????電網(wǎng)軟件創(chuàng)業(yè)公司

????像特斯拉一樣，許多主打低成本鋰離子電池業(yè)務(wù)的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司也從硅谷中脫穎而出，并獲得風(fēng)投資本的支持。它們從事的領(lǐng)域包括軟件、數(shù)據(jù)分析、用戶界面、可視化仿真和即插即用的電子產(chǎn)品設(shè)計。這些企業(yè)包括加州米伯萊市的Stem公司，馬里蘭州羅克維爾市的Greensmith Energy公司，加州圣克拉拉市的Green Charge Networks公司，舊金山的GELI公司與Advanced Microgrid Solutions公司，原本從事電動汽車行業(yè)的洛杉磯Coda Energy公司，以及來自德國的洛杉磯Sonnenbatterie公司等。

????Stem公司CEO約翰?卡靈頓指出，從2013年年末他剛加入Stem公司到現(xiàn)在，在這樣一段短短的時間內(nèi)，“電池價格就已經(jīng)大幅下降。”全球各大電池供應(yīng)商紛紛在電池生產(chǎn)方面投入重金，其中多數(shù)投資都瞄準(zhǔn)了電動汽車方向。但隨著近期石油價格的下跌，電動汽車進(jìn)入市場的速度可能要比預(yù)期更慢一些。

????除了電動汽車，以及各種各樣的計算設(shè)備對鋰離子電池的需求以外，電網(wǎng)市場對鋰離子電池的需求也正在增長，尤其是在一些對清潔能源和降低碳排放有較強(qiáng)需求的地區(qū)，以及一些電價很高的地區(qū)（如夏威夷等島嶼）。加利福尼亞州率先出臺一項政策，要求電力公司在未來幾年內(nèi)必須擁有10億瓦特以上的電力儲備。德國也出臺了強(qiáng)有力的激勵政策，鼓勵人們購買電池，與家用和商用太陽能電池板搭配使用。

????Stem公司正在安裝幾百個電池項目，主要是為企業(yè)和工業(yè)客戶的建筑物安裝電池組。當(dāng)電網(wǎng)電價處于高位時，Stem公司的軟件可以自動切換到電池組的電力。Stem還為它的電池組提供了金融方案，即所謂的“零首付”模式，用戶可以在需要的時候租用電池，然后靠與電網(wǎng)電價的差價省錢。該公司還為電力公司安裝大型電池組，幫助他們管理電網(wǎng)，南加州愛迪生電力公司就是它的大客戶之一。

????The grid software startups

????Like Tesla before them, many of the startups building software, data analytics, user interfaces, visualization and simulation tools, and plug-and-play electronic product designs, on top of low-cost, lithium-ion batteries are coming out of Silicon Valley and backed by venture capitalists. These include Stem (based in Milbrae, Calif.),Greensmith Energy (Rockville, Maryland), Green Charge Networks (Santa Clara, Calif), GELI (San Francisco),Advanced Microgrid Solutions (San Francisco), Coda Energy (the reborn former electric car company in Los Angeles) and Sonnenbatterie (originally from Germany, with an office in Los Angeles).

????Stem CEO John Carrington says even in the time between when he joined Stem in late 2013 and today, there has been a “massive decline in battery prices.” The world’s largest battery suppliers have been investing heavily in the battery manufacturing side of their business, much of it for electric cars, said Carrington, but with the recent drop in oil prices, electric cars might be a little slower coming to market than expected.

????Beyond the pull of electric cars, and the already-established market for lithium-ion batteries for computing devices, the market for grid storage is emerging first in regions with strong incentives for clean energy and for lowering carbon emissions, as well as in places with very high electricity rates (such as islands like Hawaii). California in particular has a first-of-its-kind mandate that says utilities need to buy over a gigawatt of energy storage in the coming years. Germany has strong incentives that encourage batteries paired with solar panels for homes and businesses.

