The system made by Vale at the Rio de Janeiro terminal is part of an investment of around US$ 2 billion, to reduce 33% of its emissions by 2030.
Originally established on June 1st 1942 as the state-owned Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, it became Vale, now a private company ranking as the 2nd largest mining company in the world. Its operations abroad cover 30 countries that share the mission to transform natural resources into prosperity and sustainable development.
In addition to mining, VALE works with logistics – railways, ports, terminals and state-of-the-art infrastructure –, energy, and steel making.
Vale is installing, in Rio de Janeiro – Ilha Guaiba Terminal (TIC), Mangaratiba RJ – one of the largest battery energy storage systems to supply electricity demand in the country. Recently, the company announced an investment of at least US$ 2 billion to reduce 33% of its direct and indirect absolute emissions by 2030 – based on the premises of the Paris Agreement – in addition to the intention to become carbon neutral by 2050.
See VALE´s 2021 Climate change report.
August 25th, 2020 – (Renewables Now) – Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. (BVMF:VALE3) is installing a 10-MWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) at the Ilha Guaíba terminal (TIG) in Rio de Janeiro.
The project is being implemented in partnership with Siemens AG (ETR:SIE) and Brazilian battery storage and solar distributed generation (DG) company MicroPower Comerc Energia S.A. (MPC). The system will use equipment supplied by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). MPC is also in charge of the operation of the equipment.
The batteries will be charged whenever TIG’s energy demand is low so that it can substitute the supply from the local utility, Vale explained.
With enough storage capacity to meet the demand of 45,000 homes for one hour, the project is considered to be one of the largest of its kind in the country. When operational, Vale expects the BESS to lower the port’s final energy cost by almost 20%.
For the installation of the system, Vale entered into a partnership with Siemens and MicroPower Comerc (MPC), which in practice will reduce around 20% of the cost of energy at the port, by replacing the supply of the concessionaire’s electricity grid during peak hours of demand, when the tariff is more expensive. The equipment has a storage capacity of 10 megawhatts-hour, enough to serve 45,000 homes for one hour.
Vale reported that this type of technology is an important step in the company’s decarbonization strategy. The use of batteries is one of the technologies that will be applied to replace diesel with renewable electricity in transport equipment, such as locomotives and off-road trucks, included in the Power Shift program, which is being implemented by the company.
“As Vale continues to decarbonize its operations, the use of batteries will become an increasingly important part of the electrification of our equipment fleet,” explains Vale Energy Director Ricardo Mendes. “This project allows us to test a new technology in the field to accelerate Vale’s energy transformation, which aims to achieve self-sufficiency by increasing electricity generation mainly through solar and wind sources in addition to our hydroelectric generation”, he adds.
Energy Storage installations tend to quick growth worldwide
London and New York, July 31, 2019 – Energy storage installations[1] around the world will multiply exponentially, from a modest 9GW/17GWh deployed as of 2018 to 1,095GW/2,850GWh by 2040, according to the latest forecast from research company BloombergNEF (BNEF).
This 122-fold boom of stationary energy storage over the next two decades (17 GWh to 2.850GWh) will require $662 billion of investment, according to BNEF estimates. It will be made possible by further sharp declines in the cost of lithium-ion batteries, on top of an 85% reduction in the 2010-18 period.
BNEF´s Energy Storage Outlook 2019 predicts a further halving of lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour by 2030, as demand takes off in two different markets – stationary storage and electric vehicles. The report goes on to model the impact of this on a global electricity system increasingly penetrated by low-cost wind and solar.
Yayoi Sekine, energy storage analyst for BNEF and co-author of the report, said: “Two big changes this year are that we have raised our estimate of the investment that will go into energy storage by 2040 by more than $40 billion, and that we now think the majority of new capacity will be utility-scale, rather than behind-the-meter at homes
As the cost of solar energy, wind energy and energy storage are dropping, contributing for Solar energy and wind energy combined to represent 40% of worldwide electricity generation by 2040, while electric vehicles would be 1/3 of the fleet.
The Energy Storage System choice will be raising by the day as the best supply & demand dynamc management scale alternative,
That would greatly benefit both Energy Storage suppliers and Mining companies (lítio, cobalto e níquel).
Electric battery solutions company will bet on microgrids to supply remote communities, mining companies and even companies in the electric sector and retailers.
MicroPower Comerc (MPC), a battery solutions company, wants to invest R$ 1 billion over the next 18 months to implement projects in Brazil. Controlled by Micropower Energy, from San Francisco, the company has among its shareholders giants in the energy sector such as Siemens and Equinor. Its focus will be on opportunities to supply storage systems associated with solar panels, for example, to serve customers ranging from mining companies to companies in the electricity sector and retailers.
