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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approves Form Energys construction project for a 10 MW/1 GWh iron-air long-duration energy storage facility for Xcel Energy. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved the construction, by Form Energy, of a 10 MW/1 GWh iron-air long-duration energy storage facility for Xcel Energy. It is planned to be built on the site of the former Sherburne County Generating Station, also known as Sherco, which is a coal-fired power plant located on the banks of the Mississippi River. The project will replace a facility previously capable of supplying more than 2.2 GW of coal-fired power. Xcel plans to break ground in mid-2024, with the goal of bringing the facility online by mid-2025. The project proposal submitted to the Minnesota PUC is largely redacted, withholding many details from the public, including specific cost information. This is somewhat ironic, given the “public” nature of the public service commission. The file reveals that the fact that the project is located in a brownfield or coal site entitles it to an additional 10% tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act . In addition, the request means that the project could also qualify for an additional 10% local content tax credit, as Form Energy has committed to ensuring the qualification of its product. Form Energy recently announced the establishment of a manufacturing facility in West Virginia. According to a separate Minnesota PUC file, a Form Energy white paper (File No. ET-2/RP-22-75) produced in connection with the slower-moving Cambridge Energy station provides information on the costs of financial modeling tools (see table below). Form Energy estimates the cost of iron-air energy storage equipment, under “All-in Capital Cost,” to be between $1,700 and $2,400 per kW, with running costs of $19/kW per month. anus. Although hardware costs are two to three times higher due to its unique nature (100-hour battery capacity), Form Energy expects running costs to be less than half that of eight-hour lithium-ion batteries. hours. However, Form Energy adds a caveat, noting that the cost assumptions used for iron-air in this analysis are representative, and should not be considered indicative of Form Energys pricing for commercial projects in 2030. For its part, lithium-ion costs come from the National Renewable Energy Laboratorys 2022 Annual Technology Baseline, an annual report that provides detailed data and projections on renewable energy technologies in the United States. The company also plans to offer capacity at $20/kWh. In Form Energys 2020 Modeling Best Practices Study, the company suggests new approaches to optimizing energy resources, using two different modeling techniques: temporal sampling and co-optimization methods. The temporal sampling method uses a broad set of 120 hours from different seasons and peak days, based on the Regional Energy Deployment System model, to understand the potential impact of temporal sampling on large-scale power systems. For its part, the co-optimization method explores various scenarios, such as varying wind conditions, high gas costs, high demand, and transmission restrictions. This method uses the open source tool Renewables Ninja to simulate wind production profiles and imposes “lost load” penalties when demand is not met. In addition, Formware, an economic dispatch and capacity expansion model, is used to calculate the most profitable mix of assets and operating strategies. Through these innovative techniques, the research aims to offer a more realistic perspective of costs and a better optimization of resources in the modeling of energy systems. |
