California Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, working in partnership with California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., has introduced A.B.2514. The new legislation would mandate that utilities incorporate energy storage capacity into their operations: 2.25% of daytime peak demand for power by 2014 and 5% of peak demand by 2020.
Skinner and Brown maintain that enacting the bill will lower electricity costs and provide the state with an alternative to generating and supplying primarily fossil fuel-based power for only part-time daytime peak demand.
“Energy storage is the future,” Brown says. “It’s a fast-growing, clean technology industry that will save the state money and reduce pollution.”
“Given major advances in energy storage, the industry is now ready to provide high-technology, affordable, reliable products for California’s utilities and consumers,” adds Janice Lin, director of the California Energy Storage Alliance.
Bill proponents note that energy storage technologies can also increase the value and use of wind and solar power, which often rely on fossil fuel-based backup power.
Our latest creation, the OnDemand Energy Appliance was sent to Vancouver Canada today. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with the 2010 Winter Olympics, but was sent to CSA International to start the UL / CSA approval process. The team at CSA does an excellent job and does all of our compliance testing. We look forward to working with them again on this project. They are currently wrapping up a project on our OnAlert Battery Backup System. We expect that to be complete within in the upcoming weeks. We will be deploying the OnDemand product with several utilities this year in North America. We will be experimenting with a number of different battery chemistries including lead acid, advanced lead acid, and lithium-ion. We will be working with these utilities to determine the appropriate battery technology for this application as well as helping to identify various the marketing and incentive programs to deploy as distributed energy storage moves from concept to reality. These are truly exciting times here at Silent Power!
There are a number of new pieces of storage legislation making their way through the political process that will would treat storage technology in a similar fashion as renewable energy technologies because of the positive impact that it would have with regard to grid stabilization. As we are out talking to utilities and regulators across the country it is becoming clear to us that the electric industry is starting to put a real value on storage technologies which should bode well for all companies in the energy storage value chain. Below is a summary of one of the most directly related pieces of proposed legislation. The US Chamber of Commerce is showing strong support because storage technologies have the potential to cut some business energy costs in half by eliminating the demand charges. This is a direct application of the Silent Power OnDemand Energy Appliance.
US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Supports Proposition of The Storage Technology of Renewable and Green Energy Act of 2009
FAIR LAWN, N.J.–(Business Wire)– The US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE today announced that it fully supports The Storage Technology of Renewable and Green Energy Act of 2009 (STORAGE) – Bill #S1091. The STORAGE bill, recently introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, addresses the overlooked issue of storing renewable energy. Renewable energy is not always available and is usually created during non-peak demand periods. Storage of renewable energy would allow the energy to be used during peak energy usage periods. The need for an investment tax credit for energy storage facilities and equipment is a necessity to shift the demands on the grid.
Under current law, tax credits are available for the generation of renewable energy, but not its storage. The STORAGE Bill would provide an investment tax credit for storage systems that require similar innovations and incentives as other energy technologies. Storage systems consist of a broad range of technologies, from water reservoirs, batteries and flywheels to thermal cooling systems.
“Energy storage is an often overlooked technology that could save millions of dollars in energy costs and help make renewable fuels viable options to replace oil and coal,” Senator Wyden said. “It just makes sense to store energy when it`s plentiful and draw it down when it`s needed. The STORAGE bill provides tax incentives for implementing these technologies and will create a market demand for energy storage technologies. I thank the US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE for supporting this legislation.”
One particular tax credit within the bill aims to provide a 30 percent investment tax credit for on-site use in individual homes, businesses and factories. This legislation will help pay for smart-grid devices to manage the charging and storage of the electricity. Building owners could use the tax credit to help finance thermal cooling systems, which will make ice at night when electricity is cheaper and use the ice to cool the building during the day.
“US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE supports this bill 100 percent. Previously, energy storage has been overlooked as a reliable and cost-saving solution for buildings. But energy storage, both in buildings or on the grid, is a critical element in the large scale implementation of renewable forms of energy,” said the CEO of the US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. “This proposed tax credit would not only help building managers save on operational costs, but it would also significantly reduce the demand on the grid.”
But that blueprint also includes a battery. Without it, solar may be too unstable an energy source to incorporate into utility grids in a big way.
Silent Power has a solar inverter-battery rig it says can accomplish that balancing task. In fact, the Baxter, Minn.-based startup is involved with GE in at least a few smart grid projects seeking stimulus funding to install those systems across a large number of homes, CEO Todd Headlee said last week at the Clean Energy Venture Summit in Austin, Texas.
