Dec.

12, 2012

Applications for Advanced Batteries in Microgrid Environments

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Demands for high performance battery solutions are expected to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy resources. This is especially true for microgrids. Microgrids are attractive settings for wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. But, susceptibility to wind spikes, lulls, and rolling clouds can lead to signicant frequency variations and voltage drops. Beyond concerns over equipment damage of traditional generation assets, the intermittency associated with renewable generation increases maintenance and fuel costs. As a result, microgrids are well-positioned to benet from battery-based storage systems for maintaining reliability and power quality.

sort of storage, Crow explains. Lead acid batteries are extremely well-known but do have issues. They are toxic and very heavy, and they require maintenance. Another issue is environmental impact and sustainability. Lithium-based batteries offer many advantages to answer Crows performance issues. They are safer because they dont suffer from hydrogen gas leakage or degrade from exposure to sulfuric acid. Lower weight and volume ratios compared to power output are additional benets. The latest breakthrough in lithium-titanate technology offers a rugged battery with high power, fast charge and discharge rates, and long life, plus a superior power to weight ratio over lithiumion based predecessors.

Efficient Storage is Critical

Traditional lead-acid battery systems have been tried, but performance limitations, short life cycles, and high maintenance demands have limited their adoption. However, breakthroughs in a new generation of lithium-based battery storage devices are entering the market, and one company, Altairnano, has advanced the technology a step further by replacing traditional graphite materials used in conventional lithium-ion batteries with a proprietary, nanostructured lithium-titanate.

What About Efficiency?

One of the biggest issues with microgrids is the loss of efciency when changing the form of energy, says Crow. So you need a good roundtrip efciency factor. Lithiumtitanate batteries offer an impressive average efciency that surpasses 90% total roundtrip efciency (including power conversion system) for a 1 MW dispatch. At a 250 kW dispatch, roundtrip efciency rises to 93%. Moreover, their performance is ideal for mitigating the impact of high diesel fuel consumption in microgrid situations. In an era of record-high oil prices, diesel fuel costs have placed signicant burdens on electricity providers, but the implications can be staggering for remote villages, such as Kotzebue, Alaska. Located north of the Arctic Circle, Kotzebues 3,000 residents depend on diesel generators plus an array of wind turbines to supply a load that averages 2.5 MW. We buy an annual supply of 2.15 million gallons of fuel, says Brad Reeve, general manager of the Kotzebue Electric Association. That isnt our total consumption but its what we need in order to carry the prior years fuel and also to get a years supply plus four months backup. In 1997, Kotzebue installed its rst wind turbine in an

Efficient storage is critical because microgrids or onsite generation systems with islanding capabilities can operate without being connected to a utility grid.

Efcient storage is critical because microgrids or onsite generation systems with islanding capabilities can operate without being connected to a utility grid, says Mariesa Crow, Ph.D., P.E., director, Energy Research and Development Center, Missouri University of Science and Technology. Any time you have a reliance on renewable energy or intermittent energy without a grid tie you have to have some

effort to reduce diesel consumption. At this point, it has installed 17 wind turbines that can produce a maximum of 1.1 MW. Power quality uctuations occur, but arent disruptive because the diesels handle the majority of the load. Future plans call for a change to the role of the wind turbines, and Reeve is anticipating power quality issues that require a solution.

Applications for Advanced Batteries in Microgrid Environments

ACTUaL WIND FaRM OUTPUT-SMooTHING PoTENTIaL BY ALTaIRNaNo LITHIUM-TITaNaTE BaTTERY SToRaGE

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200% 180% 160% State of Charge 140% 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

1.5 Hour Event 2 Second Resolution

Figure 1 Actual wind data for the Apollo Wind Farm provided by the Hawaiian Electric Light Company reects variability of wind output using two-second resolution over a two-hour period. The blue line reects wind output. The magenta line reects the smoothing capabilities of a 1MW Altairnano Energy Storage System (ALTI-ESS), using a control algorithm developed by HOMER, LLC. It is anticipated the smoothing of output would reduce wear and tear on generation equipment and result in an overall reduction in the ramping requirements.

When we add another 1.8 MW of wind equipment well be in high penetration so were looking at some battery storage as part of the equation, says Reeve. Storage is key for a lot of these island grid installations like ours in maintaining our power quality. If you have batteries they can buffer against low and high wind problems, and when you get a low load you can run the diesels at their sweet spot in efciency and use the storage to avoid having to turn on a peaking unit. Reeve estimates that batteries could provide ride through during uctuations and avoid about 300 engine starts per year, resulting in savings of 150,000 gallons of fuel. Ultimately, Reeve says the goal is to reverse the role of the wind turbines and the diesels, so the wind turbines and storage working together supply the base load requirements. With wind power supporting a large portion of the load, its not unusual for diesel engines to struggle to control frequency, voltage and reactive power, according to E. Ian Baring-Gould, senior mechanical engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratorys (NREL) Wind Technology Center. Baring-Gould has been involved closely with the development of wind power at a number of Alaskan villages, and he notes that problems often occur when wind surges

and voltage spikes cause diesel engines to power down and operate below their minimum load ratings.

