A Lawrence Berkeley National Lab group has won a grant from the Department of Defense to create a cyber-secure renewable microgrid and commercial-ready control system for rapid adoption.
The Grid Integration Group at LBNL won the grant for a “Modular, Secure, and Replicable Microgrid Control System for Generation and Storage Management at Military Installations.”
The $13 million renewable microgrid will be installed at Fort Hunter Liggett, led by LBNL in collaboration with partners Alstom, EPRI, One Cycle Control, Microgrid Labs, Customized Energy Solutions, University of New Mexico, and Tri-Technic.
This project will demonstrate how to integrate diverse distributed energy resources, while providing resiliency against natural disasters. It must be capable of islanding for long periods when the grid is down, specifically 120 consecutive hours, delivering a minimum of 1 MW load and 2 MW for four hours peak.
When grid-connected, the Fort Hunter Liggett microgrid will participate in capacity and ancillary services markets.
Fort Hunter Liggett is part of the defense departments plan to create net-zero military bases. The facility will use about 8 MW of solar PV, an 8 MWh battery system, demand-response, building management systems and a bio-gas combined heat and power (CHP) generation system.
For more information about the renewable microgrid, contact Michael Stadler at [email protected] or visit https://building-microgrid.lbl.gov.
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Shipments of advanced batteries in 2014 reached 53.3 GWh, representing more than seven billion individual battery cells and more than $14 billion in sales, according to a new report by Navigant Research. Growth was particularly strong for lithium ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) and grid energy storage.
Between 2013 and 2014, the advanced battery industry grew 12.8 percent in terms of energy capacity and 7.1 percent in terms of revenue, says the report.
“While the consumer electronics segment saw tepid growth in 2014, the vehicle electrification and grid energy storage sectors experienced significant increases in energy capacity and associated revenue,” says William Tokash, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “The advanced batteries industry remains in growth mode, and the majority of its products are manufactured in China and shipped around the world.”
The report found that lithium ion continues to be primarily used in consumer electronics, EVs, and grid-energy storage. Some grid energy storage systems utilize flow batteries, advanced lead-acid, and sodium-metal halide batteries.
An executive summary of the report is available for free download on the Navigant Research website.
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