Silent Power has raised $4 million in angel financing, and is seeking to raise a $7 million series A round to “attack the utility space,” with commercialization planned for 2011, Headlee said.
As for GE, “We’ve partnered with them on a couple of proposals,” he said, though he wouldn’t give additional details on the projects the two were planning (see Green Light post).
The problem with utility-scale energy storage has so far been its price. Beyond huge, capital-intensive and site-limited systems like pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage, batteries, flywheels, fuel cells and other distributed energy storage technologies are still too expensive for most utilities to justify (see Grid Energy Storage: Big Market, Tough to Tackle).
Silent Energy says it can drastically undercut those costs by maxing out the federal tax rebate available for solar system installations – and getting utilities to foot part of the remaining bill.
A Silent Power system should add about $5,000 to the cost of a typical solar installation, Headlee said. The 30-percent federal tax credit shaves that by 30 percent, leaving about $3,500 remaining – or, as Silent Power likes to frame it, about $350 per kilowatt-hour in storage capacity. That’s cheaper than commercially available battery storage system today, though it’s a target price for many.
Batteries count for the solar credit when linked to an inverter system, Headlee said. If Congress passes a bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) that offers an energy storage equivalent tax incentives to wind and solar, that could open up the pool of financial support, he said (see Energy Bill Could Boost Storage Technologies).
Granted, the batteries won’t last more than a few hours, he said. But that’s enough for utilities to smooth the difference between the time that solar panels get their best output, in the mid-afternoon, and the slightly later peak demand times that are typical for utilities during hot summer afternoons as people get home from work and start turning stuff on, he said.
That demand response capacity could be worth something to utilities – perhaps, even a $3,500 rebate or incentive to homeowners to make Silent Power’s system as cheap as a regular solar panel array, he suggested.
A solar-battery system would require inverter systems that can switch instantly between the two – something Silent Power’s system can do, Headlee said. About 200 homes with Silent Power’s units should give a utility 1 megawatt of load-shifting capacity, he estimated.
Beyond that, batteries can help smooth the big swings in solar panel generation when clouds pass overhead, he said. Spread out to neighborhood scale, such drastic ups and downs in home power demand could spell trouble for an unprepared distribution grid.
The market is huge, Headlee said. American Electric Power, for one, says it will need 1 gigawatt of storage, or 2.6 percent of generation capacity, by 2020, he noted, and California may require 4 gigawatts of storage to reach its goal of getting a third of its power from renewable resources by 2020. About 20 gigawatts of new storage would represent a $10 billion market, he said (see Green Light post).
For now, the company plans to use lead-acid batteries with an estimated five to seven year lifespan, he said. But it’s looking into lithium-ion and advanced lead-acid batteries as well, he said.
A few venture capitalists briefed on Silent Power’s plans at last week’s conference in Austin noted that the company might be a bit early to the market. Systems for allowing utilities to control large numbers of home-based batteries are in their infancy, though the millions of smart meters being deployed could help extend those networks, Headlee said.
In fact, smart grid startup GridPoint started out in 2003 with a similar business plan, then switched to software after finding the market too small, he said (see GridPoint Gets $120M, Buys V2Green).
But then, utilities have been running demand response programs for years, with factories and other large power users turning down their use at peak demand times, Headlee said (see Is Demand Response Doomed?)
And utilities expecting hundreds of megawatts of rooftop solar panels to be installed in their service territories may feel under the gun to put storage in place to make it an asset, rather than a grid-destabilizing liability, he said.
Lithium-ion technology is no longer limited to cell phone, laptop and power tool applications. There is a whole new industry of lithium-ion battery manufacturers emerging, targeted at addressing the emergence of the plugin-hybrid vehicle and utility scale energy storage markets. Silent Power got up close and personal with some of the newest lithium-ion battery technology this week. In the above picture Todd Headlee is accepting Silent Power’s first shipment of a lithium-ion batteries from the Energy Harvest Group. Also in the picture is Bob Long of Bob Long and Associates who is helping deliver the goods. The Energy Harvest Group is a leading manufacturer, distributer, and integrator of lithium-ion based storage technology for iCel Systems. Some of our utility customers will demand this new lithium-ion technology instead of the standard lead acid technology for the trial deployments that we have planned for 2010. Silent Power is excited to see the added performance gains that our products will receive from this new technology.
