Itron, Sonnen say battery partnership will let utilities maximize grid efficiency

Dive Brief:

Itron and Sonnen on Wednesday announced they have integrated their respective products to create a residential battery system that will store and discharge energy to keep electric bills low and maximize the use of solar energy.
The completed product will utilize the "sonnenBatterie eco" of which there are 30,000 installed worldwide. The system can be configured in a variety of ways and offers a usable capacity of 4 kWh to 16 kWh, in 2 kWh steps.
The residential storage market is growing rapidly; just a week ago Switzerland-based ABB rolled out a similar energy storage solution for residential consumers that offers modular capacity increases, a high-voltage battery for greater efficiency, and flexibility in how the system is installed.

Dive Insight:

Utilities are increasingly turning to distributed resources and consumers are showing a growing interest in grid-tied energy storage. This newest wave of products is focused on utilizing as much cheap, preferably clean and possibly self-generated energy as possible, while also allowing people to customize to their system needs.

The sonnenBatterie eco has a maximum capacity of 16 kWh, and can be installed in 2 kWh steps. By comparison, ABB's new REACT 2 inverter and energy storage product can be installed in capacities of 4 kWh, 8 kWh and 12 kWh.

Itron plans "to partner with several other similar DER vendors so that utilities can access a broad portfolio of DER. ... Integration of this technology is critical to helping both utilities and consumers," Steve Hambric, Itron's vice president of distributed energy management, said in a statement.

The trend in residential storage has been towards grid-tied systems, which allow customers to participate in a variety of demand response programs, According to GTM, in 2016 more than 4,400 residential battery systems were deployed representing 127 MWh, 86% of which were off-grid or grid-independent backup devices. However, by the end of last year, the firm anticipated grid-connected deployments to comprise 57% of the residential market.

By 2022, that number could climb to 99% according to GTM, as off-grid and grid-independent backup deployments are expected to remain relatively flat.

Iron said it is already working with Sonnen on a pilot in California "to manage the unique load shapes created by increased deployment of DER." The program will focus on forecasting and automatic operation of distributed resources.