Battery Energy Storage Systems abbreviated as BESS are electricity storage systems that primarily enable renewable energy and electricity supply robustness.
The major application areas are:
- Grid Energy Storage – smoothing out the intermittent supply from renewables
- EV Fast Charging – local energy storage can be used to reduce the peak power demand.
- Critical Infrastructure – hospitals, telecommunications towers and data centres.
- Public infrastructure, commercial buildings, and factories – enabling local grids to operate on local renewables.
- Harsh Environments – mining, construction, oil and gas exploration, plus requirements for temporary electricity demand such as music festivals.
We will expand each of these with examples and look at the requirements.
ITP Renewables [2] have been testing BESS systems wince 2016 and over that timeframe have run 3 phases looking at different commercially available energy storage systems. Lessons learned from the battery test centre are that:
- not all batteries are created equal, price does not guarantee quality,
- reliability is just as important as capacity retention, and
- product support and warranties should be considered alongside manufacturers’ performance specifications.
ITP have published a number of reports in this field that are free to download [2].
References
- Renewables and Energy Storage Reports, ITP Renewables – specialises in producing detailed market and technology reports for policy makers, associations and businesses. Our reports are informed by some of Australia’s leading experts and are highly regarded for their thorough technical analysis, accuracy and independent outlook.
- Six years and 26 batteries later, ITP’s Battery Test Centre