Silent Power Selected to Compete at the 2009 Clean Energy Venture Summit
AUSTIN – October 9, 2009 – Silent Power Inc., a Smart Grid solutions provider focused on renewable energy integration, is pleased to announce they have been selected to compete at the Clean Energy Venture Summit (CEVS) on Oct. 14 and 15 at the AT&T Conference Center. Silent Power will be showcasing its OnDemand™ Energy Appliance on Oct. 15 at 9 a.m. CST.
As renewable energy becomes a significant part of our nation’s base load generation, utilities are planning to add a significant amount of energy storage on the grid. To answer this need Silent Power has created the OnDemand™ Energy Appliance, a solar and wind inverter technology that delivers utility scale storage by aggregating hundreds of kW sized storage devices attached to solar homes and businesses. By targeting homes or businesses that install solar photovoltaic, utilities can use Silent Power’s OnDemand™ product to add energy storage to these installations for $350/kWh by taking advantage of federal rebates available to “behind the meter” solar PV installations, a 65% savings to the utility. The benefits to the utilities are many, most notably shifting the solar peak to match the utilities peak demand as well as adding megawatts of expanded capacity that is available for demand response. The home and business owners will also enjoy the benefit of having backup power available for the times when the grid is not available.
About Silent Power
Silent Power Inc. (SPI) manufactures and markets easy-to-install, highly reliable, smart grid solutions for renewable energy integration and backup power markets. At SPI we are working to provide proven innovative technologies, focusing on reliability and customer satisfaction, that ultimately lead to better environmental outcomes. SPI is a U.S. based company located in the beautiful “Lakes Area” of central Minnesota. For more information, visit: http://www.silentpwr.com.
About the Clean Energy Venture Summit
The third annual Clean Energy Venture Summit (CEVS), “Bringing the Smart Grid to Life,” will bring together emerging clean energy technology companies, leading investors and a seven-member utility power panel on October 14 and 15. CEVS supports the Pecan Street Project, the most aggressive smart grid project in the nation. Distributed generation, renewable energy, demand management, transportation, storage and energy efficiency companies will compete for investor funding, attention from regional utilities and the title of “most promising early stage smart grid company.” Battery Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, DFJ Mercury, Applied Ventures, 21 Ventures, TXU Energy, Austin Energy, CenterPoint Energy, CPS Energy, Bluebonnet Electric and NREL are just some of this year’s participants. CEVS is the place to be for anyone serious about the smart grid. Learn more and register at http://www.budurl.com/CEVS2009
About Mercom Capital Group
Mercom Capital Group, LLC is a public relations, public affairs and market intelligence firm specializing in clean energy. At Mercom, we help clean energy companies build powerful relationships with media, analysts, government decision-makers and local communities. We arm our clients with timely market intelligence to ensure their competitive position and overall success. Mercom Capital Group is located in Austin Texas with offices in Bangalore India. For more information about Mercom Capital Group, visit: http://www.mercomcapital.com. To get a copy of Mercom’s popular market intelligence reports covering solar and smart grid, visit: http://mercomcapital.com/market_intelligence.php
The Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) has named Silent Power as a finalist in the Cleantech category for the 2009 Tekne Awards, which will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Thursday, Oct. 22. The Tekne Awards recognize Minnesota companies and individuals who have shown superior technology innovation and leadership.
“We are honored to be recognized by such a prestigious organization.” said Todd Headlee the CEO for Silent Power. ”Our renewable energy solutions for home owners, businesses, and electric utilites are not only great for our enviroment, but they are also key in helping secure our nations energy infrastructure.”
Presented by the MHTA in partnership with LifeScience Alley and Enterprise Minnesota, the Tekne Awards annually recognize Minnesota’s best and brightest technology users and developers in innovation, development, education, commercialization and management. A full list of finalists is available online at http://www.tekneawards.org.
“For 10 years the Tekne Awards have recognized those who make groundbreaking contributions to the growth of technology in Minnesota,” said Kate Rubin, president of MHTA. “This year’s finalists should be extremely proud of their role in helping Minnesota excel at producing cutting-edge technology and continue to be a great place to do business.”
Recipients of the 2009 Tekne Awards will be announced at the award ceremony on Oct. 22. The event will begin with a VIP reception at 4:30 p.m., followed by general registration and reception at 5 p.m., dinner at 6 p.m., the awards ceremony at 7 p.m., and a post-Tekne party at 8:30 p.m. The event will be emceed by John Sweeney, author of Innovation at the Speed of Laughter, and owner of the Brave New Workshop, the nation’s oldest satirical comedy theatre.
