Maxwell Technologies, a provider of energy storage and power delivery solutions, announced it will collaborate on a California Energy Commission-funded, two-phase program to demonstrate the cost and efficiency benefits of combining an energy storage system with Soitec’s Concentrix CPV technology.
California is leading in renewable energy investments in the country. The state has set a goal of 33 percent renewable generation by 2020. This project has the power to increase the state’s renewable energy portfolio, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and create a more reliable electricity grid.
Maxwell has been awarded a $1.39 million contract by the California Energy Commission’s Research and Development program to fund design and integration of an ultracapacitor-based energy storage system with Soitec’s CPV system located on the campus of University of California, San Diego and a second commercial scale system at Soitec’s solar power plant in Southern California.
The integrated systems will also take advantage of other technology advances, including solar forecasting and predictive energy control, to maximize the benefit of incorporating ultracapacitor energy storage.
Ultracapacitors are energy storage devices that charge rapidly from any electrical energy source and discharge their stored energy on demand. In combination with a photovoltaic system, their function will be to act as a standby reservoir of electrical energy to mitigate the variability of solar energy generation.
Unlike batteries, which produce and store energy by means of a chemical reaction, Maxwell’s ultracapacitor products store energy in an electric field. This electrostatic energy storage mechanism enables ultracapacitors to charge and discharge in as little as fractions of a second, perform consistently over a broad temperature range (-40 to +65C), and operate reliably for up to one million or more charge/discharge cycles.
“This innovative energy storage system combining ultracapacitors and Soitec’s CPV technology, which is already installed on campus, is a welcome addition to UCSD’s existing microgrid and provides a unique diversification of our existing energy storage capacity,” said Byron Washom, director of strategic initiatives, University of California, San Diego.
The project starts in June 2013 and will run through November 2015. Independent evaluation of the performance of the integrated systems will be performed by DNV KEMA under a sub-contract with Maxwell.
Soitec’s new fifth-generation Concentrix CPV systems incorporate modules with a 30 percent market-leading module efficiency. CPV technology converts sunlight directly into clean electricity via concentrator optics and high-efficiency solar cells, offering the best design for use in sunny regions as it delivers environmentally friendly, low-cost, reliable solar-generated electricity.
Additionally, the CPV system’s two-axis tracker allows a high and constant power production throughout daylight hours.
This firming of the output of a utility-scale commercial CPV system is intended to reduce demand on the electric grid to fill in short-term solar valleys in order to maintain a facility’s electricity output.