Puerto Rico ROUNDUP: News in brief on solar-plus-storage from the hurricane-hit island.

Northern Ireland’s Queens University Belfast (QUB) has found that battery-based energy storage can provide inertial response for system reliability much more efficiently, at a lower cost and with substantially reduced emissions than thermal generation. Dr Marek Kubic at Fluence, which is working with QUB, explains.

The latest confirmed initiative supporting the restoration of power in Puerto Rico is the donation of 6MW of batteries from AES, which has suggested microgrids and large-scale solar could be the answer to long term stability issues.

Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich has said that using behind-the-meter systems to provide grid services could be “extremely valuable in certain targeted ways” as the company rolls out energy storage systems into key regional markets.

US trade association groups, the Energy Storage Association and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), have called on their respective industries to assist hurricane relief efforts in the US and its territories.

AES claims that 20MW of energy storage it deployed in the Dominican Republic just a few weeks before Hurricane Irma, assisted the island nation in keeping power supplies running even as devastation struck.

A 20MW energy storage project set to be completed by March will use gas/diesel fired generation to deliver millions of pounds in revenue from balancing services to the national transmission network.

The output of a 16MW solar farm in Puerto Rico will be tied to an Aquion ‘saltwater’ battery, in one of the few current trials of moving solar power produced in the daytime to be used at night.

Puerto Rico’s financially troubled electric power authority PREPA will install a large-scale battery park at a 10MW PV farm, to help integrate the farm’s output and other renewables.

Last week the US Energy Storage Association (ESA) hosted its annual conference and exhibition in Dallas, Texas. Andy Colthorpe spoke to Jim McDowall of battery and energy storage system provider Saft, which won the show’s Outstanding Acheivement Award.