(3BL Media/Justmeans) - Last week, grid storage provider Younicos, in partnership with the German utility WEMAG, broke ground on a new facility to increase grid storage capacity at the Schwerin battery park. The Schwerin facility was Europe’s first battery storage facility, commissioned in 2014 with a capacity of 5MW. The primary function of the storage facility is to level out momentary dips in output coming from the grid, which is mostly powered by wind turbines. When so-called frequency regulation power is provided by conventional power plants, the plants are required to remain running at 60% capacity in order to be able to respond quickly enough. Batteries can provide the same function far more efficiently, and because of their rapid response time, more effectively as well. According to the Energy Storage Association, “In the group of “ancillary services” provided in the open market management of the grid, frequency regulation has the highest value.”

This latter, no doubt underscores the rationale. “The fact that WEMAG is now investing €5 million in order to increase the available power and energy for system service is a strong testament to the commercial success and performance of battery storage in Europe,” said Alexander Schönfeldt, Younicos Vice President of Sales for EMEA.

(3BL Media/Justmeans) - Change takes time, but sometimes not as much time as one would have thought. A few short years ago, the idea of electric vehicles seemed like a tiny speck on a distant horizon—a toy for technophiles and early adapters. But even the Wall Street Journal says the EV’s will be here sooner than you think. And by here, they don’t mean on the fringes.

The numbers seem to bear this out. Worldwide, some 312,000 plug-in vehicles were sold in the first half of this year. That’s a 49% increase compared to last year. That growth rate, says Clean Technica, is roughly ten times that of the overall vehicle market. The biggest action was in China, where they grew 128% with home grown BYD vehicles providing the lion’s share. Japan came in second, and Europe, taken as a whole comes in third, with 21% growth before we get to the 18% growth seen here in the US.

Here at home, some 64,296 were sold through June. That is about one for every 150 cars sold. The top five models were Tesla Model S, Chevy Volt, Ford Fusion Energi PHEV, Tesla Model X, and Nissan Leaf with Tesla Model S sales roughly double that of the Leaf. Leaf sales have dropped recently in anticipation of a new model with significantly improved range, a phenomenon that has become common in the rapidly-changing EV world.

The tipping point, says WSJ, is the 200 mile range mark, which Tesla has already hit, and others, including the soon to be released Chevy Bolt, will meet and improve on.

(3BL Media/Justmeans) - There’s no question that a wave of renewable power generation is sweeping this country, and just about every other country around the world. But there are a number of questions surrounding it. Will there be enough power to meet our needs? Can we afford to eliminate nuclear power? How can a transient power source take the place of steady “baseline” power that is being served today be conventional sources? At the center of all these questions lies the promise of energy storage. Storage can certainly transform the erratic contributions of wind and solar into an unflagging, continuous stream. But what kind of storage should we use? How much do we need? And perhaps most commonly, how much will it cost and how long will it take?

The storage question is certainly a dynamic one, as new analyses and new technologies become available. There are, and will likely continue to be differences of opinion about a lot of this, in part because of lot of it depends on things that are still unknown.

That being said, let’s see if make some sense of things. It’s kind of like a really messy room. We may not be able to fully clean it up right now. But if we can at least start putting things into piles, it will start to look less messy.

First question, how badly do we need storage?