Eos Energy Storage Launches 1st Pilot Project With Con Edison

May 4th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Eos Energy Storage Aurora Battery. Click to see larger image.

Eos Energy Storage this week launched its first pilot project with Con Edison. The pilot project will see Eos’s potentially disruptive energy storage technology used at Con Edison’s New York City facilities.

Interestingly, this announcement came out at about the time (maybe the exact time) I was writing a long article about Eos and its innovative energy storage technology (click that link for a lot more information). I saw the announcement after that article was written and scheduled, so I decided to just write another one to piggy-back on that.

This New York pilot project has received funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Naturally, the goal is to demonstrate the Eos Aurora’s usefulness in helping the utility to manage the grid at a low cost for customers.

“Our belief is that affordable energy storage will improve the efficiency and resilience of the electricity grid while reducing costs for utilities and customers alike, and it is a great opportunity to prove this together with a pre-eminent utility like Con Edison,” Eos CEO Michael Oster said.

Here are a few more details from the press release, most of which were mentioned in my much lengthier post on the technology: “Eos stated that the pilot, targeted to begin in early 2014, is a milestone in the scale-up and commercialization of Eos’s core product, a 1MW/6MWh grid-scale battery called the Eos Aurora. The Aurora is backed by Eos’s novel, low-cost and proprietary zinc hybrid cathode technology, which has a 75% round-trip efficiency rate and a 10,000-cycle/30-year lifetime.”

Naturally, a Con Edison representative had some positive words about Eos and its technology. “Con Edison looks forward to installing and measuring Eos’s new battery. As pioneers in the delivery of electricity, Con Edison sees the potential of another pioneer, which is why the company is working with Eos,” said Troy Devries, Con Edison’s director of Research and Development. “Energy storage is one of the last frontiers for electric utilities and Eos Energy Storage holds promise for smooth integration.”

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Tags: Con Edison, Con Edison energy storage, eos, Eos Aurora, Eos aurora 1000/6000, Eos energy storage, zinc air energy storage, zinc-air batteries

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

bill

How does this compare with the system at ZincNyx.com?
- Bob_Wallace
  
  Never heard of them. What are they?
  
  Do they have an agreement with a utility to put a lot of their product on line? If so, at what cost?
  - bill
    
    Don’t know. I know a very bright scientist who went to work for them a year ago but nothing of the technology or where it’s going. I looked at their website and it is sort of plain Jane.
SecularAnimist

Yeah, what’s with the infestation of idiot trolls on this thread? Maybe some Koch puppet master out there is really scared of Eos?
- Bob_Wallace
  
  We seem to have some jerk who is posting from a variety of isps and email addresses.
  
  Any ideas about how to deal with him?
  - agelbert
    
    Can you get Disqus to ban him from the site?As you identify his different handles, you can hopefully flag them to Disqus.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      We can ban from the site. And have banned people who repeatedly tried to use the site to advertise stuff. Especially stuff that has no relation to clean energy (shoes, cleaning supplies, etc.)
      
      My problem is that I don’t want to squash what could be legitimate people with actual concerns/issues. But it looks to me that we’ve got someone who is just a chain jerker.
Bob_Wallace

Sock puppet trolls stink….
Sue

With all the cost figure going around it spinning my head, boy sound like my power bill going up not down.
- http://soltesza.wordpress.com/ sola
  
  Quite the opposite, read all of the comments.
Rod

Sure it will last 30 years, someone is pulling your leg on this.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  Share your data, Rod.
- Jack
  
  I think your right on this one, 30 years is a big claim for this, I would like to see the data on this will last the test of time.
- http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly
  
  10,000 cycles /1 cycle a day = 10000 days/365 = 27.4 years which is about 30 years.
  
  I don’t know that they are really claiming anything past the 10000 cycles, which is a big enough claim.
http://soltesza.wordpress.com/ sola

That $160/kwh price looks very good for a 10K-cycle system.

This means that a 6000 KWh container costs 960K $USD. With 10000 cycles, this would roughly translate into 0.625c storage cost. This sounds extremely good, correct me if I am wrong. Even if we add reasonable installation & maintenance costs, this will not reach 1c/kwh.

This may make renewable generation dispatch-able at a very good price.

Now only the 25% loss of electricity remains but this may not be a big deal if renewables can get cheap enough (the trend definitely points to that).

With 6c/kwh current wind production costs (LCOE), the 25% storage loss would add 1.6c and storage itself another 1 cent, so a dispatch-able wind farm would produce at 8.6c/kwh. Add a 10% distribution loss (average US), distribution costs and some profit and you are still able to provide retail electricity at reasonable prices (which may be as high as 20c/kwh).

