Battery technology for electrical energy storage in terrestrial applications of photovoltaic systems dates back to the 70’s. The technology has however remained fraught with constraints over the decades. Poor performance in high temperatures, poor performance in low temperatures, reduced life cycle with increased depth of discharge etc etc.  The last decade, thanks to exponential ESS demand, (Off grid/hybrid residential, Electric Vehicles, Grid peak shaving, etc) has yielded massive advancement in battery technology, market volumes  and resultant cost reductions.

Whilst Pumped storage hydro (PSH)  is today the dominant grid storage technology  along with

Compressed-air energy storage (CAES) offering even more advantages except that it is very site specific. Liquid-air storage is an emerging technology as is Molten Salt.

Non grid peak shaving ESS applications is focused predominantly on lithium-ion iron phosphate (LFP) and lithium-ion nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries  Other primary Lithiun-ion chemistries include Lithium manganese oxide (LMO) and Lithium titanate (LTO).

With this backdrop the choice of an appropriate ESS chemistry is critical for an assured long life of an application, be it an element of a PV Power plant/pack or be it simply a BESS to bridge an energy supply gap or provide flexibility to peak load management.

At Solon, not only do we carefully analyse a BESS requirement to match a specific energy storage requirement we ensure that the BESS is matched with its operating physical environment

Solon has implemented solutions in all areas mentioned above, very successfully.  Our customer experiences are described below for a variety of products.