BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
Energy
Energy
that we have already delivered and is opening
officially this summer, resolves this.
However, the biggest project that we are
currently constructing is in Ontario, Canada.
At 53MWh, it is the largest storage system being
deployed in the world today. It will provide a
very high-frequency response rate, as well as
voltage control that will stabilise the grid and
better integrate renewables.
A conventional power plant has something
called a ‘must-run capacity’, which means
that, if you have a 100MW coal plant, it will
be running at three to five percent more in
order secure a high frequency response. So,
whether you use it once a day for three seconds
or for three hours, or you don’t use it at all, it’s
always burning coal or gas. Our new technology, however, eliminates the issue of must-run
capacity from conventional power plants, thus
drastically saving fuel and reducing emissions.
Because batteries react very quickly, you don’t
need to run energy all the time. So, that’s our
overall objective: to stabilise the grid, offering
very high-frequency response, and to reduce
the colossal wastage of energy.
The battery era begins
Energy storage technology is now capable of rivalling
traditional production methods, and is currently vying to
become the new standard for energy delivery, according to
Anil Srivastava, CEO of Leclanché
Energy storage is becoming increasingly diversified. The market can be broadly classified into
three distinct categories. The first is made up
of consumables such as smartphones, which
is very big volume business and constitutes the
largest part of the market.
The second market is ‘behind the meter’
applications, including residential, commercial
and industrial energy storage solutions.
The third market is for large-scale industrial solutions, which includes storage for electricity networks, covering generation, transmission
and distribution. This segment also incorporates storage systems for mass transportation
fleets, such as electric buses, ferries, boats and
trains. Electric cars are currently between the
industrial and the consumer sectors.
In light of recent technological developments in energy storage, a shift is taking place
that will enable major economic, environmental
and social benefits. At this very exciting time
in the field, European CEO had the chance to
speak with Anil Srivastava, CEO of Leclanché,
2015’s fastest-growing company in the industrial energy storage business.
How has the market for battery energy
storage systems (BESS) changed in the
last year or so?
Actually it has changed a lot. With cars, it’s less
about batteries and more about the business
model. It’s not possible for every car manufacturer to have its own charging stations, so, at
some point, standardisation will take place.
Nothing has emerged yet in terms of charging infrastructure standardisation, but the
ongoing debate is definitely going to yield some
results. The part that is particularly interestxx | EUROPEANCEO
ing from Leclanché’s perspective is large-scale
industrial storage. If you look at the lithium
battery business, it went through a dip after a
period of hype, and then for the first time, in
2015, utilities firms, transmission operators,
and distribution system operatives started
large-scale procurement for electricity storage.
Tell us about Leclanché’s history
and how the company has changed in
relation to shifts in the market
We are named after the inventor of dry cells,
Georges Leclanché, and the company was established in order to make his patent industrial in
1905. Over a century later, Leclanché remains
the largest manufacturer of lithium batteries
in Europe. In 2006, the company decided to
discontinue all traditional battery technology,
namely lead acid, in order to commit fully to
the lithium business. Between 2007 and 2012,
Leclanché built its own portfolio of lithium
BESS, and we have since become the world
leader in lithium titanate oxide (LTO).
We currently have more than 100 patents in
this area, and we also have the largest lithium
manufacturing facility in southern Germany.
LTO is good for long-life batteries on an industrial scale. It has a fast charge, but a low energy
density, so you wouldn’t put this technology in a
car. LTO is, however, great for a bus, where you
have more space and it can charge very quickly
and frequently along a route of prescheduled
stops. We are also one of the few companies in
the world to offer dual technology, which can
cater to customer-specific applications and
asset life expectations. Moreover, Leclanché
is one of the most vertically integrated BESS
providers in the world. Even though there are
Battery racks at Leclanché’s
Graciosa micro-grid
much bigger companies in South Korea, such
as LG and Samsung, we develop our own electrochemistry and build our own cells, as well
as the software for the battery management
system. We design, manufacture and deliver
turnkey projects – that’s what sets us apart.
What challenges do you face at the
moment in the market and how do you
plan on overcoming them?
The good news is that large-scale procurement
is finally happening for bigger systems in our
markets. A big challenge that still remains,
however, is to provide fast-response BESS to
cope with increasing grid requirements. Unlike
many CEOs of green energy companies, I’m
not for subsidies and grants, as I believe that
business must stand on its own two feet, and
I know that energy storage can facilitate this.
Therefore, we need a market structure that
rewards battery technology and battery-based
energy storage systems.
Unlike power plants, BESS are two-way:
you can charge and discharge. A BESS is a software-based, flexible system that can be used
rapidly in multiple applications from the same
system at any time. Most of the regulations in
the electricity market, on the other hand, are
designed for a slow response and for one application at a time. So, the challenge the industry faces is how to evolve market regulations
to recognise flexibility, multiple-application
platforms, and the much faster response of
battery-based energy storage systems.
What other big projects does Leclanché
have in place?
Graciosa – named for the island where it is
installed – is a micro-grid project in the Azores,
Portugal, which has its own generation, transmission and distribution in place. We built an
entire electricity network on this island, which
will be powered over 65 percent by renewable
sources – wind and solar. Its dispatchable, reli-
Unlike power plants, BESS
are two-way: you can charge
and discharge. A BESS is a
software-based, flexible system
that can be used rapidly in
multiple applications
able energy storage is a world first, with diesel
completely off for significant hours in a day.
Without such mechanisms in place, there
are numerous times when more power from
renewable sources is generated than the grid
can take or needs. That’s wasted energy that
taxpayers pay for. This is the ugly part of the
renewable energy system at present – we are
not addressing how to eliminate this colossal waste of green energy. Graciosa, a project
What does the future hold for the
energy storage market in general?
First and foremost, the deployment of largescale energy storage systems within an electricity network will go hand-in-hand with larger
proportional renewable energies. I believe that
we are going to see a large-scale infrastructure
type of deployment of storage that will better
integrate renewable energy, and make it more
dispatchable and more reliable. Last year was
a great year for that, but it was just the tip of
the iceberg.
We see energy storage systems going into
the electrification of mass transportation systems, namely buses, ferries, trams and specialised vehicles. There will also be a massive
deployment of storage into mass transportation
fleet, including industrial machinery, fleets of
buses, and trains.
There’s also a third trend that we believe
will take place, which is the displacement of
lead-acid batteries for industrial applications.
For example, material-handling forklift trucks
in a warehouse all run on lead-acid batteries,
and fleet utilisation is usually 50 percent or
less; when one set is working, the other set is
charging. However, if you replace the system
with modern batteries, your fleet utilisation
literally doubles.
All in all, the coming years will see many
changes in energy storage and delivery that
will be hugely beneficial, and we look forward
to playing a central part in it all. n
EUROPEANCEO
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