Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
The Trump “American Energy Dominance” plan has emerged as a weak-kneed attempt to garner respect, such as it is, from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his fossil fueled war machine. Meanwhile, the levers of US corporate power are taking a more expansive view of the nation’s energy future. Some legacy US oil and gas firms are turning their attention to new opportunities in the booming renewable energy economy, and that includes the surging market for energy storage.
The Long-Duration Energy Storage Plot Thickens
Opinions vary on the optimal duration for wind and solar energy storage. Generally, there is agreement over today’s lithium-ion battery technology. With a duration of about four hours (more or less), an Li-ion battery array can accomplish short-duration tasks, enabling grid planners to reduce if not eliminate the need to build new gas “peaker” plants to handle daily spikes in demand.
Tomorrow is another story. Climate impacts, the data center boom, the return of manufacturing to US shores, and population growth are among the factors contributing to a rapid rise in electricity demand. To make the picture even more complicated, variable resources — namely, wind and solar — will continue to carve out more space on the grid, despite Trump’s efforts to throttle both industries.
The US Department of Energy has been advising that day-long energy storage systems of 10 hours or more will be required to handle the increased demand alongside more wind and solar power.
The Quidnet Long-Duration Energy Storage Solution
The Texas startup Quidnet Energy is among the long-duration energy storage contenders to surface on the CleanTechnica radar. In 2019 the company received an Energy Department award to develop a sort of pumped storage hydropower system, deploying pressurized water in underground rock formations instead of surface reservoirs, with excess wind or solar energy providing enough pressure for a duration of 10 hours or more.
Apparently the Energy Department liked what it saw. In 2022 Quidnet received a follow-on award of $10 million from the agency’s ARPA-E office. ARPA-E was established by Congress during the Bush administration to support next-generation energy technologies.
And, here’s where it gets interesting. Last May, Quidnet announced a $10 million strategic partnership with the up-and-coming energy storage firm Hunt Energy Network, aiming for 300 megawatts of long-duration energy storage for the Texas electricity grid.
If Hunt rings a bell, run right out and buy yourself a cigar. HEN is part the Hunt Energy family business, one of the largest privately held companies in the US. Its feet have been firmly planted in the fossil energy exploration and production business since 1934, and there they will remain into the future. Taking the long view, though, the company has also positioned itself as a “platform for energy innovation.”
The Long-Duration Energy Storage Answer
HEN sprang into life on a mission to provide dispatchable power to the Texas electricity grid. Disptachable does not mean direct wind and solar energy (they are intermittent). Dispatchable power includes both short and long-duration energy storage systems, with long-duration systems performing the baseload, all-day job of conventional power plants.
Quidnet Energy has not let the HEN grass grow under its feet. The company had been conducting grid-scale tests of its Geomechanical Energy Storage long-duration system at a location in the Houston area, and the results are in.
“The tests confirm that Quidnet’s innovative GES solution is prepared to deliver robust, grid-scale energy storage to meet the fast-growing demand for reliable power,” the company stated last month. In addition to confirming market-readiness in terms of scale, the tests also validated long-life benchmarks, hitting the “negligible” mark for self-discharge and capacity degradation among other key parameters.
“These metrics provide real-world validation of GES as a long-life asset for supporting grid stability and delivering reliable power,” Quidnet explained in a press statement.
“These tests confirm that our storage technology is ready for commercial deployments just as electrical grids grapple with the rapid rise in load growth from industrial electrification and AI data centers,” emphasized Quidnet CEO Joe Zhou.
Pat Wood, CEO of Hunt Energy Network, also underscored the market-readiness angle. “As Quidnet prepares for commercial projects, we look forward to collaborating with the company on our 300 MW partnership for storage in Texas,” he said.
It’s All About The Supply Chain
Zhou also underscored the all-important supply chain issue. “With a mature, well-established supply chain and proven technology, we look forward to delivering GES at scale at a critical time for the energy industry,” he said.
The domestic Li-ion battery supply chain has become more robust than some energy storage watchers anticipated, but it wouldn’t hurt to bake more variety into the nation’s energy storage supply chain. Long-duration energy storage systems can take on many different shapes and forms, including compressed air storage and gravity systems in addition to more conventional-looking containerized systems.
Follow The Energy Storage Money … To Hydrogen?
The Texas grid is in a unique situation. Unlike other states, it is largely cut off from its neighbors. That explains why the state is #1 in installed wind capacity and a close second to California for solar. ERCOT and other energy stakeholders have been scrambling after every in-state kilowatt they can lay their hands on. Energy storage is part of the plan, and HEN plans to take the opportunity and run with it.
In 2021, HEN bagged $255 million in funding from the asset manager Manulife Investment Management to set up its HEN Infrastructure branch, aimed at pumping more distribution-level energy storage systems into the Texas grid. By 2024 the venture had 270 megawatts up and running, with another 80 megawatts in the pipeline for completion this year.
Last August, HEN announced another $250 million in Manulife dollars, aimed at expanding its energy storage business and dipping into the thermal peaker plant business, too.
Nowadays thermal means natural gas (not coal or oil), but Hunt dropped a hint that it is looking into the idea of hydrogen-compatible turbines. “Unlike generators that rely solely on natural gas, these generators would not be dependent on the operational status of natural gas supply and delivery,” the company stated, adding that its peaker plants would have “significant on-site fuel storage.”
Mitsubishi and other turbine stakeholders have already introduced hydrogen-compatible gas turbines to the market, and hydrogen is an energy storage medium as well as a fuel and an energy carrier.
The missing link is green hydrogen. Texas could have green hydrogen the tune of 300 million tons yearly considering its wind and solar resources, though energy analysts advise that the siting of production facilities will limited by the availability of water resources.
Photo (cropped): The energy storage startup Quidnet Energy is ready to bring its long-duration, underground “water battery” system to market (courtesy of Quidnet).
Whether you have solar power or not, please complete our latest solar power survey.
Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy