ion batteries. When exactly market demand will pick up for longer-term energy storage is an open question, though the proliferation of intermittent renewables will make it more valuable over time.

E-Zn’s strategy is to keep costs low with an unconventional design based on a cheap active ingredient. The current form factor is geared toward 24-hour storage or longer, and the company will go to market in remote communities that stand to benefit by offsetting diesel generator usage.

“When you can engage customers with an economic proposition that eliminates the fossil fuel, cleans their local environment, and delivers energy in a more affordable way, it’s a no brainer,” Larsen said.

From there, e-Zn will pursue resilience applications in developed markets, and in the latter part of the decade, chase bulk grid balancing in high renewables markets.

Turning electricity into metal

The zinc energy storage device invented by scientist and e-Zn founder Gregory Zhang differs from both typical batteries and flow batteries.

"I’d be willing to guess we’ve seen hundreds of storage ideas," said Energy Foundry Managing Director Sara Chamberlain. "When I saw what they were doing, I had never seen anything like that."

It consists of a cell slightly larger than a desktop computer. Charging happens at the top, where an electric current precipitates pellets of zinc out of an alkaline electrolyte solution. Windshield wiper-like elements scrape off the pellets, which fall to the bottom of the cell. To discharge, the device pulls in air and dissolves the zinc back into solution.

Each cell currently packs 100 watts of power capacity, capable of 24-hour or 48-hour discharge, depending on size. The power and energy ratios can be customized by adjusting the surface area of the charging and discharging electrodes, and the volume of electrolyte and zinc, respectively. That quality helps keep long duration storage costs down compared to lithium-ion batteries, which have a fixed ratio of power to energy capacity. 

The design is notable for two other features. It does not need a membrane to separate the charging and discharging areas, because it uses gravity; the wipers dislodge the zinc nuggets and they fall to the bottom, where they sit until discharge.

That's important, Chamberlain noted, because membranes have proven costly and complicated to develop for other long duration technologies, including flow batteries. Side-stepping that kind of engineering lowers costs for e-Zn and simplifies the development cycle.

The nature of the cell also ensures that the storage device won't lose its charge over time, Larsen explained.

Lithium-ion cells inevitably self discharge, so they'll lose their charge after sitting around for a while. But the zinc cell can't dissolve the metal bits unless the device introduces air and draws the charge out. That means any renewable electricity stored inside will still be waiting when the owners need it. The e-Zn cell also does not suffer capacity fade like lithium-ion batteries, Larsen added.

Burden of proof

After years of big aspirations and limited success, mere promises of low-cost and competitive alternatives to lithium-ion count for very little. Like bits of zinc floating in solution, they hold potential, but need additional steps to convert it.

For e-Zn to deliver, it needs observable field deployments that convince initial customers to take a risk on a new technology. E-Zn has a pathway to initial deployments with the SDTC grants.

The first demonstration connected a 5-kilowatt solar array to a 1 kilowatt/24 kilowatt-hour stack of cells; it's been operating since April 2018. The newly granted $2 million will help bring the cells into commercial manufacturing, and package them into a 5 kilowatt/240 kilowatt-hour containerized unit.

The next step will be translating the prototypes into an efficient manufacturing process. This is where Chamberlain believes the relative technical simplicity of the Zn Reactor will give it an edge against better known and more highly funded long-duration ventures.

"It’s a solution with a charge that runs through it and it precipitates out metal or dissolves it," she said. "It was much more of a manufacturing play than an electrochemical play."

That simplicity also convinced Larsen, when he was considering whether to join the company as CEO in the summer of 2018.

"I assessed the technology component by component — Can this actually be as cheap as the founders claim?" he recalled. "Yes. It’s commodity materials and tried, tested and true engineering processes.”

Assuming e-Zn clears those hurdles, it will have to hope that an actual market for long-duration storage greets it on the other side. Utilities are buying batteries that can go for four, five, sometimes six hours, but little traction has emerged for longer duration systems.

The economics are more favorable in remote or island grids, where renewables and storage are beating imported diesel on price. And the more solar and wind pack into mature energy markets, the more incentive developers will have to save the booms in production for hours when generation peters out.

"We fundamentally had the thesis that there was a need for long duration," Chamberlain said. "If you want to get to that future state, you have to make the investments now."

At least some customers are starting to share that view, and have requested proposals for storage beyond what conventional batteries can offer, Larsen said. As he sees it, the needle already is starting to move toward long duration. Conditions should only be more favorable in a year or two, when e-Zn hopes to push into the market.

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The Roll Up: Weekly Self Storage Development News 1.15.20 - The SpareFoot Storage Beat - SpareFoot

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The Roll Up: Weekly Self Storage Development News 1.15.20 - The SpareFoot Storage Beat  SpareFoot

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Oregon Legislature Once Again Discusses Safe Firearms Storage - OPB News

Oregon politicians are once again considering legislation requiring safe firearms storage.