To register for the 2009 Tekne Awards ceremony, visit www.tekneawards.org or contact Lonni Ranallo at 952-230-4555 or lranallo@mhta.org.
It has a busy summer this year. We are really starting to ramp up manufacturing. Here is our fearless leader of manufacturing Bruce Billington and Mike Bajczyk proudly standing by a recent pallet order going to one of our distributors out west. There is also a rumor that a famous new Minnesota Viking member stopped in to check in on the manufacturing process. Picture below.
Silent Power was mentioned recently in Smart Grid Today. Silent Power is getting a great response from electric utilities both big and small as we prepare our Home Energy Appliance for commercial availablity. Electric utilities will use this solution as a part of their overall storage strategy. Many utilities are planning to add up to 5% of their peak demand of storage to their system using a whole host of technologies as renewables become a bigger part of their base load generation.
EPRI, Silent Power link smart
grid to solar power batteries
July 17, 2009
Project to prove kw storage
offers mw peak supply
EPRI is working with several utilities and a Minnesota startup firm to help address the wait-and-see attitude that hangs like a cloud over the electric utility energy storage business. An unknown that contributes to uptake hesitancy is how well a utility can use its solar customers — with storage attached at the premises — to bundle together kw-sized systems into mw-sized supply.
To answer that question, EPRI is working with Silent Power to design a solar energy storage system aggregation pilot, Silent Power CEO Todd Headlee told us this week in an interview at Storage Week, a conference in La Jolla, Calif.
The plan includes installing four storage devices this year and by mid-2010, the about 50 devices to aggregate “a bunch of small resources like solar into a system — with batteries,” said Headlee.
While it might sometimes be appropriate for a neighborhood to sell power from renewables back to utilities, the main goal of the energy storage pilot is to “align the solar peak with the utility peak,” he explained. “Smart metering really provides a gateway for a utility to do renewable alignment in real time.”
“Today, all the solar is generated around the noon hour but the grid needs it in the afternoon. So we store the excess locally and dispatch it in the afternoon” in the same neighborhood, Headlee reported. He expects Silent Power’s Home Energy Appliance — a battery-based storage device — to be UL listed and have all needed safety certifications by mid-2010.
Silent Power wants to be a leader in the distributed energy storage business, behind the meter and outside the meter, he added. Silent Power expanded its staff by eight this year to 20 and plans to grow beyond 100 workers by the end of 2010.
Silent Power is, of course, working to integrate its storage system with AMI, noted Headlee, starting with Landis+Gyr where Headlee previously worked as vice president of product marketing.
Silent Power is proud to be selected as a panelist at Storage Week, which is a series three meetings on a game-changing set of technologies and applications worth billions in future market share. This years speakers and panelists are a some of the energy industries top executives in the utility and storage vendor community. Todd Headlee of Silent Power will be participating in a panel discusison on Thursday at 11:00am covering business models and architectures for storage behind the utility meter. Below is more detail on this session. We hope to see you there.
Integrating Storage into ‘Edge’ Services in the Home, Business and Community
Benefit of on-site storage for local and system-wide efficiencies (i.e., generation, transmission, application)
Need for open “end-to-end” standards: plugs, charging, communication
Public charging services: value propositions, free versus pay
Public charging services: value propositions, free versus pay
Storage as the potential ‘smart hub’ of the Home Area Network
Firming solar and wind micro-generation
Differences in value proposition of on-site storage for the building owners versus the utility
Role of third parties, such as ESCO, demand response, new aggregators, “sustainable energy utilities”
Who has access to all the energy system data that will be generated?
Moderator: Eric Hsieh, Manager of Government Relations,
NATIONAL ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION (NEMA)
Panelists:
Elliot Boardman, Executive Director, PEAK LOAD MANAGEMENT ALLIANCE
Todd A. Headlee, Chief Executive Officer, SILENT POWER, INCORPORATED
Ryan Wartena, Chief Technology Officer, ICEL SYSTEMS
BAXTER, Minn. – Silent Power introduces its SP4024 Integrated Inverter/ Charger System designed to convert DC power from renewable resources to a pure AC sine wave, which is ideal for homeowners who live in off-grid areas. The 4000 watt capacity all-in-one system is certified to UL1741 and CSA standards and features significant innovations new to the industry – it is contained, clean, compact and comfortable for everyone who uses it.
