Saft Aims to Expand Its U.S. Energy Storage Market Share
French battery manufacturer and stationary energy storage system integrator Saft, one of the early industry pioneers to enter the U.S. large-scale battery storage market, is working to regain a foothold as the U.S. market becomes a major target for energy storage manufacturers.
Michael Lippert, director of innovation and solutions at Saft, said that after deploying its first battery energy storage system in the United States 20 years ago, the U.S. is once again a key market for the company.
Lippert said the company currently has two battery storage projects deployed in ERCOT's service territory in Texas, with a total storage capacity of 250 MWh, as well as several hundred megawatts of large-scale energy storage projects in Hawaii.
Saft is exhibiting the Intenum Shift energy storage system at RE+, the company's containerized battery storage solution for energy conversion applications.
Saft's first U.S. battery storage project was delivered to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2003, and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records at the time for its 45 MW of installed capacity, Lippert said, adding that the storage project supports a very remote community grid that is still in operation today.
The project used nickel-cadmium batteries, but today's battery storage industry is dominated by lithium-ion batteries, particularly lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which Saft also uses predominantly in its two containerized battery storage systems.
In an interview with industry media at the Renewables + Solar and Energy Storage trade show in Las Vegas, Lippert said, "We started using lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. energy storage market back in 2012."
Saft lost some market share in the U.S. between 2015 and 2020. Chinese and South Korean energy storage manufacturers held the majority of the U.S. market share at the time, but Lipper said Saft, a subsidiary of French energy giant Total Energy, has refocused its strategy for the U.S. energy storage market. This was demonstrated at RE+ 2022, when Saft introduced its 3MWh Intensium Shift battery storage system to the market.
Large-scale energy storage projects that were once a competitive bottleneck for Saft are now getting more of a boost than a hindrance, according to Lipper. While Saft is now a major player in the French battery storage industry, the size of energy storage projects in France and most other European countries is dwarfed by their U.S. counterparts.
Saft delivered what was then the largest battery energy storage system in France at the end of 2021. But the 61MWh of energy storage capacity is far smaller than the size of projects in major US energy storage markets such as Texas or California.
Lipper said, "The battery energy storage systems we have deployed in Europe are smaller than those we have deployed in the US. We have deployed similar energy storage projects in Asia, but not as large, e.g., 60 MW to 100 MW. for example, we have deployed a 40 MW/60 MWh energy storage project in the Philippines. These projects are up and running."
Of course, the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. has certainly boosted interest in investing in and deploying energy storage systems from upstream production to downstream manufacturers.
Lippert said the Inflation Reduction Act provided a number of incentives, and the U.S. has become one of the most important markets for battery energy storage system providers. The U.S. banking industry is likely to support more investment for some time as a result of the policy support it receives, he said.
Even before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, many people knew that the U.S. was one of the largest energy storage markets," he said. So we need to increase investment and deployment of energy storage systems if we want to be a significant player."
The Inflation Reduction Act does clearly facilitate this opportunity, but it also introduces additional complexity. For Saft and other energy storage manufacturers and integrators, much of this has to do with the competitive advantage gained by building a supply chain in the United States.
While Saft has not yet rolled out plans to relocate its containerized battery energy storage system operations and third-party suppliers to the U.S., that plan is likely to be implemented, Lippert said. He added that the company has already expanded its existing manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Fla.
