A recent report by Tennessee-based carbon solutions platform Clearloop noted that private companies have contracted for 71 GW of new renewable energy capacity in the U.S. since 2014, which is enough electricity to power nearly 15 million homes. However, the distribution of solar and wind projects tends to cluster regionally, and not only because of the availability of wind and solar resources. State and utility renewable energy policies play a huge role in where new projects are sited.

Clearloop, which is a subsidiary of solar power producer Silicon Ranch, partnered with non-profit emissions data analysis firm WattTime to study how renewable energy projects – and solar in particular – could be sited to produce better environmental and even social outcomes. The resulting white paper, Curing Carbon Blindness, reinforces the important role of private sector action in growing renewable energy in the U.S. while at the same time saying such action can be better focused to achieve decarbonization goals.

By incorporating the principle of “emmissionality,” the report suggests, companies looking to purchase renewable energy credits (RECs) or offset to their carbon footprints should seek to contract with solar and wind projects in regions with the highest percentage of fossil fuel generation.

Under the current structure, all RECs are essentially created equal, meaning an offtaker in one part of the country can buy RECs from a project anywhere else. There are differences in regional markets, such as ERCOT, but this is generally how it works. Laura Zapata, co-founder and CEO of Clearloop and one of the authors of the carbon blindness report, said not all MWh of clean energy are created equal in terms of their environmental impact.

“We still get over 60% of our electricity in this country from fossil fuels,” Zapata told pv magazine USA. “And so, our goal is how do we build more solar projects in the most carbon intense communities, which also happen to be often the most underserved and disadvantaged communities.”

Unlike most countries, the U.S. does not have a single national energy grid. It is more like a continent with many regional grids of widely varying emissions characteristics. Some regions, such as California, have grids with high percentages of renewables, while others, such as in the southern Appalachians, have fossil-fuel-heavy generation.

According to the Clearloop report, turning on a light switch in eastern Kentucky will result in 54% more carbon emissions than turning on a corresponding light in Los Angeles. This same data show that a new solar plant located in eastern Kentucky will reduce emissions by 62% more than the same plant would in Los Angeles.

By combining historical irradiance data with WattTime’s marginal emissions data, Clearloop says it is able to model not only how much electricity a solar project is expected to supply the grid, but also the marginal carbon intensity of the power generation sources it is displacing in that region at specific times.

Zapata argues that the marginal difference in emissions that results when solar generation displaces fossil fuel generation should be a key factor in citing projects. Using WattTime’s emissions analysis methodology, Clearloop had identified the regions of the U.S. where new solar, the report’s main focus, would have the greatest decarbonization impact by reducing a like amount of fossil fuel generation sources.

The analysis also extends to voluntary carbon offset markets that rely on private carbon credit registries, such as Verra or Gold Standard. This enables a company to use the methodology for contracting with solar projects to offset its carbon footprint from activities other than electricity consumption, such as air travel.

“Our clients are not interested in the electricity,” Zapata said. “What they want is credit for the environmental impact of those electrons flowing into the grid. So, whether they count them as RECs or offsets, we’re sort of agnostic.”

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new methodology for estimating the value of climate and air quality benefits from wind and solar generation. A report describing the results of an analysis of data from 2019 to 2022 using the methodology concludes that wind and solar generation provided $249 billion dollars of climate and air quality health benefits over that period.

Renewable energy advocates argue that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) does not tell the whole story when comparing the economics of wind and solar generation with fossil-fuel sources. Emissions from natural gas- and coal-fired plants in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) affect the climate and air quality in ways that should be accounted for in the evaluation of renewable energy’s benefits.

The researchers draw on publicly available electricity generation data and break the continental U.S. into ten regions in which wind or solar supplied at least 3% of electricity demand. An 11th region centered on Tennessee was excluded because the thresholds weren’t met. The methodology measures daily generation from appropriate sources (solar, wind, gas and coal) by region and a yearly average of emissions by region. The reason for averaging emissions is that there is generally a significant delay in the availability of daily emissions data.

According to the report, in 2022 the generation-weighted average across all regions in shows that 1.0 MWh of wind generation offsets 0.89 MWh of fossil generation (0.29 MWh of coal generation and 0.60 MWh of gas generation); and that 1.0 MWh of solar generation offsets 0.76 MWh of fossil generation (0.14 MWh of coal generation and 0.62 MWh of gas generation).

