The Pro IQ Interview Series: Battery Energy Storage with Ben Shepherd

Our latest feature in the Pro IQ Interview series is a sit down with Ben Shepherd. Ben is a co-founder of Hygrid Energy and discusses his views on & his hopes for the future within battery technology and energy storage.

RP: Can you give me a bit of background about yourself?

BS: My career has been spent commercializing Australian technology globally; initially in fintech and information security, and over the last decade in the renewable energy sector, primarily focused on battery energy storage.

It has been an exciting journey. The rate of change is tremendous. Renewables is an exciting and fun sector. It can also be daunting, with small Australian players often up against global behemoths with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend in R&D and market development. Policy uncertainty that has plagued the industry for over a decade remains.

People are in this game because they want to make an impact and leave the world a better place than they found it. I am inspired and motivated every day by the people I meet, and the progress I see.

RP: What are you currently up to? Tell us a little more about Hygrid Energy.

BS: I recently finished my tenure as Chief Commercial Officer at Redflow Limited and have established Hygrid Energy with two other experienced renewable energy executives. We bring together expertise in data science and electrochemical energy storage, especially in complex industrial settings.

Hygrid Energy’s ultimate goal is to build up a “power-as-a-service” business centred around Battery Energy Storage (BES) in the commercial and industrial sectors. We’re starting small by building a supervisory platform to manage commercial, industrial and agricultural renewable energy infrastructure.

Our proposition for energy consumers and financiers of renewable energy and battery storage assets is to deliver surety that systems will deliver what the spreadsheet promised for the whole life of the asset.

We provide the tools for BES system integrators to facilitate ongoing relationships with end customers and that continue to deliver value after the commissioning is complete.

Hygrid Energy removes the reluctance of financiers and energy consumers to invest in energy storage assets because a battery warranty doesn’t go far enough to ensure successful achievement of economic outcomes. We facilitate asset operation that maximises accurate performance and availability of grid-stabilisation and related services.

RP: How is the energy sector being redefined?

BS: We are participants in the Great Transition of our time: to a sustainable low-carbon economy. The energy sector is at the epicentre of this transition. We recently saw NextEra, the USA’s largest wind and solar generator outstrip ExxonMobil in market capitalisation. In the first half of this year, more of Europe’s energy was generated by renewables than fossil fuels and just recently, solar generation in South Australia exceeded the state’s entire power demand.

These exemplify both the speed and scale of transition. But there is so much more to it than a switch in generation technologies. The shift is having a profound impact on legacy networks and market mechanisms.

The transition to sustainable energy will fundamentally change transportation, aviation, mining, agriculture, construction, industrial processing and production. It’s hard to imagine a part of the economy that won’t be impacted. Not long ago the idea that mining would transition from its heavy dependence on diesel to electricity powered by green hydrogen sounded outlandish but CWP Renewables’ massive green hydrogen project in Western Australia not only makes that transition become feasible for the world’s largest iron ore producing region, it also makes economic sense.

RP: How do you see Australia’s progress in comparison to what’s happening in in the rest of the world?

BS: Australia has become a test market for innovative technologies. For example, California-based AMS chose Australia as their first major target market, because of the opportunities provided by the National Electricity market (NEM).

We also have a bunch of great home-grown technology companies like Reposit Power, carbonTRACK and Solar Analytics. And I have great respect for the companies driving commercial renewable take-up like Verdia, CleanPeak and FlowPower with their innovative business models. Australia is doing terrific stuff, but it is being done despite continued government antipathy and policy uncertainty.

Australia can be a massive exporter of green energy – not just via High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable projects, such as the Suncable HVDC transmission line from the Northern Territory to Singapore, and green hydrogen – but also of technology, manufactured products, software and IP. While I’ve seen first-hand the challenges for local electrochemistry innovators Redflow and Ecoult in the face of the sheer scale of investment that other countries are making in competing technologies, it has been satisfying to participate in the impact both companies have made internationally.

