Siemens and AES Corp. Join Forces to Create Energy Storage Company

Posted Tuesday, January 16, 2018 8:11 am

E+E Leader Team

Siemens AG and the AES Corporation have agreed to form a new global energy storage technology and services company named Fluence. Source: Siemens

Siemens AG and the AES Corporation this week announced they have agreed to form a new global energy storage technology and services company named Fluence.

Fluence will combine AES Advancion and Siemens Siestorage energy storage platforms with expanded services, with the aim of helping customers better navigate the energy storage sector.

Siemens and AES will have joint control of the company with each holding a 50 percent stake, according to arcweb.com. Fluence will be the supplier of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery-based storage project, a 100 MW/400 MWh (4-hour duration) installation that will be part of AES’ Alamitos power center in Long Beach, California, serving Southern California Edison and the Western Los Angeles area.

Partnership Specifics

The Alamitos energy storage contract adds to the set of projects Fluence will support (directly or indirectly), including:

40 MW of new 4-hour storage and 37.5 MW of existing 4-hour storage for San Diego Gas & Electric, including the largest lithium-ion battery energy storage installation in North America, providing key capacity for reliability in southern California;

A microgrid project for Italian energy utility Enel on the Mediterranean island of Ventotene, where battery storage is helping reduce fuel use, costs and emissions on the island’s network;

Three projects adding much needed reliability for Arizona Public Service’s distribution grid in areas with high solar penetration – including one that will take the place of rebuilding about 20 miles of transmission and distribution poles and wires;

Six energy storage projects being installed across Germany, providing key frequency regulation (primary control resource) services for grid stabilization; and

Two 10-MW projects in the Dominican Republic for AES Dominicana that added critical resilience for the island’s grid during last September’s hurricanes.

Fluence is offering customers several energy storage applications, including:

Transmission and distribution enhancement

Renewable integration

Microgrids and islands

Frequency regulation

Capacity peak power

Generation enhancement

Energy cost control

Critical power

Siemens has been in the energy management game for several years. In 2016, the company partnered with IBM to integrate software from IBM Watson’s IoT Business unit into its Navigator energy and sustainability management platform. The combined cloud-based platform will enable managers to benchmark building performance and gain insights into operational budgets, use predictive analysis to find nascent problems and create more accurate invoices. The platform will offer mobile capabilities enabling stakeholders to access and use the platform from wherever they are.

And just this month, Siemens announced it has invested in LO3 Energy, a Brooklyn-based energy tech company building a platform for local peer-to-peer energy marketplaces. The unspecified investment closed out LO3’s Series A funding round. LO3 plans to use the funding to develop technology that allows local energy trading over microgrids using blockchain.

Vendors mentioned in this article: