Deep within the confines of a Wisconsin lab, multinational renewable energy company RWE Clean Energy is tinkering with technology that promises to deliver game-changing long duration energy storage (LDES) to its projects.
Among its latest playthings? Energy Storage Vessels (ESVs) made by EnerVenue, an alternative chemistry battery startup that emerged from Fremont, California during the pandemic summer of 2020. EnerVenue’s metal-hydrogen batteries offer a lower-cost, zero-maintenance alternative to lithium-ion batteries without concern for thermal runaway or propagation, eliminating the need for auxiliary fire suppression solutions. EnerVenue says its ESVs are designed to exceed a 30,000-cycle lifespan and can cycle up to three times per day without rest.
RWE is taking a closer look at EnerVenue’s signature product in a pilot project at its Milwaukee-area testing facility, cycling the ESVs to examine their performance. RWE wants to validate their cycling flexibility, charge/discharge characteristics, duration, temperature performance, and efficiency. RWE says it will use the data collected to align EnerVenue’s technology for potential future applications in its projects.
“Grid-scale energy storage that promises to be safer, flexible, and more durable offers great potential for meeting our continuously growing demand for energy,” said Andrea Hu-Bianco, SVP of engineering at RWE Clean Energy. “Meeting clean energy goals will necessitate several capable and scalable solutions, and we look forward to assessing the performance of EnerVenue’s metal-hydrogen technology as part of our pilot program.”
RWE’s pilot program, which acts as an innovation incubator for lithium and non-lithium battery technologies, will be led by Guy Moore, the company’s director of BESS system integration.
EnerVenue claims its ESVs offer several advantages over traditional lithium tech, including ultra-long lifespans and easily customizable configurations that can be flexibly deployed and scaled to meet the demands of architecture. ESVs are also more readily recyclable than lithium-ion, making the batteries sustainable and environmentally responsible.
“Energy Storage Vessels are built to meet the demands of even the most diverse and challenging clean energy applications, providing a reliable, long-lasting, and sustainable answer for large-scale renewable energy projects,” said Majid Keshavarz, CTO of EnerVenue. “Collaborating with a leader like RWE allows us to showcase the capabilities of our technology and demonstrate how it can drive the future of clean energy expansion and grid resilience.”
There are plans to deploy EnerVenue’s ESVs on Virginia State University’s campus to provide backup power to the school’s multi-purpose center, which hosts athletic events, conferences, concerts, and other community events. Dominion Energy Virginia enlisted EnerVenue to install a 1.5 megawatt (MW) BESS on the university’s Ettrick campus in southern Chesterfield County. In a testimony delivered to the State Corporation Commission of Virginia, Dominion said it tested nine different non-lithium ion BESS technologies, a process that included safety qualifications, estimated costs, physical footprint for space requirements, technology chemistry, self-discharge rates, and cycle rates.
Dominion said EnerVenue’s system provided the “unique capability to be cycled multiple times per day when necessary while also maintaining a low self-discharge rate when idle for long periods of time to be available for backup power support,” as well as the potential ability to site the system on customer property with a lower safety equipment footprint. If approved by state regulators, the project is expected to be operational by the end of 2027.
RWE currently operates about 700 MW of battery energy storage system capacity and has about 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of BESS projects under construction worldwide. It plans to scale to 6 GW worldwide by 2030.
The company broke ground on a trio of 150 MW/300 MWh projects in Texas this fall: Crowned Heron 1, Crowned Heron 2, and Cartwheel 1, each expected to come online next year.
In October, RWE submitted a finalized proposal for an offshore wind joint venture with utility National Grid. Community Offshore Wind could generate 2.8 GW of clean energy, making it the largest proposal received by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to date.
RWE also recently announced a partnership with Peabody Energy, a large coal mining company, to repurpose reclaimed land previously used for mining in Indiana and Illinois. RWE is acquiring a majority interest in R3 Renewables LLC, a joint venture launched by Peabody.