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Numerous government agencies, educational facilities, non-profits, and businesses are installing solar energy systems to reduce operating costs and decrease carbon emissions. Organizations commonly issue a solar request for proposal (RFP) to get bids from qualified contractors for a given PV project.
Request for Proposals: Project No. 10-001, Solar PV’s at Water Reclamation Center. Available at 25 Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District. n.d. Request for Proposals for Solar Photovoltaic Energy and Renewable Energy Credits.
There are a variety of resources available to organizations issuing RFPs for PV arrays, including the American Cities Climate Challenge On-Site Solar Request for Proposals template and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Writing Solar Requests for Proposals (RFPs): Lessons from NREL’s University PV Implementation Assistance Program.
Solar RFP responses typically contain: Some RFPs for solar projects may require supporting local, woman-owned, or minority-owned businesses and using local labor. Also, some projects may include a marketing or community education component, which should be addressed in the solar RFP response.
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and hydrogen (H 2) are promising technologies for short- and long-duration energy storage, respectively. A hybrid LIB-H 2 energy storage system could thus offer a more cost-effective and reliable solution to balancing demand in renewable microgrids.
Battery energy-storage systems typically include batteries, battery-management systems, power-conversion systems and energy-management systems 21 (Fig. 2b).
Compared to Just LIB or Just H2, the hybrid system provided significant cost reductions (see Fig. 5). Relying on only LIB for energy storage ($74.8 million) was more expensive than relying on only H 2 ($59.2 million), and significantly more expensive than the hybrid case ($43.3 million).
The rise in renewable energy utilization is increasing demand for battery energy-storage technologies (BESTs). BESTs based on lithium-ion batteries are being developed and deployed. However, this technology alone does not meet all the requirements for grid-scale energy storage.
Although academic analysis finds that business models for energy storage are largely unprofitable, annual deployment of storage capacity is globally on the rise (IEA, 2020). One reason may be generous subsidy support and non-financial drivers like a first-mover advantage (Wood Mackenzie, 2019).
Business Models for Energy Storage Rows display market roles, columns reflect types of revenue streams, and boxes specify the business model around an application. Each of the three parameters is useful to systematically differentiate investment opportunities for energy storage in terms of applicable business models.
Where a profitable application of energy storage requires saving of costs or deferral of investments, direct mechanisms, such as subsidies and rebates, will be effective. For applications dependent on price arbitrage, the existence and access to variable market prices are essential.
In application (8), the owner of a storage facility would seize the opportunity to exploit differences in power prices by selling electricity when prices are high and buying energy when prices are low.