The offsets are not one-to-one because of transmission loss from solar and wind sources, which tend to be located further from consumers than fossil-fuel sources and curtailment issues. Also because some generation is absorbed by battery storage, which was not factored into the analysis method. Furthermore, other sources such as nuclear and hydroelectric typically are not displaced by solar and wind generation and so were not factored in, the researchers said.

In order to determine the dollar value of climate and air-quality benefits resulting from lowered emissions, the researchers turned to published reports in scientific journals: a 2022 article in Nature for determining the social cost of carbon; and a 2019 article in Environmental Research Letters that evaluated the social costs of pollutants such as SO2 and NOx.

With the generation offsets and social costs of emissions in hand, the Berkeley Lab researchers were able to calculate the health benefits of renewable generation. The researchers found the 435.6 TWh of wind generation produced in the U.S. during 2022 prevented 228,798 kilotons (KT) of CO2, 116 KT of SO2 and 129 KT of NOx emissions, resulting in total health benefits worth $62.4 billion. Solar provided 116.1 TWh of generation, preventing 45,729 KT of CO2, 15 KT of SO2 and 28 KT of NOx emissions, yielding $11.6 billion in health benefits.

According to the researchers, their new methodology shows the benefits of renewable generation are much higher than have been previously estimated and could help make a strong case for increasing wind and solar penetration in the U.S. Moreover, the analysis tools could be applied anywhere sufficient data are available. “The relatively simple data needed for our approach increases the possibility that it could be adapted to other regions around the world,” the researchers said.

Robert Gibbons, Strategic Development Manager at Trina Solar US, entered the world of photovoltaics about three years ago, coming from the oil and gas industry. Fossil fuel projects were becoming less common and a new universe seemed to be opening for renewable energy with the pending Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Despite its rather misleading name, the IRA is a massive federal support mechanism for renewable energy.

“One of the biggest benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act has been raising the visibility of tax policy on prospective solar projects,” Gibbons told pv magazine USA. “When’s the last time you’ve had a 10 -year time frame where you feel pretty good that these tax credits are going to be there, right?”

The federal solar tax credit of the 2010s, which along with inexpensive China-source PV panels, energized the solar industry in the U.S. With that tax credit set to expire, Congress increased it from 26% to 30% and extended it through 2032.

Gibbons added that the IRA has come along at a time when just putting projects together has become that much more difficult because of a combination of rising interest rates and what he calls the structural constraints of longer interconnection queues. He said his 30 years in financing, mainly of infrastructure projects, a lot of which were for the oil and gas industry, has given him a good understanding of what is needed to move projects forward, especially during difficult economic times.

While critics point to the money being set aside under the IRA as being itself inflationary, Gibbons is more sanguine on the law’s positive effects, which he said helps enable effective and profitable solar projects to get the green light. He pointed out that an important element of the IRA is its provision for the transferability of tax credits.

In the proposal stage, solar projects may seem like a house of cards. A successful project needs a developer to oversee the design, engineering, land acquisition, legal issues and financing. Financers, in particular, want to know there are going to be guaranteed off-takers for the electricity generated. In addition, there has to be a dependable supply chain to equipment manufacturers and possibly resellers. Today, the availability of tax credits can make the difference in whether a proposed solar project is viable or not.

“We do not advise clients on how to manage a project to get the various tax credit adders,” Gibbons said, emphasizing that this was not Trina’s role. “However, with the transferability of tax credits under the IRA, we and our partners can buy these and provide clients with confidence in a project’s economics.”

Recent guidance from the Internal Revenue Service outlines the domestic content credit a clean energy project may receive for incorporating equipment manufactured in the United States. Because of the surge in interest in U.S. manufactured solar modules, Trina Solar US is building a 5 GW capacity solar module manufacturing facility in Wilmer, Texas. Gibbons said Trina moved quickly on the opportunity to develop the facility, which will produce PV components as well as assemble modules from components produced in China.

“We had a lot of interest on behalf of our clients in using modules from that facility,” Gibbons said. “Not only because of domestic content benefits, but wanting to also support the development of solar manufacturing in the U.S.”