There is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to participate in the transformation of global energy infrastructure and develop associated new technologies; both of which can generate large scale employment and high value-adding exports in parallel with green hydrogen and exported renewable electricity.

The timing is urgent. Not only because if we don’t move fast our kids are in terrible trouble, but despite America and Australia’s intransigence we won’t have much of a role to play if we continue to prevaricate. China has set its stake in the ground to transition to “net-zero” by 2060. Europe, Japan and South Korea are already investing heavily.  Even developing economies are starting to leap-frog legacy electricity networks to distributed renewables solutions.

RP: What are the main challenges with battery storage/technology?

BS: I think there are two main challenges. One is degradation. Lithium chemistries degrade with use. We know that from our own experiences with laptop and mobile phone batteries. It has been relatively easy for lithium batteries to dominate the energy storage sector because they also dominate consumer products, and increasingly, the electric vehicle (EV) market.

Energy storage could benefit from technology lasting 25-30 year without degradation, especially at industrial and utility scale. But non-degrading technologies (e.g. flow batteries) have been unable to break through to the mass market due to how specialised and expensive they are in comparison to lithium batteries.

Cost is the other challenge. Making a solid business case for storage in commercial and industrial enterprises today is largely confined to special situations, such as unusual demand profiles. This will change as battery technology prices decrease. But it will be innovations that deliver step-change reductions will have the biggest impact.

RP: Your high-level view of where things are in regard to battery storage/battery technology in Australia and where they’re headed.

BS: It is exciting that there continues to be home-grown players in the market. There are a number of initiatives to develop local lithium cell manufacturing here in Australia including separate proposals in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, and WA.

Australian universities are conducting noteworthy research in battery technologies, focused around improvements to lithium chemistries. And this year, the Australian Research Council included ‘New safe and reliable Energy Storage and Conversion Technologies’ as one of five priority multi-institutional Research Hubs.

The state of research, development and early stage commercialisation of next-gen storage technologies globally is tremendous. From innovations to improving existing technologies like polymeric current collectors for lithium batteries through to companies like Form Energy out of Massachusetts who are tackling the ultra-long-duration market targeting 150-hour storage. There are also exciting non-battery storage propositions coming to market.

RP: What does this all mean for residential consumers?

BS: Aside from off-grid properties, the motivation to invest in residential energy storage largely revolves around sustainability and is limited to households with large disposable incomes.

I’m confident this will change in the next few years. Along with downward price trends, companies like Reposit Power and Evergen are helping to drive different value equations for householders.

I often get asked by people with solar whether they should buy a battery or wait for the price to fall or the next technology to come out.  Like any item of technology if you’re asking that question and you don’t buy now, you will always be asking that same question! Prices will always go down, or the bang for your buck will go up, or a new technology will be on the horizon. If you have the need, buy it now, otherwise you’ll always be waiting.

RP: What would you like to see happen in Australia over the next five years?

BS: It is essential that the country has a comprehensive and non-ideological energy, sustainability and economic policy that accelerates and incentivises the prompt transition to zero-carbon while growing the post-Covid economy. All three areas are interdependent, hence the need for the policy framework to cover them collectively.

If the policy challenge isn’t resolved, we could be at a profound disadvantage over the long term. Our global competitiveness may continue to weaken and there is a risk of becoming a climate change pariah which would only accelerate decline.

In five years’ time, I would love to see the benefits of transformational sustainable economic policy-making flowing through to our industries, exporters, workers and environment. Now more than ever we need to throw off the mindset of resistance that has been constraining us for a decade, adopt the mindset of opportunity, and be a proactive, constructive, and successful leader in this Great Transition of our time.

Such a policy framework could rapidly deliver Australia’s Paris commitments and deliver positive benefits to the economy. Key parts of this must be to motivate investment in clean technologies and manufacturing that will generate value-added export revenues for Australia. It can, indeed must, also generate jobs, especially rural and regional jobs, in clean energy production, technology, R&D and manufacturing.