Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) will trial the use of lithium batteries and redox flow energy storage to help integrate renewable energy onto its grid, delivering services both in-front and behind-the-meter.

EMA is the city state’s statutory body for operating power systems, proactively developing the energy industry and regulating energy markets. The body currently has an ongoing SG$25 million (US$18.34 million) programme to develop and test energy storage solutions that could enhance overall stability and resilience in Singapore’s power grids. In late 2016, US organisation Sandia National Laboratories signed an agreement with EMA to cooperate on R&D for various storage applications on the grid.

The intention is to support and enable Singapore’s goal of deploying 1GWp of solar PV generation capacity by 2020. In partnership with utility SP Group (Singapore Power), EMA has awarded contracts to two consortiums to trial a total of 4.4MWh of energy storage system resources. Key to the testing will be the ability of energy storage systems to cope with the hot and humid weather conditions Singapore experiences.

Engineering company CW Group will lead the lithium battery trial, while power engineering company Red Dot Power leads the flow battery programme. Both companies are Singapore-headquartered and together will receive around SGD$17.8 million in grants for the test bed projects.

A test bed will be established for three years in two sites in north and north-eastern Singapore. The CW Group-led lithium-ion trial will test-bed 2.4MW / 2.4MWh of energy storage for delivering high power applications such as frequency regulation and other ancillary services. Nanyang Technological University will be involved with the tests.

The Red Dot Power consortium includes German-US system integrator and energy storage specialist Younicos. It has been awarded a contract to install a 0.25MW / 2MWh energy storage system, capable of storing energy for up to eight hours. The system will be based on vanadium redox, so-called ‘flow batteries’, which store energy in liquid electrolyte and can be scaled up in size simply by increasing the size of the electrolyte tanks.