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Huawei’s FusionSolar Smart String Energy Storage Solution will power the Red Sea City’s off-grid, clean energy needs. The Red Sea Project, a key part of SaudiVision2030, is now the world’s largest microgrid with 1.3GWh storage capacity.
“The destination is poised to be the world’s first fully clean energy-powered destination, and Huawei is honored to participate in this project and help Saudi Arabia build a greener and better future through technological innovation, ” said Xing, President of Huawei Digital Power for the Middle East and Central Asia.
Notable projects include a 25.8MW Distributed Program for Dubai Global Port Group and the world’s first grid-forming battery energy storage system (BESS) in China. In Thailand, Huawei built the largest single-site C&I PV and ESS plant in the Asia-Pacific region at Mahidol University.
Central to this vision is Huawei’s FusionSolar Smart String Energy Storage Solution (ESS). This solution will enable the Red Sea Project to independently meet its power needs. The microgrid solution addresses the intermittent and fluctuating nature of solar and wind power. It ensures the safe and stable operation of renewable energy systems.
Huawei Energy Storage Systems integrate power electronics, digital, thermal, electrochemical, and AI technologies to implement refined monitoring and management at the cell, battery pack, battery rack, ESS, and power grid levels. This ensures energy storage system safety, efficiency, and grid-forming capability.
Huawei’s Utility-Scale Smart PV & ESS Solutions can operate independently of traditional grids. Where traditional grids use synchronous generators, Huawei uses a grid-connected ESS with power electronics in the form of the smart PCS to manage the discharge and charge of power.
Huawei’s smart PCS system is also used to send power to be stored in a smart string energy storage system where it can be stored for use when there is no sunlight, after being processed by a distribution transformer. “In a PV plant, additional components like transformers are used to step up the voltage of the electricity.
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.
