Residential
Commercial
Community

Blue Planet Energy rolls out line of scalable energy storage

September 17, 2019
|

By: Megan Fernandes, Pacific Business News

Read full article on Pacific Business News' wesbite here.

Hawaii-based Blue Planet Energy has expanded its scalable energy storage line Blue Ion LX for commercial and industrial applications.

The Blue Ion LX's predecessor, Blue Ion 2.0, has been field proven since 2015 and installed in more than 100 projects to date. The Blue Ion LX is the next generation of high-capacity energy storage in microgrid, critical infrastructure and grid resilience applications.Blue Ion LX uses a modular 64 kilowatt hour dual-cabinet energy storage block that scales to system capacities of 2 megawatt hours plus storage for commercial storage markets — especially markets located in remote locations or in areas with an unreliable grid.

In 2018, the company joined Elemental Excelerator’s portfolio and received funding to scale the project and take it to the next level.“From our base in Hawaii, we have worked closely with our partners and customers to make energy storage easier to adopt as a key to decarbonizing energy," said Blue Planet Energy COO Chris Johnson, in a statement to PBN.It is estimated that the Blue Ion LX performs double the lifespan of competitive solutions with its 8,000 cycle life at 100% depth of discharge. This system also has an advanced battery management unit that safeguards the system with additional hardware and software protections that are critical for high-voltage commercial installations.

Blue Planet Energy founder and CEO Henk Rogers owns Puu Waawaa Ranch on Hawaii Island, an off-grid laboratory on a 32-acre ranch in North Kona that tests reliable renewable energy systems like the Blue Ion line. Blue Planet Energy helped develop the Blue Ion line, which Rogers has been using for more than five years and recently surpassed the 1,000 cycle milestone for his Blue Ion battery system that has been in use at his off-grid residence.

"Even though we only average 3.5 hours of good sunshine per day at my off-grid ranch, my Blue Ion batteries have kept the lights on every night for 6 years now," Rogers said to PBN. "Blue Ion batteries will last me at least 20 years. As Hawaii moves towards its 100% renewable energy goal, Blue Ion batteries will help make intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar work 24/7."