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees met in a joint session Wednesday and discussed legislation requiring gun owners to secure their firearms when not in use.

The legislation would also require gun owners to report a stolen weapon within 72 hours of learning it is missing or face liability for any damages.

In 2018, a team of researchers at the RAND Corporation looked at how different kinds of gun laws impact homicides and suicides. The lead researcher on that study said they found that safe storage laws can reduce the number of lives lost to suicide and unintentional injury.

“In a moment of crisis, means matter,” said Dr. Ben Hoffman, a professor of pediatrics at the OHSU School of Medicine and an expert in child injury prevention. He addressed the committees Wednesday.

“Having access to lethal means, like a gun, massively increases the risk of death by suicide,” Hoffman said.

Safe storage legislation was part of a package of gun control bills considered in last year’s legislative session, but Oregon Gov. Kate Brown sacrificed those efforts in order to gain Republican support for education funding.

If safe storage doesn’t make it through the Legislature this session, it might be put to the voters. Oregon-based gun safety group State of Safety Action filed an initiative petition in July 2019 to put a safe firearms storage law on the November 2020 ballot.

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Cold Storage Company Buys NORPAC Plants . News - OPB News

A federal bankruptcy judge approved the conditional sale of three former NORPAC plants in the Salem area Tuesday.

That follows months of uncertainty for the farmers’ cooperative in the Willamette Valley. NORPAC was a big employer and a major processor of fruits and vegetables.

A global cold storage company known as Lineage Logistics plans to buy the facilities for $49 million.

Not all the plants will reopen, though. Another company intends to consolidate operations down the road.

The sale is conditional on the resolution of preexisting labor contracts.

This story will be updated.

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De-clutter in the New Year? Solana Beach Storage and Morena Storage have solutions for San Diego County resid - Rancho Santa Fe Review

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

Now that it’s the New Year and the rapid succession of fall-to-winter holidays has passed, it’s time to get more organized and properly store holiday decorations away.

Most people enjoy breaking out decorations to add a little festivity during the holidays. But sometimes that trip to the garage can leave you scratching your head — like where did you store the holiday decorations or that special set of holiday place settings? Or who put the big tabletop turkey in with the Halloween costumes? There are simple ways to get more organized, and Solana Beach Storage has some strategies for getting organized in the New Year — and storing things properly to help take some stress out of 2020 holidays to come.

Number one? Store it. According to Ellen Wayne, marketing manager of Solana Beach Storage, organizing and storing items helps take stress out of the holidays. “Decorations can be bulky and large,” she says. “They can be put into a storage room and out of your garage. You can also store your holiday table settings — like plates, napkins, tablecloths, special cutlery and platters. Get all of that out of your kitchen. You may have special holiday linens for your guest beds or your children’s beds, or special winter clothing and equipment for your holiday trips. Put all of it in our storage room, labeled with special color-coded bins or labels. So that the moment you walk into your storage room, it is very organized and you can visually see what you have. We also provide free shelving in your storage room if you would like to create walkable aisles as well.”

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5 Star Storage has two area locations: Solana Beach Storage, 545 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach, (858) 755-5550. Morena Storage, 908 Sherman St., San Diego, (619) 299-4444. Visit www.5starstorage.com and the self-storage facilities are currently offering a special deal of 50 percent off one month or 50 percent off two months, depending on the storage-room size.

(Courtesy Photo)

Still, carting all your stuff to a storage facility can be a hassle, right? Well, not so much if you go to Solana Beach Storage. “We strive to increase joy and reduce all stress for our customers the moment they pull up to our facility,” Wayne said.

How do they do it? Well, first, they have a greeter at the front counter who signs in customers with a smile and hands them a cold water bottle. Then, customers are offered coffee, tea and a homemade chocolate chip cookie and chocolate candy. “We are happy to help our customers in any way while they visit their storage room,” Wayne said. “That includes helping customers unload their car or lifting and loading things out of their storage room.”

“Our customers tell us they love to store their holiday items primarily to free up their living space,” Wayne said. “They want to pull their car into their garages, instead of filling their garage with holiday items. Because of our two very convenient locations — in the heart of Solana Beach and our Morena Storage facility located right off Interstate 5 freeway at SeaWorld Drive — it’s easy to swing by and load up the car with items, and to even make a couple of trips over the course of a few weeks.”

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While some may think all storage companies are essentially the same, that is not the case. Several things make Solana Beach Storage and Morena Storage stand out from its competition.

First, it has the largest staff of any other storage facilities in the United States. Second, they’re solar-powered facilities, which means they have bright LED lights in the hallways and storage rooms to provide a better environment. Third, they don’t just offer a free truck, they offer a helper to go with it to carry or load the heavy stuff. And fourth, their office hours are identical to their business hours. That means customers are never alone in the facility — ever.

