Energy Storage

Battery Technology Show Recap: Emerging Battery Technology

Louis Brasington
Posted on by Louis Brasington
Contributions from: Pirmin Ulmann, co-founder and CEO at b-science.net Last month, I was fortunate enough moderate a session at the Battery Technology Show in London. Here are takeaways from that session as well as some additional insight from our own research. Delegates from across the battery industrial supply chain participated in discussions around the technologies and business model innovations that could disrupt their markets in the next few years. Speakers included topic experts like Billy Wu, a senior lecturer at... Read More »

European Utilities Support UN Development Goals

Louis Brasington
Posted on by Louis Brasington
Last month, the United National delegates came together in New York, assessing the progress for their Sustainable Development Goals. The focus this year was on how nations can provide access to affordable and reliable energy, water, and safe and resilient cities. The meeting marked three years since the UN committed to reaching universal access to affordable and clean energy by 2030. Large energy corporates have been actively involved in the push across the globe, deploying decentralized energy systems through partnering... Read More »

Announcing the Latest Edition of the Levelized Cost of Storage Report (LCOS 3.0)

Dan Gabaldon
Posted on by Dan Gabaldon
Daniel Gabaldon is a co-founder of  Enovation Partners. Earlier this month, Enovation released the latest edition of the Levelized Cost of Storage report (LCOS 3.0) in collaboration with the global investment bank Lazard. Here are some reflections on what we learned: Energy storage costs continue to decline rapidly, but… Not all technologies are following at the same pace of improvement. Li-ion has fallen faster over the past year, and is poised to continue a slightly steeper trajectory of cost decline –... Read More »

Unleashing Alexa: How transactive energy could unlock residential energy optimization

Ken-Ichi Hino
Posted on by Ken-Ichi Hino
In our Part 1 on transactive energy (TE), we looked at the path to implementing TE and the types of companies involved. Steve Widergren, principal engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Ed Cazalet, CEO at TEMix, Inc., were interviewed for these posts. I have a confession: I’m slightly obsessive about not running my dishwasher, laundry, and dryer between 7am and 9pm. Why? For the savings… hmm… well, I actually don’t save any money from being a good citizen of the grid... Read More »

Is Lithium-Ion unassailable in stationary energy storage markets?

Troy Ault
Posted on by Troy Ault
CTG’s Power Breakfast series is supported by Silicon Valley Bank and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Thank you to our sponsors!   At our latest Power Breakfast this past Wednesday, we convened a great panel and room full of energy storage industry players, from start-ups and investors to utilities and project developers. Our panel consisted of: Mark Perutz from DBL Partners, one of the first venture investors in Tesla Ilan Gur, former founder of lithium-ion battery company Seeo (acquired by... Read More »

What City Traders Can Tell Us About the Future of Cleantech

Josh Gilbert
Posted on by Josh Gilbert
In a recent CTG Insights article (a bi-monthly publication written for our i3 subscribers), we examined the lithium-ion battery market, which is composed of several emerging markets such as EVs and grid storage, as well as the decades-established $20B consumer electronics market. With EVs specifically, the nascent market has rapidly grown, with BNEF projecting an 18.2% CAGR from 2013 through 2040, and with the passing of the 2 million mark of EVs on our roads earlier this week, the trend shows... Read More »

Entrenched Incumbents and Seedling Start-ups in Battery Storage Markets – Innovation Finds a Way

Josh Gilbert
Posted on by Josh Gilbert
In the February edition of CTG Insights, our bi-monthly publication highlighting trends we feel should be at the forefront of the minds of cleantech-focused corporates and investors alike, we wrote an article addressing the opportunities in battery storage markets. The lithium-ion battery energy storage market is composed of a few sub-sectors, including the decades-established consumer electronics market, a $20 billion market that has incumbent advantages in both scale and mature supply chains. However, the electric vehicles market has arrived in... Read More »

Renewable Energy Down Under: Where solar-plus-storage and utilities become good friends?

Josh Gilbert
Posted on by Josh Gilbert
In case you hadn’t heard, changes are afoot in our energy system. With previously preventative price points now falling rapidly, are we now seeing an opportunity for an accompanying change in the pricing of our energy? As production ramps up, the energy storage systems required to firm intermittent renewable power are beginning to become financially viable. Smart inverters and corresponding software are combining with solar-plus-storage systems to enable truly democratized energy. To this point, customers in many geographies are already... Read More »

Highlights of our Investment Summit: Trends & Opportunities in Energy’s Emerging Future

Ken-Ichi Hino
Posted on by Ken-Ichi Hino
On October 20th, Cleantech Group and Enovation Partners, in collaboration with our sponsor Stifel, convened an invitation-only executive summit in New York City focused on the emerging investment opportunity sets and trends in energy for 2017 and beyond. The discussion-focused event helped facilitate a day of shared viewpoints from the attendees, which included investors, corporates, utilities, innovators, and other stakeholders in energy. The morning sessions elicited perspectives on the investment opportunities and challenges, and how those differ across capital classes... Read More »

The Smarter Grid: The Evolution of Virtual Power Plant Software

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
Two weeks ago we looked at The Evolution of Smart Grid Venturing, tracing its development from smart meters and data management apps to the Internet of Things to today's diaspora of customer-sited generators and energy management products in an increasingly connected world. This week, we will drill further into this theme, taking a look at the role Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) will play in the next-generation energy grid. The principle is not new. Joined up generators are more useful to grid... Read More »