"PCS-Free" Energy Storage Has Entered Commercial Deployment

<p>Last year, we introduced an Australian energy storage company that was doing something a little "counterintuitive" — Relectrify. At the time, the company had just secured A$25 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and was preparing to bring a storage system called AC1 to the commercial market. For those who read our previous article, you may still remember what made it so unusual.</p><p>This energy storage system does not require a conventional standalone inverter. Instead, through its CellSwitch technology, it can directly generate grid-compliant AC power from the battery side. Traditional energy storage systems typically rely on the architecture of "battery + BMS + PCS/inverter," while Relectrify is trying to redesign a system logic that has been used for many years.</p><p>At the time, however, AC1 was still largely at the stage of "preparing for large-scale commercial deployment." Now, there is an update! Relectrify recently announced that the first AC1 energy storage system has been installed in Renmark, South Australia, in partnership with local energy company YES Energy. The system has a capacity of 250 kVA / 1,089 kWh usable capacity. YES Energy also confirmed that the system is now operational.</p><p>From receiving government funding, to completing grid connection and safety certification, and finally to having its first system installed at a customer site, this energy storage system that does not use a conventional standalone inverter has finally moved from a product and technology concept into a real customer site and started operating.</p><p><img src="https://energyplanet.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/uploads/images/20260818163609_62c4b3e7.png" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /></p><h2>After A$25 Million in Funding, the First System Is Finally Installed</h2><p>Let's go back to October 2025. At the time, ARENA announced A$25 million in funding for Relectrify to accelerate the commercialization of AC1. According to the plan, the funding would support Relectrify in deploying up to 100 MWh of AC1 energy storage systems, primarily for commercial and industrial users.</p><p>ARENA had actually made the purpose of this round of funding very clear. In addition to helping Relectrify expand its deployment scale, these projects would also be used to accumulate real-world operating experience, obtain key performance data, and establish demonstration projects that could be presented to future customers. So, 100 MWh was simply a scale target. What really mattered was that AC1 had to move from R&amp;D and certification into actual customer sites, allowing the first batch of users to put it into operation.</p><p>The Renmark system represents exactly this step. Although the project is relatively small, at only around 1 MWh, the first real-world deployment itself may be more noteworthy than the capacity. For a new energy storage technology that differs significantly from the traditional architecture, the first actual deployment matters because commercializing a new storage technology is never just about product specifications. It also has to overcome grid connection, certification, customer acceptance, engineering delivery, and long-term operational stability.Over the past few months, Relectrify has completed several of these critical steps.</p><p><img src="https://energyplanet.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/uploads/images/20260818163609_361a6966.png" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /></p><h2>Before the First Deployment, It First Obtained the "Grid Connection Pass"</h2><p>Shortly before the Renmark project was installed, Relectrify announced that AC1 had completed a series of important certifications. These included AS/NZS 4777.2 certification, which is required for grid connection in Australia and New Zealand, as well as a series of IEC safety certifications for energy storage and power conversion equipment.</p><p>Conventional energy storage systems output DC electricity from the battery, which is then converted into AC electricity through a standalone PCS or inverter. AC1, however, uses Relectrify's CellSwitchTM cell-level control technology, which can independently control individual cells and directly generate grid-compliant AC power from the battery side, eliminating the need for a separate conventional standalone inverter. Because of this different architecture, whether it could actually connect to the power system under existing grid connection and safety rules was itself a critical hurdle that had to be overcome for commercialization.</p><p>So this time, the key point is not simply that a 1 MWh energy storage project has been completed, but that a product based on an architecture different from conventional systems has entered a customer site for the first time after completing certification. Certification and the first installation are actually two closely connected steps: the former answers the question of "can it enter the market?" while the latter tests "is there a customer willing to actually use it?"</p><h2>What Is the First Customer Using It For?</h2><p>YES Energy has also disclosed the current application of this AC1 system. The system is primarily being used alongside solar PV, storing electricity generated during the day and shifting it to periods of higher demand or higher electricity prices, while also providing support when the local grid is under pressure.</p><p>This is actually consistent with the market direction Relectrify initially selected for AC1. Rather than immediately challenging hundreds of MW or multi-GWh utility-scale storage projects, it is first targeting commercial and industrial applications, smaller front-of-the-meter storage projects, and distributed energy scenarios. Residential energy storage has already become relatively mature, while large-scale grid-side storage is also expanding rapidly. But factories, commercial facilities, and industrial parks in between these two segments also have demand for reducing electricity costs, maximizing solar self-consumption, and improving energy flexibility.</p><p>Entering the market through this segment first is actually quite practical for AC1. Compared with directly entering large-scale energy storage projects, commercial and industrial projects of around 1 MWh are better suited for a new technology to gradually accumulate operating data, validate reliability, and then scale up.</p><h2>Final Thoughts</h2><p>When we first followed Relectrify, it was mainly because the company had proposed a very different energy storage system architecture. In conventional energy storage systems, a single underperforming cell can affect the entire battery string. The idea behind CellSwitch is to move control further down to the cell level, allowing each individual cell to be monitored and controlled independently. On this basis, Relectrify has further integrated battery management and power conversion capabilities, enabling the system to directly generate AC power.</p><p>According to the company’s published data, this architecture can enable AC1 to deliver approximately 20% more energy over a 20-year battery lifetime. This is also one of the product performance indicators Relectrify highlighted again in its announcement of the Renmark project.</p><p>However, for Relectrify, the real question is no longer whether "AC1 can be built." Instead, several more practical questions now need to be answered: Can it operate reliably over the long term? Can the company quickly replicate the first system with a second and third deployment? And can the energy utilization, reliability, and cost advantages created by this architecture continue to hold up after several years of operation in real-world projects?</p><p><img src="https://energyplanet.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/uploads/images/20260818163609_a68f04a0.png" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async" /></p>