Research into energy storage is important. However, before we are able to reduce costs and encourage developments, we need a market and good general conditions, stressed Prof. Dr. Eicke R. Weber, spokesman for the Fraunhofer Energy Alliance und Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg.
As the Conference Chairman, he opened the two-day conference exhibition, Energy Storage – International Summit for the Storage of Renewable Energies, in Düsseldorf on 18 March. With more than 530 participants spanning 33 countries, the event is counted among the industrys most important meetings.
Experts from science, industry and politics were brought together with the aim of advancing practical and economical storage system solutions for renewable energy. Peter Altmaier, Germanys Federal Environment Minister, also attended the event. The most cost-effective and competitive solutions will be the ones that prevail, he explained with regards to the technologies needed to transform the energy policy.
Despite limited public funds for the energy storage sector, he encouraged the conference participants to stay on the ball. The Federal Environment Minister emphasised his desire to get the energy storage programme underway as planned by 1 May 2013, despite the fact that the funding is yet to be settled.
In her keynote speech, Hildegard Müller, Chairwoman of the General Executive Management Board at the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, pleaded for a transparent competition in which the most efficient technologies would prevail. For this to happen, the government would need to establish the right general conditions.
Unfortunately, we are still faced with the problem of contradictory political statements from all of the parties, Müller complained. Energy storage systems can take the burden off power grids and reduce dependence on unstable sources of energy in developing and threshold countries. Many of the conference presentations looked at how the energy supply system can be made more flexible.
Flexibility is the latest hot topic in energy supply, summarised Janice Lin from the California Energy Storage Alliance, a fact which was confirmed by a panel discussion with Brian Caffey from the China Energy Storage Alliance, Rahul Walawalkar from the India Energy Storage Alliance, Rick Winter from UniEnergy Technologies and Jonathan Dogterom from MaRS Discovery District, Canada.
Although energy supply is becoming more flexible all over the world and the same energy storage systems keep cropping up, the starting conditions vary greatly from country to country. While Germany is concentrating on changing its energy supply system, countries such as China and India have to ensure a stabile energy supply in the first place, explained Karl-Heinz Remmers, Chairman of the Board at Solarpraxis AG, a co-organiser of Energy Storage, in his speech. The event addressed both national and international prospects.
Generating and storing renewable energy is not something that only concerns Germany, added Hans Werner Reinhard, Deputy Managing Director at Messe Düsseldorf, organiser of Energy Storage. That is why we have started to export the successful concept of Energy Storage Düsseldorf to other countries. We can then adapt it with the help of competent partners and develop it further.
Energy Storage North America (ENSA) will take place in San José, USA, from 10 – 12 September 2013, Energy Storage India (ESI) will take place in Mumbai from 4 – 6 December 2013 and there will be an Energy Storage preview at the China International Technology Fair in Shanghai from 8 – 11 May 2013.
Two accompanying workshops rounded off the programme at the conference exhibition – the Energy Storage Production Technology Forum and the application workshop, Technology & Project Implementation Practices.
Necessary standards in the storage sector were a recurring theme in these workshops. It is hard for customers to compare systems without a set of standards, explained Martin Rothert from SMA Off-Grid Solutions. In his closing words, Prof. Dr. Eicke R. Weber stressed that collecting and merging energy storage system performance data was the homework for the industry before the next conference.
The conference was accompanied by a trade exhibition. With 45 exhibitors, there were significantly more participants than at the first event in 2012. The conference participants made extensive use of the opportunity to learn at the stands of industry companies, associations and research institutes and view the exhibits and first sample applications.
The next Energy Storage will take place in Düsseldorf from 25 – 27 March 2014. Next years programme will have a stronger focus on concrete business models, and the accompanying trade exhibition will concentrate more on the presentation of marketable solutions and applications for storage system.
For further information on the Energy Storage conference exhibition please go to: http://www.energy-storage-online.de/
