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AI battery analytics deal spans north America

AI battery analytics deal spans north America

Business news |
By Nick Flaherty



Ion Energy is to provide the battery management systems (BMS) for nearly 600MWh of utility battery storage across the US.

The deal with esVolta will see the Indian/French company supply BMS systems and cloud analytics across esVolta’s entire portfolio of battery energy storage projects in North America, totalling a contracted 581 MWh of energy storage.

esVolta currently has a contracted portfolio of 581 MWh of energy storage projects, with a pipeline of over 2,000 MWh.

The BMS systems, design and built in France after the acquisition of Feemans in 2017, connect to the Edison Analytics cloud analytics platform that is designed to improve operational efficiency of battery energy storage systems (BESS) by reducing battery degradation and maximizing energy trading revenues.

All batteries undergo ageing which reduces their capacity to supply energy to the grid, resulting in a decline in revenues for operators. Some ageing is cyclical and normal, however, abnormal ageing is detrimental to battery health and affects the profitability and reliability of the project.

Edison Analytics analyzes the battery data and identifies the causes of abnormal degradation of the batteries. It simulates the batteries’ operational performance and suggests charging/discharging schedules that will result in minimum degradation of the batteries.

A key addition is that the platform also plugs into the local energy market. By syncing between the optimum charging schedule and forecasting the best possible dispatches into the market, Edison Analytics will help BESS operators take data-driven decisions on timing and number of daily cycles to run.

This overcame initial reservations. “We initially didn’t see a need for complex analytics, but the business needs are changing. Not only is it important to optimize our bidding strategies, we need the ability to do so while protecting the health of our batteries. Edison helps us achieve this by simulating battery health under different dispatch conditions,” said Lizette Moses, Director of Asset Management at esVolta.

As part of a pilot study, Edison Analytics worked with the esVolta team on improving the efficiency of one of their sites, the 8MWh Millikan BESS project in Irvine, California. Using the data from the site, it was able to simulate the number of cycles the batteries could safely undertake per day without excessive degradation.

Based on the pilot study, Edison Analytics estimates savings of $450,000 annually for esVolta by reducing excess battery degradation through improved heating and discharge management. This led to the deployment of Edison Analytics across their entire portfolio of energy storage systems across 10 locations in North America.

“Edison Analytics helps us keep an eye on the operational and financial performance of our portfolio. While scaling up, we felt the need for a data analytics platform that was developed, keeping the needs of a BESS business in mind, and that’s where Edison fit in perfectly,” said Randolph Mann, President of esVolta.

“Battery storage is an emerging technology that is becoming an indispensable component in the energy market and will help generate renewable power on a much larger scale,” said Akhil Aryan, CEO & Co-founder, ION Energy. “This partnership has offered us immense potential to grow and deliver the best solution in all the markets we serve. It bolsters our core offering and defines our leadership in the battery analytics space.”

www.ionenergy.co

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