As much as Gibbons appreciates the tangible benefits of the IRA and IRS rules to the U.S. solar industry, he is also cognizant that politics cannot be counted on forever to support PV and other renewable energy projects. The recent laws and rules have been key, he asserts, but at some point the industry will have to stand on its own. Yet at the same time, it may be too big to fail.

“The IRA starts to phase out and it’s gone by 2032,” Gibbons said. “At that point, we should have a large, sustainable solar generation and manufacturing industry, right? And if it needs more help after that, what politician is going to want to get in front of that and put an end to it?”

A recent report by the International Energy Agency said lithium-ion batteries remain the key storage technology for the energy and transportation sectors. While mining for lithium is keeping pace with increasing demand, lithium refining and production of battery packs is concentrated in China, which causes some concerns in the West over supply chains and market dominance.

Sodium is emerging as a viable material for solid state batteries for many of the same energy storage applications that now favor lithium-ion systems.

Bor Jang, chief science officer and board chairman of Solidion Technology, an Ohio-based developer of solid battery technologies, told pv magazine USA that as many countries become dependent on batteries for important sectors of their economies, they will be prompted to search for alternative formulations to those based on lithium, which is relatively rare.

“Sodium, by contrast, is much more abundant in the Earth’s crust and oceans and is evenly distributed around the world,” he said.

In addition to its abundance, which leads to lower costs and easier supply chains, sodium-ion formulations have advantages in faster recharge rates and improved fire safety over lithium-ion ones, Jang said. The tradeoff is that sodium-ion batteries have less energy density (watts per kilogram), which translates into shorter ranges for electric vehicles and less overall storage capacity for grid operators for the same footprint.

However, Jang said, sodium-ion batteries are perfectly suited to EV uses where a 150-mile range would not be a burden, such as for local utility fleets or commuter driving, and where their faster recharge cycles would be appreciated, as would the projected lower price. Similarly, grid-storage facilities where footprint is not an issue would benefit from recharge rates and fire safety characteristics.

On the manufacturability side, Jang said sodium-ion batteries could be produced in factories that currently make lithium-ion batteries with only minor changes to the equipment.

“Solium-ion batteries have the potential to be useful across a wide range of applications, not just those dominated by lithium-ion technology” Jang said. “They can be used in place of lead-acid batteries, for example. Such demand will bring down prices.”

A materials scientist by education, Jang said he turned his attention to solid-state battery research and development about 20 years ago as the needs of the proposed energy transition from fossil fuels to non-emitting sources clearly would require a dramatic increase in energy storage capacity, particularly with renewable generators such as solar and wind. He founded a number of companies focused on the supply of materials for solid state battery electrolytes, anodes and cathodes.

Earlier this year, he saw the merger of his Honeycomb Battery Co. with Nubia Brand International Corp. which gave Solidion status as a publicly traded company. It joins a number of competitors hoping to commercialize sodium-ion batteries.

Jang said Solidion is working with the U.S. Department of Energy through one of the national laboratories, not announced, and the University of Texas, Austin, to improve the performance of sodium-ion battery technology. In particular, the focus is on improving the energy density electrolyte and replacing expensive cobalt and nickel in battery components.

California-based Quino Energy says its new pilot production line is ready to produce its proprietary chemistry for flow batteries. The company will produce electrolytes for existing commercial designs of flow batteries, which use tanks of charged and uncharged solutions to discharge electricity across a membrane. The technology is seen as a possible alternative to in-demand lithium-ion batteries for grid storage applications.

Eugene Beh, co-founder and CEO of Quino Energy, said his company’s electrolyte chemistry based on quinone, an organic compound, is intended to replace vanadium, a metal valued for flow batteries due to its ability to hold a charge but that is expensive and can be difficult to source.

“Our first step as a company is to focus on our organic battery formulation to replace vanadium in existing battery designs,” Beh told pv magazine USA. “Ultimately our goal is to produce the complete battery package to utility and commercial customers.”

The new manufacturing line is expected to be able to produce 100 KWh of reactant solution per day and joins two smaller test lines for lab work. The production facilities exist at Quino’s partner, Electrosynthasis near Buffalo, N.Y. Quino is using its flow batteries as part of a 12 kW solar photovoltaic microgrid at its San Leandro, Calif., headquarters.