So if you’re still feeling a little overwhelmed at the very thought of organizing, where do you start? Wayne has a few tips: “The first step is to identify what items in your home and/or garage could be stored. What rooms in your home could be free of clutter and used for living instead of storing? Once you have identified this, then the second step is to call us. Our helpful staff will talk with you about the process and ask you a few questions about your items.”

The facilities are open seven days a week and welcomes curious visitors who want a tour, and someone’s always on hand to figure out the size of the room needed, what kind of packing materials (like lots of bubble wraps for fragile ornaments), and how many boxes are called for. All that’s left after that is scheduling a move-in day.

Solana Beach Storage and Morena Storage also readily have small, medium and large boxes for purchase. The boxes are high-quality cardboard that can be used for long-term storage. The facility always provides a special “free truck and helper” with every storage room rented. And you can also reserve a truck in advance.

Solana Beach Storage is currently offering a special deal of 50 percent off one month or 50 percent off two months, depending on the storage-room size.

5 Star Storage has two area locations: Solana Beach Storage, 545 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach, (858) 755-5550. Morena Storage, 908 Sherman St., San Diego, (619) 299-4444. 5starstorage.com

— Business Spotlight features commercial enterprises that support this publication.

Advertisement

5 Star Storage has two area locations: Solana Beach Storage, 545 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach, (858) 755-5550. Morena Storage, 908 Sherman St., San Diego, (619) 299-4444. Visit www.5starstorage.com and the self-storage facilities are currently offering a special deal of 50 percent off one month or 50 percent off two months, depending on the storage-room size.

(Courtesy Photo)

5 Star Storage has two area locations: Solana Beach Storage, 545 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach, (858) 755-5550. Morena Storage, 908 Sherman St., San Diego, (619) 299-4444. Visit www.5starstorage.com and the self-storage facilities are currently offering a special deal of 50 percent off one month or 50 percent off two months, depending on the storage-room size.

(Courtesy Photo)

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Woman accused of breaking into storage unit, stealing boxes - Brownsville Herald

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Woman accused of breaking into storage unit, stealing boxes  Brownsville Herald

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Storage And Memory At The 2020 CES, Part 2 - Forbes

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Energy Department Launches Challenge for Next-Gen Storage Technologies - Nextgov

The Energy Department is launching a comprehensive program to accelerate the development and use of next-generation energy storage technologies across the United States and advance the nation’s global leadership in the space. 

Through its new Energy Storage Grand Challenge, the agency will coordinate a range of research and development funding opportunities, prizes, partnerships and other activities to meet a variety of power-storage-focused goals over the next decade. Energy also anticipates that the program will support its ultimate vision of maintaining a secure domestic supply chain independent of critical materials from foreign sources by 2030. 

"Energy storage is key to capturing the full value of our diverse energy resources," the agency’s Secretary Dan Brouillette said in a statement. "Through this Grand Challenge, we will deploy the department's extensive resources and expertise to address the technology development, commercialization, manufacturing, valuation, and workforce challenges to position the U.S. for global leadership in the energy storage technologies of the future."

Energy’s range of cross-cutting activities will be managed by the agency’s Research and Technology Investment Committee, which was mandated by 2018 legislation and established in 2019 to identify and support a variety of science- and technology-focused research and development opportunities. Through the grand challenge, the department aims to coordinate numerous funding opportunities, prizes, partnerships, and other programs to meet a strategic set of targets over the course of the next decade. According to the agency, those objectives include:

• Establish ambitious, achievable performance goals, and a comprehensive R&D portfolio to achieve them.
• Accelerate the technology pipeline from research to system design to private sector adoption through rigorous system evaluation, performance validation, siting tools, and targeted collaborations.
• Develop best-in-class models, data, and analysis to inform the most effective value proposition and use cases for storage technologies.
• Design new technologies to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and recyclability, and to reduce dependence on foreign sources of critical materials.
• Train the next generation of American workers to meet the needs of the 21st-century electric grid and energy storage value chain.

Energy will soon launch a request for information to garner public insights on pertinent issues that should be addressed through the challenge. Agency officials will also host a series of workshops to address barriers and boost the deployment of various storage technologies and grid applications. 

“This work will inform the development [of] a coordinated [research and development] roadmap to 2030 for a broad suite of storage and flexibility technologies,” officials said. 

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Azelio Signs MoU for Energy Storage Project in Jordan - PRNewswire

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Azelio has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Jordanian company Hussein Atieh & Sons Co. (HAE), to work together on setting up a small-scale project in Jordan. The project paves the way for a commercial collaboration of about 25 MWe of Azelio's energy storage technology in the Jordanian market until 2023. This capacity is forecasted along the following timeline: 50 kWe in 2020, 3 MWe in 2021, 7 MW  in 2022 and 15 MWe in 2023.

