Mott's Blog

A new report noted that lithium-ion battery prices continue to fall and that U.S. growth in total energy storage is expected to increase by tenfold by 2018. See GramZielone.p l. So far, Poland has not benefited from these trends. The deployment of energy storage on an individual and even grid-scale could provide huge savings to Poles, currently locked into providing peak electricity demand from coal-fired power plants. In Poland where electricity prices are higher than the US. the incremental benefit of storage would actually be greater.

Yesterday, Gramwzielone in Poland posted an article on the first commercial grid scale energy storage project to go in operation in Germany. The Schwerin local power company Wemag is starting operations on a 5 MW magnesium ion battery storage system. The technology is from the United States, acquired by the purchase of the American company Xtreme Power. Because of its response time and its ability to make a contribution to both the top and the bottom of the energy demand curve, the supplier " Younicos ensures that energy storage with a capacity of 5 MW will provide the same stabilization of the network as a conventional power plant with a capacity of 50 MW. " This result can be expected given the studies of the cost-effectiveness of energy storage versus the use of entire power plants as "peakers" - just operating during the times of peak demand. See EPRI California Study.   Some slides from Janice Lin's presentation at the Third Annual Energy Storage ...