Any time you have a reliance on renewable energy or intermittent energy without a grid tie, you have to have some sort of storage.

Running diesels (especially older models) at levels under 40% to 50% of minimum load can raise emissions, and reduced load levels can force engines to run at cooler temperatures. Ensuing problems are increased engine carbon build up, wet stacking, and higher maintenance requirements. Obviously its benecial to shut down as many

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fuel consuming engines as possible as renewable resources supply more of the load, but fast response storage is needed to give the diesels time to restart when the output of those renewable resources falls.

For example, within milliseconds, the Altairnano Energy Storage System provides up to 1 MW of instantaneous dispatch for 15 minutes per module, and importantly, recharging the battery takes just 15 minutes. Such performance would result in a reduced life cycle for traditional battery technologies, but with a conservative 12,000-plus cycle life (full depth of discharge), this product

The latest breakthrough in lithium-titanate technology offers a rugged battery with high power, fast charge, and discharge rates and long life.
Diesels with storage batteries allow you to supply some buffering until you can start another diesel in a controlled fashion, says Baring-Gould. In most cases, the optimal runtime and ridethrough is ve minutes, but of course it depends on load characteristics. You want to have leeway and avoid using the engine when you dont really need it for a short uctuation. The charge/discharge capability and high cycle life of a lithium-titanate battery can provide an ideal solution to these ride-through needs.

has an estimated life of 20 years. For many microgrid applications, the duty cycle isnt going to require a full depth of discharge. The shallower the charge and discharge, the greater the cycle life.

Photovoltaics and Microgrids

Photovoltaic solar panels arent seeing much uptake in
1,200 northern climates such as Alaska, but their popularity

is growing elsewhere, and they share much of the same intermittency characteristics of wind. The Department of Energy has taken notice and issued warnings about problems such as, voltage rise, cloud-induced voltage regulation issues, and transient problems caused by mass tripping of
Power (kW) 900

PV during low voltage or frequency events. In part, photovoltaics have problems because they are subject to the IEEE 1547 interface guidelines, says Robert Lasseter, Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsins Department 300 of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and site director of the Power Systems Engineering Research
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Figure 2 Using actual solar data for the island of Lanai available from National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Altairnano and HOMER Energy accurately modeled PV output in one-minute intervals, which would be anticipated for the island of Lanai on July 23, 2009 and a 1.2 MW PV solar array. The yellow line represents the output from the PV array for each minute of the day. The blue line represents the target output for the Altairnano Energy Storage System over each 30-minute time step. Modeling reects the smoothing characteristics of an Altairnano Energy Storage System.

Power (kW)

Applications for Advanced Batteries in Microgrid Environments

Center, a multiuniversity center focused on the restructuring of the electric power industry. The IEEE 1547 set of standards governs connecting small sources of energy to the distribution system, and it causes PV systems to shut down during voltage drops or frequency uctuations. A microgrid can disconnect or island from the utility grid when photovoltaics react to these problems, but because the disconnection removes the stabilizing reserve offered by the utility grid, storage is needed to smooth out and absorb excess load, or supply power to compensate for drops in voltage. If you have bigger generators that dont respond as fast, you want storage to take things up and balance the load, says Lasseter. Additionally, Lasseter notes that microgrids with fuel cells are experiencing problems similar to those of photovoltaics. He was recently involved in a distributed energy project at a correctional institution in California, where the distributed generation employed 2 MW of photovoltaic panels and a 1 MW fuel cell. The fuel cell trips off any time there are uctuations in the grid, Lasseter explains. We are going to install large storage [batteries], and the ability to island in half a cycle. In that case were relying on the storage to make up all the energy differences instantaneously.

searching for adequate methods of buffering uctuations in power coming from their Kaheawa wind energy project. The short-term solution has been less than cost-effective access to the power has been limited to an average of one third of the 30 MW the wind is capable of producing.

A microgrid can disconnect or island from the utility grid when photovoltaics react to problems.