????Stem, which is in various stages of installing a couple hundred battery projects, deploys its batteries at its business and industrial customers’ buildings, and the company’s software switches the building over to using battery power when electricity rates from the grid are high. Stem offers financing for the batteries — so it’s “no money down”—then leases the batteries while the customer saves money on the electricity rates. The company also installs big battery banks for utilities, such as Southern California Edison, for helping them manage the grid.

????創(chuàng)立剛剛7年的Greensmith Energy公司據(jù)說管理著美國去年三分之一以上新安裝的電力存儲設(shè)備。該公司為企業(yè)和電力公司提供的電池組也是借助軟件進(jìn)行管理。CEO約翰?榮格表示，雖然電網(wǎng)是依賴軟件運(yùn)行的，但在很長一段時間里，軟件并沒有得到足夠的重視。

????雖然Greensmith公司安裝的大多數(shù)電池組都是鋰離子電池（該公司總共為17個客戶實施了30個項目，其中包括9家電力公司），但它也為客戶提供流體電池等其它類型的電池。該公司的軟件可以模擬客戶的任何需求和用途，從而幫助客戶選擇正確的電池和配置來解決他們的問題。

????Sonnenbatterie公司已經(jīng)為客戶安裝了8000多套電池系統(tǒng)，不過它的客戶主要是家庭和小企業(yè)，并且以日常使用為主。該公司使用的是索尼Fortelion系列鋰離子電池。CEO鮑里斯?范?伯爾曼表示，該系列電池是目前市面上唯一能夠滿足家用日常充放電需求的電池。

????其他大公司為了保持在技術(shù)上的同步性，也正在紛紛進(jìn)軍電網(wǎng)蓄電池市場。比如通用電氣公司最近就對它的鈉電池生產(chǎn)部門進(jìn)行了“瘦身”，同時開始利用第三方電池提供鋰離子電網(wǎng)蓄電池產(chǎn)品。日本京瓷公司也開始銷售家用能源系統(tǒng)，它使用的鋰離子電池來自三星公司。

????EnerNOC公司是做需求響應(yīng)系統(tǒng)（即在高峰時段調(diào)低用戶用電量）起家的，現(xiàn)在它已經(jīng)迅速成為一家能源軟件服務(wù)公司，目前該公司正在測試特斯拉的電池。此外，加利福尼亞州政府的公開數(shù)據(jù)顯示，加州還為索尼、電氣業(yè)龍頭老大施耐德公司等企業(yè)的能源存儲項目提供了政策激勵。

????Seven-year-old Greensmith Energy, which says it manages over a third of all the energy storage capacity installed in the U.S. last year, also uses software to manage low-cost batteries for both businesses and utilities. Greensmith CEO John Jung says that even though the power grid runs on software, it has largely been an afterthought for a long time.

????While the majority of the batteries Greensmith has installed — it has 30 projects for 17 customers including nine utilities—have been lithium-ion, it has also used other kinds of batteries for its customers such as flow batteries. The startup offers its customers software that can simulate how batteries would work for whatever purpose the customer needs, and then helps them choose the right battery and configuration to solve their problem.

????Sonnenbatterie, which has 8,000 battery systems installed, is different in that it sells its battery systems mostly for homes and small businesses for daily use. The company uses lithium ion batteries from Sony (Fortelion), and Sonnenbatterie CEO Boris Von Bormann says those are the only batteries on the market today that can fulfill the daily charging and discharging needs of its residential customers.

????Other big companies are jumping into the grid battery market, too, looking to stay on the right side of the tech curve. GE has appeared to have scaled down its sodium-grid battery manufacturing division, and has more recently started to offer a lithium-ion battery grid product using third-party batteries. Kyocera is selling home energy systems using lithium-ion batteries from Samsung.

????EnerNOC, which built a business off of turning down its customers’ energy during peak hours (called demand response), is quickly becoming an energy software services company, and is testing out Tesla’s batteries for that purpose. A scan of the publicly available data of the incentives that the state of California offers for the deployment of energy storage projects includes other electronics giants like Sony, as well as power behemoth Schneider.