Intelligent Grid-scale Energy Storage System (INGRESS)

Brill Power is conducting a feasibility study for developing its novel Battery Management System (BMS) technology for application in a 49.9MW grid-scale solar plus Energy Storage System (ESS) deployed by Narec Distributed Energy (Narec DE). Solar plus storage combines clean, renewable, but variable solar energy generation with a means to store that energy and help to match supply with demand. This can assist in the avoidance of network reinforcement and can also contribute grid services such as frequency response. Co-locating solar PV generation with battery storage is the most effective and profitable way of deploying these two technologies (US Department of Energy, 2019). System costs are reduced by ~8% (NREL, 2019) by sharing hardware components, a grid connection, land use, site preparation, permitting and developer overhead. In addition, revenues are increased by optimal utilisation of variable solar energy. The problem with combining solar PV with energy storage is that lithium-ion batteries are expensive, and to create a viable business case the battery needs to be able to tap into multiple revenue streams of grid services. However, existing battery technologies are very sensitive to their use cases and the more they are utilized, the faster they degrade, the shorter their life and the greater the safety risks. This was confirmed recently by DNV-GL, who have investigated one of 28 large-scale battery fires in South Korea and found that intensive use of the batteries led to extreme wear-and-tear, which was an underlying cause of the fire (IHS Markit, 2020). Brill Power has developed a new type of BMS, which can significantly reduce the rate of battery degradation. This enables the operator to access more revenue streams without reducing the project lifetime or safety. In addition, a battery with Brill Power BMS can be directly connected to a solar PV array without the need for DC/DC converters or charge controllers, which reduces system cost and complexity. Finally, the open source BMS enables the requirements for grid services to be more readily met and modified with time as services change, future-proofing the battery system. At the end of phase 2, the stakeholders will be in the position to commercially roll out this technology for a 49.9MW energy storage system on Narec DE's site, which will be co-located with a solar PV farm.