And this is only 2013 when renewable generation costs are still in free-fall. In 5 years, dispatch-able renewable may be so cheap that they will easily beat every kinds of fossil-fuel generation.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  I do the math differently. That stuff about the size of the package is confusing.
  
  $160/kWh. 6,000 cycles = $0.026/kWh. 10,000 cycles = $0.016/kWh.
  
  Have to add in balance of system costs, financing costs and profits.
  
  To get a kWh out of storage with 75% efficiency and starting with 6c electricity you’d need 8c worth of electricity. Add in 2 or 3 cents for the batteries and you’re around 11c plus BOS/stuff.
  
  That would be pretty competitive with gas peakers and could work out nicely for the early morning/late afternoon peaks when solar is producing at a lower price.
  
  If this is the best we can do (which I really doubt) then we’re fine. Wind at a nickle or less, solar at a nickle, storing for a nickle = equals very affordable electricity. And as much as we want.
  - arne-nl
    
    Nicely done calculation.
    
    The 6c per kWh is might the high side. In Germany, electricity sometimes has a negative price. As more renewable energy enters the grid, more price swings are likely, possibly making this unit profitable. But it will reduce the price swings if more companies grasp the opportunity and start their energy storage business. The market will solve the variability ‘problem’.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      I like to go a little high on the renewable side, want to eliminate someone’s ability to dismiss the overall argument based on a low estimate.
      
      In reality new wind in the US is coming on line for as little as 3 cents.
      
      Negative prices here are due to subsidies and the need for thermal plants to stay on line. Thermal will sell below zero simply to cause wind to be curtailed. With a 2c PTC wind can sell for about -1c and break even, can make a small profit at 0c.
      - http://www.facebook.com/jhildenminton James Hilden-Minton
        
        Thermals can protect themselves from negative prices by buying sufficient storage assets to absorb their surplus capacity when the spot price goes too low for them. To wit, the Eos battery may turn out to be the financial salvation of nuclear power, enabling them to compete for peak prices.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        For those thermals who can get their production cost below that of wind. And can keep their production + storage cost below where solar is headed.
        
        Certainly no new coal or nuclear plants can play that game. And a big repair bill or expensive upgrade could be a killer.
      - Russell
        
        But there won’t be much in the way of peak prices anymore, and I’m pretty sure wind is cheaper than nuclear in almost all of the world. A flat price of say 11c could unfortunately help coal stay alive, remember that if coal use drops worldwide even a little bit, the price crashes (supply/demand and sunk costs keeping coal mines open etc) making it more affordable for existing coal plants.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        Coal doesn’t really work that way. There are basically two types of coal plants in the world. Those that get their coal for a few dollars a tonne from a nearby mine and those that get it from a ship who pay about $90 a tonne. Renewables plus low cost storage will reduce and eventually eliminate the use of imported coal. Coal plants using locally mined coal might hang on for a while if there isn’t a proper carbon price, but no one is going to build a new coal plant because it will cost more than wind + solar and storage. The economics of it mean there is no danger of a coal boom among the ethically unsound if the price of coal drops as new coal power plants can’t compete.
        
        And even if there were a danger, there aren’t many places that are completely ethically unsound when it comes to burning coal. China is getting a carbon price, India has a coal tax, and Europe and Australia have carbon prices. Given the declining cost of wind, solar, and storage, I can’t think of anywhere in the world where a new coal plant would be a good long term investment even if I could magically know I would never have to pay a carbon price or for its effect on people’s health.
      - kenneth_Copland
        
        Good day cobber
        
        But what’s wrong with coal, it is my understanding that coal has formed out of trees? therefore is a clean energy which can be burnt with the addition of clean coal power fired power plants will produce no CO2 emissions within a few years, producing biofuels, as its waste products.
        
        There are a number of large pilot projects on the eastern coast of New South Wales which have already been successful. Federal government gave approval the harvest national parks as clean energy under renewable energy certificate, eucalyptus trees are good source of clean energy which can be burnt replacing coal as a source of energy.
      - addicted4444
        
        Coal is organic matter (trees and animals) that represents carbon which was captured from the air and buried underground over millions of years.
        
        The problem with burning coal (basically, the fundamental climate change issue) is we are moving that carbon from underground, where it has little or no effect on the climate, into the atmosphere, where it has a greenhouse effect, increasing the amount of solar energy being trapped, leading to increasing global warming.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Coal is carbon tucked well below the surface of the Earth. Down there, nice and safe.
        
