Commercial and industrial storage is defined as energy storage systems that are owned by a commercial or industrial building owner or tenant and perform storage functions behind the utility meter directly for the building owner or tenant.  This includes campus systems where the storage system serves all or some of the buildings on the campus rather than just one single building.   The three top motivations for businesses to invest in building-sited energy storage systems are energy cost reduction, renewables integration and power quality protection.

Campus environments, which include any multi-building single entity, represent an important market.  Universities, corporate campuses, shopping malls, and government locations often have a single rate that is negotiated with the local utility.  By using tools like demand response, distributed renewables, and energy storage, the campus operator can significantly reduce energy costs.  Flow battery systems have a particular advantage in that they are ideal for long-duration energy storage, allowing for a battery system to be shared by the entire network, rather than a single building.   

The industrial market should have a need for advanced flow batteries in situations where power quality issues need to be regulated over long durations – a common issue with semiconductor and other precision manufacturing systems.  Additionally, industrial operations that are located in areas with a large differential between night and day electricity prices will be looking at advanced flow batteries, assuming that time-of-use pricing becomes more widespread . 

This market segment requires long duration energy storage (LDES) to have high reliability, be environmental friendly and exceptionally safe – advantages found in the Zinc8 Energy Solutions system.