As Hurricane Irma receded last September, thousands of Floridians sheltered in 115 well-lit schools, drinking hot coffee and communicating with the world through cell phones charged by solar-plus-storage systems. Funded by a $9.8 million 2009 Recovery Act grant, the solar-plus-storage systems powered the schools despite the overcast weather, while 6.7 million utility customers had no electricity. The events presented a real-life demonstration of the resiliency of renewable energy + storage.

Severe weather events are no stranger in Ohio. What is resiliency worth to your business? To start a conversation or showcase your efforts, contact us at OSBC.

More on this and its impact on utilities at Utility Dive: https://buff.ly/2Hn3nMw

Ohio Businesses Embracing Renewable Energy

Just two examples of the hundreds of Ohio businesses turning to renewable energy.

The Little Fish Brewing Company to offers craft beer made with Ohio products. The company is also committed to investing in solar energy for their electric needs. This case, as with many others in Athens, Ohio, shows true business leadership that is much more than improving the bottom line — connecting local food and local energy themes helps create lasting social impact that brings customers back.

Jackie-O’s Pub & Brewery, also in Athens installed solar panels on its facility to enhance resilience and save on the cost of electricity.

Energy Storage in Ohio

The HMV Minster PV project provides the Village of Minster with over 5,600MWh of renewable energy per year, enough energy to power over 500 households. The system is situated on 17 acres of land owned by the Village of Minster and interconnects with the Minster Utilities electrical distribution network. The installation includes 4.3 Mw Solar Array + 7MW Storage. Read More

Painesville, Ohio, about 30 miles Northeast of Cleveland, OH has embarked on an ambitious program to expand its renewable energy portfolio through energy storage and wind. Read more

This article below (posted in 2014 on WindPowerEngineering.com)   from law firm Bricker & Eckler, authored by Dylan Borchers and J. Thomas Siwo.

In Ohio, the largest energy storage system (as of 2014) is Dayton Power & Light’s array of 800,000 lithium-ion D-size batteries that store power when demand is low and provide extra power when demand is high within the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid that serves 60 million people.

In Ohio, the largest energy storage system is Dayton Power & Light’s array of 800,000 lithium-ion D-size batteries from AES that store power when demand is low and provide extra power when demand is high in the PJM Interconnection.

In a Dayton Daily News article, AES Energy Storage president Chris Shelton reports that the $20 million AES battery array is the first advanced battery energy storage system in Ohio and one of the five largest in the world.” Shelton says the 40-megawatt system, launched in September 2013, has moved the entire industry forward to take storage seriously and include more of it as an alternative to power plants. According to a recent Dayton Daily News article, the facility’s parent company, AES Corp., contributed to a $17 million increase in U.S. adjusted pre-tax contribution in the second quarter of 2014.

Another notable energy storage facility operated by RES Americas is located in Sunbury, Ohio. The system is comprised of a ±4 MW (8 MW total range)/ 2.6 MWh lithium battery that provides frequency regulation to the PJM Interconnection system. The project consists of two containers that house batteries weighing approximately 20 tons each, as well as a third container that converts the direct current (dc) output to alternating current (ac) for injection and withdrawal of real power to and from the grid.

Ohio is also home to notable research and development in the area of energy storage. For example, researchers at the The Ohio State University (OSU) recently invented a battery that “could make solar energy more affordable for homeowners and businesses and could open the door for its widespread use as a sustainable power source,” according to a report by The Columbus Dispatch. Yiying Wu, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at OSU and a member of the research group, said, “in order to use renewable energy, we have to use solar panels, but we have to save the energy, so then we also need to use batteries.”
Wu and his students sought to integrate the battery and solar panel system into a single device. Existing systems “lose about 20% of the energy solar panels collect when the energy is transferred to a battery.” The system invented at OSU “maintains nearly all of the energy.” Mingzhe Yu, a doctoral student who invented a component of the new battery, said the OSU battery should lower solar-energy system manufacturing costs by around 25%.

OSU is also commercializing the KAir Battery, a highly energy efficient and cost-effective potassium air battery for mass energy storage. According to KAir, these batteries store generated electricity and return 98% of the input energy.
¹ Unlike competing products, KAir’s batteries do not produce toxic byproducts at the end of their lifetime.
² KAir was the Grand Prize Winner of the Ohio State University Business Plan Competition and the recipient of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy Prize from the Rice Business Plan Competition.

Read more

The above is an excerpt from this article (posted on WindPowerEngineering.com)   from law firm Bricker & Eckler, authored by Dylan Borchers and J. Thomas Siwo.