The first project will have a capacity of 50 kW with 13 hours of storage and will be installed in Jordan Q4 2020. The identified preliminary end-user has submitted an Expression of Interest (EoI) to assess Azelio's technology for the supply of electricity to a steel factory. The system is intended to offset the factory's electricity consumption during peak hours. The initial plant will demonstrate the technology's capability in the given application at the client's site and is intended to be followed by additional capacity in 2021 for a larger offset of the client electricity bill.

Both parties' intention is for HAE to become one of Azelio's sales, installation and O&M partners in Jordan. HAE is a privately owned general contracting firm which in the last six decades (since 1961) successfully has executed several projects of varied and complex disciplines throughout Jordan. HAE is certified as a first-class general contractor in Jordan covering several disciplines in electromechanical works and infrastructure projects. HAE is interested in Azelio's technology for long-term storage hours applications. Azelio's aluminum-based storage solution dispatches electricity when needed around the clock. Fully charged, the storage system produces electricity for 13 hours at nominal power.

"We are very pleased to start out in Jordan together with HAE by proving our technology's ability to offset high on-grid electricity costs. This is a very interesting segment for us as it has strong commercial drivers," says Azelio's CEO Jonas Eklind.

"The renewable energy in Jordan and Middle East has seen tremendous development in the last years. The pioneer technology of Azelio will unleash further potential in the renewable energy market. HAE is confident that it together with Azelio will enable customers to operate efficiently by having 24/7 renewable energy supply," says HAE's General Manager Assistant Mohammed Atieh.

For further information, please contact:

Jonas Eklind - CEO 
Email: jonas.eklind@azelio.com   
Tel: +46-709-40-35-80

Ralf Wiesenberg - VP Business Development
Email: ralf.wiesenberg@azelio.com
Tel: +34-699-30-86-36

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/azelio/r/azelio-signs-mou-for-energy-storage-project-in-jordan,c3006343

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Azelio

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Azelio Signs MoU for Energy Storage Project in Jordan - Yahoo Finance

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Azelio has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Jordanian company Hussein Atieh & Sons Co. (HAE), to work together on setting up a small-scale project in Jordan. The project paves the way for a commercial collaboration of about 25 MWe of Azelio's energy storage technology in the Jordanian market until 2023. This capacity is forecasted along the following timeline: 50 kWe in 2020, 3 MWe in 2021, 7 MW  in 2022 and 15 MWe in 2023.

The first project will have a capacity of 50 kW with 13 hours of storage and will be installed in Jordan Q4 2020. The identified preliminary end-user has submitted an Expression of Interest (EoI) to assess Azelio's technology for the supply of electricity to a steel factory. The system is intended to offset the factory's electricity consumption during peak hours. The initial plant will demonstrate the technology's capability in the given application at the client's site and is intended to be followed by additional capacity in 2021 for a larger offset of the client electricity bill.

Both parties' intention is for HAE to become one of Azelio's sales, installation and O&M partners in Jordan. HAE is a privately owned general contracting firm which in the last six decades (since 1961) successfully has executed several projects of varied and complex disciplines throughout Jordan. HAE is certified as a first-class general contractor in Jordan covering several disciplines in electromechanical works and infrastructure projects. HAE is interested in Azelio's technology for long-term storage hours applications. Azelio's aluminum-based storage solution dispatches electricity when needed around the clock. Fully charged, the storage system produces electricity for 13 hours at nominal power.

"We are very pleased to start out in Jordan together with HAE by proving our technology's ability to offset high on-grid electricity costs. This is a very interesting segment for us as it has strong commercial drivers," says Azelio's CEO Jonas Eklind.

"The renewable energy in Jordan and Middle East has seen tremendous development in the last years. The pioneer technology of Azelio will unleash further potential in the renewable energy market. HAE is confident that it together with Azelio will enable customers to operate efficiently by having 24/7 renewable energy supply," says HAE's General Manager Assistant Mohammed Atieh.

For further information, please contact:

Jonas Eklind - CEO 
Email: jonas.eklind@azelio.com   
Tel: +46-709-40-35-80

Ralf Wiesenberg - VP Business Development
Email: ralf.wiesenberg@azelio.com
Tel: +34-699-30-86-36

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/azelio/r/azelio-signs-mou-for-energy-storage-project-in-jordan,c3006343

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/16031/3006343/1172648.pdf	Pressrelease Azelio MoU Jordan
https://news.cision.com/azelio/i/azelio---solution,c2734875	AZELIO - Solution

 

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View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/azelio-signs-mou-for-energy-storage-project-in-jordan-300985454.html

SOURCE Azelio

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