In September 2021 Quino received $4.58 million from a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program long-duration energy storage research funding program. According to the funding announcement, this funding was awarded “to strengthen the U.S. domestic flow battery manufacturing ecosystem by developing and executing a scalable, cost‐effective, and continuous process for producing aqueous organic flow battery reactants”. DOE noted that this  investment is part of DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, critical to achieving the Long Duration Storage Shot goal of reducing the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% within the decade.

Quino is also receiving venture capital funding and investment from Israel-based Doral Energy Tech Ventures and from London-based Energy Revolution Ventures.

A chemist by background and a native of Singapore, Beh invented and commercialized a redox flow desalination technology as a researcher at Xerox PARC. He started Quino Energy in 2021 with co-founder Meisam Bahari, who serves as the company’s chief technology officer.

Beh’s quinone formulation for flow batteries is derived from relatively inexpensive and abundant dyestuff chemicals. He says the process for creating the organic battery material does not produce any chemical waste.

Right now, Quino is simply swapping out vanadium-based electrolytes in commercial flow batteries with its quinone formulation, the source of its intellectual property. The substitution only requires a small modification to the battery’s membrane. Ultimately, Beh wants to be able to produce complete flow battery systems because the economic margins will be better; however, he said that one of the challenges of creating and commercializing flow battery formulations is making them unique enough to be patented.

“We are very open about what exactly our secret sauce is made off,” Beh said. “We have the luxury of being the pioneers of using organic molecules for flow battery cells. So, we have some very strong IP, which has already been granted. And it’s enforceable.”

Beh said the company plans to move its production facilities to Houston, TX, later this year to scale up to MWh-day production in preparation for pilot projects it will announce later. Higher-rate production is expected to reduce costs and make the flow batteries cheaper than vanadium formulations at commercial scale.

Once Quino achieves commercial production, Beh says the company’s organic flow battery will be more attractive than lithium-ion batteries in 8-hour to 24-hour storage applications typical of grid and large industrial requirements. He predicts they will cost half as much and will have three times the battery life with the same cycle rates.

Alternative formulations for flow batteries are coming to market, promising more competition and possibly wider commercial acceptance of the technology. Germany-based CMblu Energy recently announced it is supplying its SolidFlow batteries to Mercedes Benz and utility-scale pilot programs in the U.S.

The energy transition from fossil fuels to non-emitting sources, such as renewables and nuclear power is only in its early stages and the effects on policy and energy infrastructure are already massive.

One aspect of the transition has become clear: Retreating from baseline generation in favor of intermittent sources such as solar and wind generation is going to require tremendous increases in long-term energy storage capacity beyond traditional physical means, such as pumped hydro and flywheels. For renewable energy sources, the killer app is battery storage. This is true on a worldwide basis.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), a global organization that monitors energy policy and technology developments for governments and industry, has released a report saying batteries are absolutely essential to the energy transition and represent the fastest growing energy technology in 2003, when the latest data were compiled.

More specifically, battery storage for the power sector was the top growth area, with deployment more than doubling from 2022. The report said this growth was strong across generation categories: utility-scale battery projects, behind-the-meter storage, mini-grids and residential solar systems. Together, these applications added 42 GW of battery storage capacity globally, the report said.

While consumer demand and other applications remain strong, the IEA said 90% of annual lithium-ion battery demand in 2023 came from the energy sector. This is up from 50% 2016, when the total lithium-ion battery market was 10-times smaller. The report said that despite demand, performance and supply chains for lithium-ion batteries have increased to keep pace with requirements.

According to the IEA, expansion in EV sales have not diminished the availability of lithium-ion batteries for other sectors. Lithium-ion chemistries represent nearly all batteries in EVs, the report said.

The one fly in the ointment is that while the demand for battery storage for energy and EVs is essentially global among developed countries, the supply of dominant lithium-ion batteries is very concentrated.

The report says:

While the global battery supply chain is complex, every step in it – from the extraction of mineral ores to the use of high-grade chemicals for the manufacture of battery components in the final battery pack – has a high degree of geographic concentration. Battery manufacturers are dependent on a small number of countries for the raw material supply and extraction of many critical minerals. China undertakes well over half of global raw material processing for lithium and cobalt and has almost 85% of global battery cell production capacity. Europe, the United States and Korea each hold 10% or less of the supply chain for some battery metals and cells today.

Image: CC BY 4.0. 