Contained
The SP4024 is a self-contained unit, which makes it quick and simple to install and use. The advanced design combines high frequency, lightweight inverter technology to provide picture perfect AC power with a patented high-surge capability, all in one sleek cabinet enclosure. Because of the inclusive design, there is no need to purchase expensive add-on features – the SP4024 already contains everything a homeowner needs, including a generator AC disconnect breaker, DC disconnect breaker, DC current shunt, remote user interface, sophisticated generator start controller and accommodation for charge controller breakers/GFI.
Clean
The proprietary GenCleanTM design cleans and regulates generator power for a true uninterruptible power supply operation. The features of the SP4024 lessen the requirements of the backup generator by conditioning all generator power and handling electric motor and pump surge loads from battery reserve instead of the generator.
Compact
Weighing only 56 pounds, the SP4024 is easily portable and fits on standard 16-inch studs. Much smaller than other inverters in the market, the SP4024 measures 17 inches wide by 25 inches high and 10.5 inches deep.
Comfortable
With its intuitive design, the SP4024 is a cinch to operate for even the most technical-challenged homeowners. The simplicity of the design makes it is easy to monitor performance and understand the clear menu selections. The very quiet operation of the SP4024 is devoid of the typical 60 cycle hum that exists with other inverters.
The SP4024 Integrated Inverter/Charger System inverts DC power generated from wind, the sun, or other renewable resources into AC power. As a result, it minimizes the total cost of ownership while maximizing the renewable energy harvest by combining numerous functions into one integrated package.
“In a typical off-grid installation, a customer would have numerous electrical devices mounted on a wall to comprise a complete inverter/charger system. Silent Power has taken many of these items and put them into a single, compact, integrated enclosure,” says Silent Power Executive Vice President John Frederick. “In addition, our GenClean technology conditions all generator power before it enters the home, a first in the industry.”
Silent Power, Inc. is a Baxter, Minn.-based manufacturer of smart grid solutions and power inverters for the renewable energy, backup power and electric utility markets. Through partnerships with utility companies, Silent Power’s mission is to make a lasting impact on energy consumption in North America and beyond, by increasing the efficiency of the grid and empowering consumers to track and reduce their energy use. Silent Power also sells a battery backup system and a home energy appliance for electric utility companies to more efficiently integrate renewable energy into the grid.
For more information, contact John Frederick at Silent Power, Inc., 8175 Industrial Park Rd., Suite 100, Baxter, MN 56425, call (218) 454-3030, fax (218) 454-3026, e-mail sales@silentpwr.com or visit the company’s Website at www.silentpwr.com
Silent Power is exhibiting at the Living Green Expo at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds on May 2nd and May 3rd. The hours are 10am to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 5pm on Sunday. There will be plenty to see and several workshops covering everything from sustainable living to advances in renewable energy technology. Most of the Minnesota Electric Utilities will be there offering advice on how to save on your electric bill.
Silent Power will be exhibiting in the Renewable Energy Demonstration Area. Many of the latest eco friendly transportation vehicles will be on display including the new Tesla Motors Roadster. This event is open to the public and best of all it is that admission is free. We look forward to seeing you there.
President Obama stressed his commitment to clean energy in several national interviews last week and one way he can clean up our energy system is to make America’s grid more efficient.
Grid inefficiencies and distribution losses have doubled in the past 30 years costing Americans up to $180 billion a year, according to Department of Energy estimates.
Congress has already recognized the importance of improving our nation’s electrical grid. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill allotted $32 billion for transforming America’s energy grid, more than any other infrastructure-related category.
Morgan Stanley estimates that the smart grid market will grow 100 percent in the next five years and 400 percent over the next 20 years, making smart-grid technology a $100+ billion market by 2030.
Morgan Stanley cites four critical factors for growth in the smart grid market:
Policy-Legislation and regulatory changes are needed to provide incentives for adopting smart technologies. Distributed Generation-Utilities must adopt solar, wind and other new technologies before the public can fully accept them. Technology-Advances in technology are key to driving down costs. Demographic Change-As emerging market populations grow, their need for electricity grows. These countries have the ability to build smart grids to meet this new demand.
Silent Power has been getting a lot of attention lately from local, state, and national political figures and also from various Electric Utilities across the country. There is a lot of excitement building for our recently released SP4024 Integrated Inverter Charger System with several solar distributors and dealers. We are also getting great feedback on our Home Energy Appliance smart grid solution that we will be releasing later this year that solves many of the issues related to integrating renewables into the Utility’s electricity grid. To help communicate our progress to the rest of the world, Lakeland News recently ran a television story highlighting our product and the markets we serve. This story can be viewed below.
