Battery manufacturer Eos Energy Storage has signed agreements to deploy 1 GWh of novel aqueous zinc battery energy storage in Texas and 500 MWh in California, marking a massive scale-up in expected installations for the systems.
Eos Energy Storage said in a press release that its long duration zinc hybrid cathode batteries, which are best suited for 4-6 hour discharge but have the flexibility to go to higher power and longer run-times through de-rating power, have been ordered by ‘technology agnostic’ power producer International Electric Power for 1 GWh of projects to be connected to the grid run by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Under the terms of the agreement, Eos will manufacture, design and deliver multiple battery energy storage projects to the grid from the third quarter of 2021. Since the agreement is in its infancy, the final number of projects and their locations have not been decided upon yet, though it does appear that these will be standalone storage projects. Eos will also be providing operations and maintenance services across the 20-year lifespans of the projects. IEP is yet to identify the exact locations where the systems will be sited.
Eos has also entered into an agreement with Carson Hybrid Energy Storage (CHES) to supply the company with 500 MWh of battery energy storage systems for the California power grid. According to Eos, the long-duration battery solutions will be used “in parallel with existing power generation and substation architecture to store renewable energy generated capacity, and to provide power quality and better resilience.” This would imply that, unlike the Texas projects, these installations may be paired with generation stations, like solar facilities. A recent Berkeley Labs presentation showed the California Independent System Operator solar queue having a battery attachment rate for solar projects of 67 per cent.
The 500 MWh project and a possible 200 MWh follow-on to be built later are in the service area of California investor-owned utility Southern California Edison.
Outside of announcing these new project developments, Eos has been actively pursuing new projects and opportunities. It has been able to get pilot projects deployed in multiple territories including Latin America and for US energy holding major Duke Energy in the past few years, and recently received an order for a 4 MWh project at one of the world’s largest oil refineries, in Greece. To date, the company’s biggest single announced deal had been for a 10 MW/40 MWh system ordered by developer Convergent Energy + Power in 2015 for a California project still awaiting confirmation of go-ahead. In June, the company filed a letter of intent for a business combination transaction with B. Riley Principal Merger Corp. II, one of which would result in Eos becoming a public company. The two companies expect the execution of a definitive agreement for the business combination imminently, at which point the potential business combination is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of this year.
REGlobal’s Views: The year 2020 has witnessed big developments in non-lithium-ion battery chemistries – including a forecast where lithium-iron-phosphate becomes the predominant chemistry and millions in funding is used to commercialize metal hydrogen batteries. With the aforementioned orders, zinc hybrid cathode technology is also entering the mix in a big way. It’ll be interesting to see how the various grid storage technologies unfold in future.