Tier 1 defense industry contractor RTX (formerly Raytheon) signed a deal with Engie North America to purchase 100% renewable energy in its quest to reduce emissions 46% by 2030 from 2019 levels.

The deal involves buying a mix of wind and solar sources through renewable energy certificates as well as direct energy purchases, all originating in the state. The clean energy will reportedly power 12 of its facilities in Texas.

While the companies did not report the dollar value of the deal, they did say RTX would receive 1.5 million MWh of renewable electricity over the next 10 years, reducing the company’s carbon emissions in Texas by 560,000 metric tons of CO2 over the lifetime of the agreement, which is scheduled to run through 2033. RTX’s Raytheon facility in McKinney, Texas is expected to consume more than 55% of the total clean energy procured.

Initially, the deal includes RECs from Engie’s existing Priddy Wind Project for a portion of RTX’s forecast load in 2024. The remainder of its load for 2024 and beyond reportedly will be sourced with electricity and RECs from several Engie renewable electricity projects in Texas, primarily new projects.

California-based Trio (formerly Edison Energy) is RTX’s energy advisor on the Engie deal. Joey Lange, senior managing director at Trio, said the agreement is notable for a number of reasons, including its size and the fact that it involves RECs and direct purchases of electricity. Also important is the fact that it will spur future development of renewable energy projects.

“This specific engagement is a little unique because it’s going to be a mix of already built assets and projects that are not online yet,” Lange told pv magazine USA. “The use of existing generation is going to allow RTX to hit its goals of a 10% reduction in carbon by 2025. The ramping up of new projects will enable it to reach 46% by 2028 and then extend through 2033.”

Lange said Trio’s role is to help its client, always the energy buyer, to achieve its corporate goals with regard to renewable energy and CO2 emissions reductions. He explained that the deal with Engie in Texas worked because of the concentration of RTX facilities there and the fact Engie has a nice combination of a deep bench of projects available and in the development pipeline.

The deal with RTX means that many projects will now go forward sooner rather than later. “Without that off-taker, the developer is not going to get the hundreds of millions of dollars they need to actually build the project,” Lange said.

Although Engie already has many projects both built and in development in Texas. For example, late last year, Engie inaugurated its 250 MW Sun Valley Solar project in Hill County, Texas, which incorporates 100 MWh of battery storage. It also has the 260 MW Sypert Branch solar project under development in Milam County, Texas. In 2022 the company acquired a 6 GW portfolio of late-stage projects across ERCOT, PJM, MISO, and WECC regions. The acquisition included 33 projects, comprised of about 2.7 GW of solar with 700 MW paired storage, and 2.6 GW of standalone battery energy storage.

The Coalition for Green Capital (CGC), a non-profit group focused on generating financing for climate technologies and clean energy projects, says public and private investments in its network increased over 50% in 2023 to $7 billion compared to $4.6 billion in 2022. The preliminary figures will be amended in the 501(c)(3) organization’s forthcoming annual report.

The CGC does business as the American Green Bank Consortium (AGBC), which consists of over 40 green banks and financing entities.

According to the preliminary reporting, which represents data from about half of the AGBC network accounting to date, $2.5 billion of the 2023 investments were from the members’ own capital, while $4.5 billion came from private capital they attracted. Reed Hundt, CGC’s founder chief executive officer, said in a statement that he expects total investment will reach $10 billion for last year when all data are reported.

Cumulatively, the organization says it has helped attract $21 billion in investment since 2011. It was founded in 2009 with a mission to address climate change by attracting investment in clean power and related technologies.

Rather than directing the financing to individual projects, the CGC works to promote so-called green banks in individual states, which in turn work to attract investors in projects and technologies. For example, the affiliated CGB Green Liberty Notes LLC, a subsidiary of the Connecticut Green Bank, recently announced a new offering in its crowdfunding campaign to attract investments that has enabled small businesses to take out $100 million Small Business Energy Advantage loans.

Such loans are part of a Connecticut program to encourage small businesses to modernize their facilities to improve energy efficiency and use of green energy. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced selectees that will receive $7 billion in grant awards through the Solar for All program to develop solar projects for those who might not be able to buy PV installations themselves. The role of the green bank in this case is to alert financial institutions that the government program exists and that a reliable entity is on hand to assure that investment.