        Humans have foolishly been digging it up and burning it for well over 100 years. And burning it in very large amounts. By doing so we have screwed ourselves.
        
        There are no clean coal power plants which produce no CO2.
        
        And if someone manages to figure out how to build one, the power from it would be too expensive to use.
      - Kenneth_copland
        
        Hay again cobber
        
        You think that Australia would be investing in the CSIRO’s UltraBattery invention is a hybrid energy storage device made up of a supercapacitor integrated with a lead–acid battery cell, I don’t bloody under stand it but it’s a bloody good battery for energy storage
      - Ross
        
        The quality or energy content of the coal reserves is declining also. There’ll be two peak coal events peak energy and peak quantity. The Chinese cap on coal use looks like sensible planning.
    - http://www.facebook.com/jhildenminton James Hilden-Minton
      
      Yes, and it’s easy to see how a battery like this can impose arbitrage bounds on the spot market. Suppose I am a merchant wind generator with storage assets that are 75% efficient. Moment by moment I am watching the spot price and future prices for the next 24 hours. If the spot price is above the max future price, I sell on the spot market. If the spot price is below 75% of the max future price, I store my power and sell it under the future contract. I don’t need to be able to predict the weather or future demand. I simply sell into the spot market or futures market depending on which one gives me the better price. The implication of this is that if there are sufficient number of storage enabled players in the market, then the ratio of peak price to trough price in a day will almost never exceed 1.33 (= 1/0.75). That’s a pretty good bound on wholesale price volatility. Not also that if wind producers can on any given day keep the spot price below, 6c/kWh, then they will also keep the peak price of the whole market below 8c/kWh. It’s just a matter of having sufficient storage-enabled renewable penetration to enforce arbitrage-free prices.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        This is going to kill most nuclear and coal generation.
        
        If they don’t have some high profit hours to offset their late night losses then they’re done.
      - agelbert
        
        Good!
      - Otis11
        
        But they won’t (necessarily) have to sell at a loss at night given the availability of storage… They will sell at the same rate as everyone else.
        
        This battery technology will actually help FF and nuclear in the short run (very short) as if they can produce at constant load they can run at higher efficiencies and therefore lower their costs. Battery technology will raise off peak prices (by driving up demand) in order to lower peak prices (by driving down costs). This helps everyone in the industry, not just the renewables. Granted, renewables will always be cheaper once they are installed and therefore may lower the overall market price low enough to price them out of the market, but this won’t lower the profitability of thermal plants other than just their overall loss of market share.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Yeah, I think you might be right. If nuclear and FF can cut their late night losses then they won’t need quite as high a peak price to stay in business.
      - Otis11
        
        On the bright side – it will still serve to clean up our energy mix as even if it is still coming from FFs, we’re just getting more energy out of the same amount of Fuel…
        
        Besides – we just need to build storage, better grid interconnects or smart grid (or a mixture) to allow more renewables on line. RE is already price competitive with New Thermal plants, in short order it will be cheaper than existing Thermal plants. At that point (in about two years for parity, 5 to truly beat it by my guess) we’ll be installing as fast as we can build supporting infrastructure…
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Were I a young person looking for a career I’d get myself into renewable energy.
        
        People getting in early at the bottom level have a great chance to move up the ladder as industries expand. They’ll have the experience and connections.
      - Russell
        
        Good point. It will be higher than 1.33 however as in the 1.33 scenario the battery owner makes no profit. They need about 3c/KWh to pay for the battery (over 30 years etc), so I’d say more like 1.33+3c would be the bound.
  - Victa
    
    When well this come online? sound like something that will never happen.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      “Eos stated that the pilot, targeted to begin in early 2014,
      
      Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/04/eos-energy-storage-launches-1st-pilot-project-with-con-edison/#IjL5Lv0z0at5XTkH.99
  - http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly
    
    There are places today where this should be a no brainer. How much wind power did China dump last year because lack of transmission? So the cost of that power could be considered zero, just the 2 to 3 cents for the storage device. There are times in the US where wholesale cost of electric goes to zero or negative. You can give it away (or pay someone to take it) or put it in storage and wait for the cost to go above 4 cents. There are wind farm expansion being held up by the need to expand transmission lines, this lets them store extra and sell it into the day time peak, or two smaller peaks if there is lots of PV.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jouni-Valkonen/736198505 Jouni Valkonen

At least Con Edison is honest with their company naming. . .