In practice, batteries can be associated with solar installations or small diesel or gas applications, supporting the energy consumption of isolated regions alone, through the creation of so-called “microgrids” that would dispense with the connection of these locations to the interconnected electrical system in Brazil.
“In Brazil there are many remote cities supplied with diesel plants, which is dirty and expensive, in addition to being a logistical nightmare to get diesel to these remote areas. To solve this, microgrids can be built in less than six months and they can supply very large mines or even large cities”, explained the executive president of the Brazilian company, Marco Krapels, who was vice president of Tesla.
MPC has already closed a deal with Neoenergia, (operating in 18 Brazlian States + the Federal District – DF), controled by the Spanish group Iberdrola , (Iberdola 2022 Report) to install a microgrid in an isolated area with batteries and a solar system in the community of Xique-Xique, in the city of Bahia. The project will use resources that Neoenergia directs to research and development (R&D) and is still part of the federal program Luz para Todos.
The aim is to reduce costs by replacing grid power with batteries at times of peak demand, when electricity prices rise. “In this project, an entire community was powered by a microgrid,” said Krapels, noting that remote regions are a potentially significant market for the company.
MPC has also signed a contract with Vale and also with mining company Buritirama to supply a system with solar generation and Tesla batteries to a manganese mine in Pará.
He does not rule out projects for the use of storage equipment to reduce congestion in the power transmission network or to improve distribution quality.
The executive believes that Brazil has great potential for the solutions provided by MPC, especially with mining companies, by guaranteeing energy supply in isolated regions or allowing companies to disconnect from the electricity grid at times of higher prices.
Tesla’s solar and wind energy storage business rakes in $810M, finally exceeds cost of revenue
Tesla’s primary source of revenue comes from the sale of its electric vehicles, but its latest quarterly earnings report showed growth in its energy storage and solar business.
The demand picture will get even sunnier for the division if the company can access enough chips for its energy storage products, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Tesla on Monday reported $801 million in revenue from its energy generation and storage business — which includes three main products: solar, its Powerwall storage device for homes and businesses, and its utility storage unit Megapack — but that’s just a sliver of the nearly $12 billion in total revenue. Small as it is, the division is selling more energy storage and solar. Revenue from this division grew 62% from the previous quarter and more than 116% from the same quarter in 2020. Tesla doesn’t separate solar and energy storage revenue.
As one might expect, total deployments also rose. Tesla installed 1,274 megawatt-hours of energy storage in the second quarter of 2021, a 205% increase from the same period last year. Similarly, the amount of solar energy deployed in the second quarter of this year was 85 MWh, up 214% from Q2 2020. As a side note: Tesla’s total solar and energy storage deployments were essentially flat when comparing Q2 2019 and Q2 2020 numbers, likely due to the pandemic’s general halting of business.
The important nugget is revenue growth. In 2019, Tesla reported $369 million in revenue from solar and storage. Revenue was stagnant in Q2 2020, with $370 million from that business. This quarter was more than double what Tesla brought in during the same quarters of 2019 and 2020.
What changed? Besides COVID-19, Tesla points to several Megapack projects coming online and growing popularity in its combined solar and Powerwall product. (Tesla no longer allows customers to order Powerwall without a solar installation.) According to a configurator on Tesla’s website, one Megapack is about $1.2 million before taxes. In some states, Tesla says the earliest deliveries will be in 2023.
Tesla uses the same chips in its Powerwall as it does in its vehicles, and Musk said vehicles are the priority while supply is low.
Musk said in the long term, Tesla and other suppliers would need to produce a combined 1,000 to 2,000 gigawatt-hours per year in order to keep up with energy storage demands. Musk said the company has asked its cell suppliers to double their supply in 2022, a goal that Musk caveated would be dependent on supply chain issues. The company’s current strategy is to overshoot cell supply and route it outward to its energy storage products, but as in the case of chip shortages, vehicle production would be prioritized, according to Musk.
Battery cell plans
While much of the battery cell discussion focused on its 4680 cell that is in development, Musk also touched on Tesla’s intentions to power some of its products with cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries. Specifically, he said there’s a good chance that all stationary storage could move to iron-based batteries and away from nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) and nickel-cobalt-aluminum batteries.
The one-third of batteries that will remain nickel-based will be used for its longer-range electric vehicles. All of its other EVs would also move to LFP batteries, which is already the case in its vehicles assembled in China.
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