Bryan Garcia, CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank and also chair of the CGC, told pv magazine USA that green banks are essential for pairing funded government clean-energy programs with public and private lenders that might otherwise be wary of the risk.

“The impetus is really around enabling ambitious public policies like, for example, a zero-emission renewable energy credit for commercial solar, to be affordable and accessible to everyone, even renters,” Gacia said. “How do you make the benefits of clean energy technologies affordable and accessible to everyone?”

Risk, as it turns out, is the operative word. Burt Hunter, chief investment officer of the Connecticut Green Bank, told pv magazine USA that organizations like green banks bridge the gap between government opportunities and private investment. If private lenders might balk at the apparent risks of backing clean energy projects, especially for underserved communities, green banks exist to reduce the risk.

“I think what we’ve discovered is that the reason things work so well in Connecticut is we have the right policies to provide the framework that encourages investment in clean energy,” Hunter said. “Investors are pretty straightforward. They just want to know that they’ll be able to get returns, and they also want to know that the rules won’t be changed too much to the detriment of the money that they’ve put out the door. So, it’s not a lot to ask.”

If green banks work to fulfill state policies with regard to clean energy development, might the concept work at the national level? Garcia says the CGC, which he describes as a “chamber of commerce” for state-level green banks, would support a national version of the institution.

The organization says it is seeking a total of $11.9 billion through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund programs to establish a national green bank. The non-profit is currently active in 40 states. With a national reach, the CGC says it could expect to attract $35 billion in cumulative private-public investing in the first year of inception.

CMBlu Energy AG said it has received an order from Mercedes Benz to provide its SolidFlow battery for the carmaker’s plant in Rastatt, Germany. The 11 MWh installation, planned for the second quarter of 2025, will be paired with the facility’s existing solar array.

The CMBlu SolidFlow battery storage system is a development of the flow battery concept, which offers an alternative to lithium-ion batteries and can be scaled for industrial and utility grid energy storage. Flow batteries have tanks of electrolytes, one positively and the other negatively charged, that are pumped into contact with a membrane that collects discharged electricity or charges the system, as required.

Giovanni Damato, president of CMBlu’s U.S. operations, told pv magazine USA that the company’s SolidFlow design incorporates materials that lower the cost and improve the performance of the system. Typically, flow batteries use vanadium in their electrolyte storage that is expensive and sourced from mines in China, Russia and South Africa. The SolidFlow batteries use carbon as a storage medium.

“That’s where we differentiate ourselves from most flow batteries, where in the tanks are typically just liquid electrolyte and can be quite large for long-duration storage,” Damato said. “Whereas we have stationary solids in the tank as well, which improves our energy density. We can have smaller tanks that have a smaller installed footprint.”

One of the attractions of flow batteries is that they do not use lithium, which according to the International Energy Agency is in very high demand for EV batteries, making lithium-ion batteries expensive for industrial and grid energy storage without significant future increases in mining operations around the world. Damato said Mercedes was looking for alternatives to lithium batteries and to extend the hours of storage coverage.

“The key points are that they wanted to move to a sort of a 24/7 renewable model, like the Googles and the Amazons of the world, where they’re using the renewable energy at the time that they need it,” Damato said.

Ideally, Mercedes would rely on its PV installation for onsite electricity needs, charging the flow batteries with surplus for use at night. Damato said the SolidFlow system can meet the company’s requirements for six hours of stored energy and scale up in the future.

“With our modular form factor, we can easily go a from five- or six-hour base up to a 10- or 12-hour base,” he said.

CMBlu characterizes its flow battery system as “organic,” which is another way of saying it uses carbon. The carbon in the system is readily sourced and easy to recycle. Furthermore, the company is eying long-duration and high-density energy storage applications up to the GWh and says its choice of materials and design form will support this strategy.

Damato said the company came through a 10-year research and development effort and is working on pilot projects in Europe and the U.S. The U.S. project is in conjunction with U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne), along with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in which the researchers intend to validate CMBlu’s long-duration energy storage system. The goal is to improve microgrids in cold climates and make fast charging of electric vehicles more affordable in underserved communities.

The company also has active projects with WEC Energy Group in Wisconsin and at the Salt River Project in Arizona.

CMBlu was among the winners of the 2018 pv magazine Annual Award for its organic flow battery tech.

Written by Michael Puttré, a freelance technology writer.