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QUalitative Electricity STorage for Solar energy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Solar QUEST (QUalitative Electricity STorage for Solar energy)

Berichtszeitraum: 2020-04-01 bis 2021-09-30

Lancey Energy Storage is pioneering a new era for energy storage, in which home appliances can contribute to the energy transition by storing electricity and engaging citizens.
To fight global warming, renewable energy (RE) production is soaring, which is good news but has direct consequences on network management due to the intermittency of solar and wind power. Distributed storage can help better regulating the power grid and integrating more RE through self-consumption and grid services. But few can afford it. Lancey aims at democratizing it by embarking a battery into a space heater. In France alone, 1/3 of real estate is electrically heated. Yet 1st generation electric heaters consume a lot of electricity and are highly responsible for the evening winter power peaks. Lancey has the solution to both issues. With its efficient heating technologies and energy management system, Lancey heater fine tunes to users’ needs while its battery charges off peak or with renewable energy surplus and discharges to prevent it from consuming power during peak hours. Total heating bill reduction can reach up to 50%. In 1,5 year of existence, Lancey has put on the market an innovative patented product rewarded by a CES Best innovation award. Yet this first version of the Lancey heater is still limited as its battery can only be used to power the heater.
Solar QUEST’s purpose is to develop the V2 of Lancey heater, able to reinject power stored in the battery into buildings’ grid to power other devices. It will unlock Lancey’s participation to grid services and make it possible to maximise PV installations’ self-consumption rate in summer too. With its Danish partner Tomorrow, Lancey will showcase the CO2 emissions its offsets, better engage users on energy transition and integrate self-consumption and grid services parameters into Lancey’s management algorithms. Lancey will perform pilot demonstrations of this new product in France, Canada and Finland with key partners.
Solar QUEST’s purpose is to develop the V2 of Lancey heater, able to reinject power stored in the battery into buildings’ grid to power other devices. It will unlock Lancey’s participation to grid services and make it possible to maximise PV installations’ self-consumption rate in summer too.
Solar QUEST’s objectives are:
• Complete qualification of the power electronics in real life conditions
• Appealing product
• Easy-to-use product
• Commercialization of Lancey heater’s grid services
• Industrialized and certified V2 product
• Effective B2C market entry
• B2C market validation.
At the end of the project, the V2 heater is now called Capella Heater and is the MVP for LANCEY. This intellignet heater is manufactured in France with the help of BOSCH as final assembler of the different developed parts (embedded bidirectional inverter, electronic master card, specific battery pack...).
This product is a brand new brasignificant tool in line with the objectives of the energy transition for all, by integrating more renewables, giving the opportunity to pilot the storage and heating assets with the objective of decreasing the energy bill for the end user.
From the beginning of the project, a complete V2 electric heater (LANCEY Capella) with an embedded storage capacity has been designed (electronic power and digital electronic cards, battery pack, human monitoring interfaces, heater housing…) and an API has also been developed ensuring the control and monitoring of the heater and home electric consumption.
This new heater has been pre-tested and is now compliant with current applicable standards (The Capella is answering 19 standards) required for an implementation at home with a guarantee of security and energy efficiency.
Prototypes, and pre-serie have been manufactured, installed, and distributed in France, Quebec, Belgium and Finland for tests campaigns and feedbacks from users has been received and considered for an optimal use and user's experience. End of September 2021, the Capella heater is now a product manufactured by BOSCH (site Mariginer in Savoie, French Alps) already sold to social landlords, PV distributors ensuring an increasing turnover for 2022 and meeting the profitability point for LANCEY.
The final 3 star-eye certification (NF performance) has been launched end of October 2021 after having passed several pre- certification tests, and of course after having passed other required certifications like Battery pack certification UN38.3 Electro Magnetic Compatibility, Electric security VD0126, RED standard for Wi-Fi.... The final certification is planned to be received by December 2021.
Over the project duration, LANCEY has presented its Capella solution and received a warmful welcome during face to face and remote events, fairs, and pitch events. LANCEY has received and won prices for the Capella solution (from the CES innovation award to EDF Pulse start-up, to Solar Impulse label efficient solution...). It is already planned to continue presenting the Capella solution in bigger events in France and Europe as the product is now ready for mass production and remain in line with all European and national politics regarding decarbonization of energy, integration of renewables, energy efficiency in buildings, and access for everyone to efficient tools and finally, Lancey has also been chosen between 2000 other companies, to join the EIC Scale up Top30 program.
The Solar QUEST project is the cornerstone of Lancey overall strategy. On a strong and growing market, thanks to Solar QUEST, Lancey strategy is to accelerate the roll-out of its heaters on attractive markets to take a significant leadership. There are already hundreds of thousands of prosumers and yet to come following the worldwide energy trend of energy decarbonisation, expecting Plug and Play solution to implement and maximise self-consumption.
By integrating in a single equipment (Capella heater), a conventional heater, a battery and smart electronics, Lancey is offering a simple and relevant storage solution for an everyday use. Solar QUEST enables Lancey to achieve a storage price of €250/kWh while most of the competition is in the range of €500/kWh to €1000/kWh. This advantage is being called Lancey’s unfair value by storage specialists.
Lancey ambition is to fulfil their expectations and successfully position itself in the market under the cooperative scheme of local but solid established partners.
With the planned deployment of its Capella solution over France, and then Europe, LANCEY will be able to manage different additional services on the energy topic like enrollment of third party payer for renovation works in the frame of an "Energy as a Service" contract, decentralised grid services, flexibility, better use of energy in-situ and on-site.
By end of 2021, the manufacturing line will deliver around 350 Capella heaters and the ramp up scenario has been validated to go up to a production of 4000 Capella per months mid 2022. At the moment, the tense on worldwide supply chain of electronic components is not affecting this planned 2022 scenario. The internal supply chain and finance teams are working hard on this topic to avoid a production stall for lack of components.
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