Comments on: Eos Energy Storage Launches Megawatt-Scale Manufacturing In New York

By: mds

mds — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:28:00 +0000

No argument here. Replacing peak power generation on the main grid is a great first target. Just adding to that and saying this technology is going to find a lot of use at the cost they’re at now and I think they have a huge margin to start with. They have the potential to expand product and market share very rapidly. Very exciting!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:23:00 +0000

EOS is going exactly where they need to go right now. Some place where they can prove out with enough oversight to make the results believable.
Put their product on some major grids around the world and if they can turn out the numbers they claim they should have no money getting the funding to scale up. This first stage is being done with venture capital, going big would require some major funding.

By: mds

mds — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:17:00 +0000

Even at 10c/kWh this means 24/7 solar power for small communities in Hawaii and Australia at significantly lower cost than grid power. Bye, Bye, grid.
Seems like BMS, shipping and installation would be the BOS. I can’t imagine this would be more than a penny or two per kWh over the 30 year life of the system. Big jump from 1.6c/kWh to 10c/kWh. Maybe they’re going for higher cost, higher profit applications first. If they bring the profit down or just collect a few pennies over the life of the system, then this means 24/7 solar in a lot more places. Still other places it will mean solar, wind, and storage integrated for very low total price.
This is a major big deal. Too cool!
EOS, Aquion, and Ambri: Three final pillars of the renewable energy revolution?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:32:00 +0000

Businesses always prefer large customers. It’s cheaper to a huge order than the equivalent number of small orders.

We mere mortals will have to wait our turns.

I sort of figure that if Ambri does market their liquid metal battery and it is, in fact, a lot cheaper than other options then companies like EOS are going to have to look at the non-utility market.

There’s a huge market in the less developed world for someone who can deliver a nicely priced very long life battery. A smaller market in grid-connected buildings where electricity is expensive. And a tiny market of people like me that are off the grid.

By: brink

brink — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:09:00 +0000

that is $1,000 per kw for the battery not the BOS / BMS nor does it include shipping and installation

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:54:00 +0000

I stand corrected. The smaller product is a 1MW container-sized unit costing $1000 per kw, so $1m in total. Each module of 2kw stores 12 kwh, 6 hours’ worth at peak rate. The 10,000 cycles is 27 years at one cycle a day; your cost per kwh has to be adjusted with a discount rate to compare with LCOE generation rates. I agree this is still very impressive, and far closer to parity than I said.
The system is modular. Is there any technical reason why EOS can’t market the 2kw/12kwh module separately for homeowners?

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:54:00 +0000

There are portions of the market where keeping my peak power use lower has big pay back.
1) At the extreme (small market) are things like parks (say Kings Island in Cincinnati Oh) where their worst peak power used during a hot summer day, impacts the base price they pay all year. So charging at night to shift saves much them more than just the night to day cost difference. Or this was true when I talked with the guy who ran there engineering department years ago
2) Then there is congestion management. Some wind farms dump power because the transmission lines can’t take the load, but if they stored that power there would be “line space” later when the wind isn’t blowing so hard. Can also be used at other end to have the NRG local when demand peaks.
3) Not only can I use them to run the peaking power less, I can use them to run peaking at it most efficient. Think change at night with cheap power (delays when I start peaking). Then run peaking at max efficiency rate (putting extra NRG in storage). So if I have 4 peaking turbines, you can see how this would let me delay the start of each, but when I start each run it at lowest cost, and then stop them sooner.
4) Other spots in the system where it can save money.
Then as costs come down more areas open up. I don’t know how much of the $0.10/Kwh was for profit, but you don’t need a 100x drop to have many places where this would fit in.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:38:00 +0000

On their web site EOS claims an all-in storage price for $0.10/kWh. That includes all costs, including owner profit for commercial storage.

If/when end-users could/can purchase at $160/kWh it would mean being able to store solar power for less than half the present cost of lead acid storage. In some expensive electricity markets it would make sense to use storage to go largely off grid.

Where they make most sense is at the utility level to replace expensive peaking power.

By: stellar_gr

stellar_gr — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:16:00 +0000

$160/kwh is for capacity not useable kwhrs.
useable kwhrs are $160/10.000 cycles = 0.016/kwh dc

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:21:00 +0000

$160/kwh is still way (100x) more than a solar-roofed shopping centre, say, will be willing to pay to avoid buying grid electricity in the evening. The initial market must be utilities, the application grid management. Solar panels managed that price reduction over 35 years, so there’s hope for mass deployment . This will be more likely if peak grid electricity prices rise, as they should, since they will be based on lightly loaded backup generators.