Those same wind uctuations will contribute to cloud conditions that make Lanai an ideal laboratory for studying solar energy uctuations, and also an ideal site for determining the most cost-effective technology for a battery buffering system. Peter Lilienthal, former NREL microgrid optimization expert and now the CEO of HOMER Energy, utilized a life cycle analysis approach to study the costs and performance factors between traditional VRLA batteries versus lithium-titanate batteries. The study used solar data for Lanai from July 20 through August 23, gathered from NREL, to get an accurate picture of typical cloud patterns over a months time. The data revealed signicant uctuations in solar radiation. There were 2,000 ramp events per year where the PV output changed by more than 500 kW from one minute to the next, and 53 ramp events where the PV output changed by more than 800 kW. Each of these represents one or more power quality events where voltage and/or frequency move out of spec, leading to generator stress, higher maintenance and fuel costs, and stress on the battery that will reduce its life. To model the VRLA battery performance, characteristics were based upon the units cycling 1,200 times to an 80% depth of discharge. The lithium-titanate battery specications were based upon cycling 15,000 times to a 100% depth of discharge. Neither battery could make the combined PV-battery output perfectly smooth on every day of the year, but the Altairnano battery came much closer than the lead acid battery while

Mitigating Intermittency on the Hawaiian Island of Lanai

Batteries have also been chosen to solve energy uctuation problems at a new solar farm on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. The projects location and weather-related solar intermittency offer an ideal environment to compare the performance of Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries against lithium-titanate. The project is a $19 million, 1.5 MW photovoltaic solar farm, occupying about 10 acres in the Palawai Basin, just two miles from the islands diesel generation facility operated by the Maui Electric Company. The facility supplies 10.4 MW from 8 diesel units, and will continue to operate with expectations of the 1.5 MW plant supplying up to 30% of peak demand on Lanai. An integrated battery system could smooth out voltage spikes and drops, and provide short-term storage. Such spikes and related problems have become a critical issue for Maui Electric. The company has had problems with power outages on the islands of Oahu and Maui, and is still

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delivering more energy to the utility. During energy spikes, the lead acid battery was stressed to its limits and such events typically result in a reduced lifetime. The cycle life of the Altairnano battery far exceeds the amount of cycling that it would experience during 20 years in this application.

Ultimately, the lithium-titanate battery is more effective in smoothing output because its design is better suited to the high rates of charge and discharge in this application. It delivers signicantly higher kWh to the utility because its higher efciency incurs fewer losses. Finally, the 20-year shelf life is not reduced due to cycle wear, yet the lead acid battery is only estimated to last 7.9 years in this particular application. This was considered a best case life expectancy,

The lithium-titanate battery specifications were based upon cycling 15,000 times to a 100% depth of discharge.

as the repeated battery life shortening stress events were not factored into the life expectancy. With its high performance, modular scalability, and extended lifetime, Altairnanos application of lithium-titanate technology offers an ideal solution to power stability in microgrid applications that use renewable energy. But is it price competitive in todays market? In an environment such as the Lanai solar farm or other isolated grid environments, the Altairnano battery demonstrates the lowest life cycle

The analysis showed that on average, the lead acid battery would deliver 4,350 kWh per day, while the Altairnano battery would deliver 4,600 kWh per day. The difference amounts to 91,250 kWh per year plus an additional 7,306 kWh per year of unserved energy from the lead acid battery.

cost by a signicant margin. And though each situation will be different, the evaluation methods employed using data associated with Lanai are applicable for helping to determine the true economic value of Altairnanos storage capabilities for power management.

FREQUENCY of CHaRGEs IN PV PowER ovER 1 MINUTE

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Figure 3 Using PV output modeled for the island of Lanai, the graphic reects the frequency of ramping events as a function of the change from one minute to the next. The center gap includes smaller, but more common, ramp events, not supported by the smoothing capabilities of an Altairnano Energy Storage System. Since there are 525,600 minutes in a year, 0.1% represents 526 events per year. Although it sounds small on a percentage basis, there were still over 2,000 ramp events per year where the PV output changed by more than 500 kW from one minute to the next and 53 ramp events where the PV output changed by more than 800 kW.
- Graph produced by HOMER

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Applications for Advanced Batteries in Microgrid Environments

About Altairnano
Altairnano is a leading provider of energy storage systems for clean, efcient power and energy management. Designed for power-dependent applications, Altairnanos family of advanced lithium-ion energy storage systems and batteries is responding to changing demands in energy generation, utilization and policy. Whether its reducing our dependencies on coal-red generation facilities, reducing carbon emissions or accelerating the adoption of renewable integration and alternative-fuel vehicles, Altairnano is helping to achieve sustainable and economically sensible power and energy management practices. Altairnano is headquartered in Anderson, Ind., where it operates a 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Altairnanos technical team comprises scientists, engineers and real-world business professionals. With proprietary technologies, proven market acceptance and production scalability, Altairnano is uniquely positioned to help solve the challenges and opportunities of an energy-focused economy.

For more information: +1.888.218.4005 sales@altairnano.com www.altairnano.com

Current as of 12.12.2012 Note that all specications, product descriptions, standards and other technical documentation are subject to change at any time and cannot be guaranteed accurate as of this printing. 2012 by Altairnano. Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. and Altairnano are registered trademarks of Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc.