ROUNDUP: Nidec ASI’s first US project, Natron claims UL first for sodium battery, Zinc8 in India
News in brief from around the world in energy storage.
US utility Vistra plans Texas solar, storage facilities alongside 6.8GW of coal retirement by 2027
Texas-based Vistra will develop nearly 1GW of solar and storage projects in the next two years as the utility plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Lithium battery value chain developments make progress in US, Australia and Europe
The past few days have seen various announcements across the lithium-ion battery production value chain in Europe, Australia and the US.
Sonnen CEO steps down, company targets next stage of replacing fossil fuels
Sonnen founder Christoph Ostermann will be succeeded as CEO by chief operating officer Oliver Koch tomorrow, as the Germany-headquartered energy storage system maker targets its “next growth stage”.
Experts react to Tesla Battery Day: The key technology takeaways
In this final piece of in-depth Battery Day coverage, let’s take a closer look at the technology, manufacturing techniques and value chain improvements Elon Musk and Drew Baglino talked about.
European gigafactory startup Northvolt raises another US$600m in equity
Northvolt has now raised in excess of US$3.5 billion of financing towards its aim of establishing 150GWh of advanced battery manufacturing facilities in Europe by 2030.
California community group contracts for 260MWh of batteries to help keep lights on in dark times
A community choice energy provider run by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in California has signed contracts for battery storage with EDF Renewables and NextEra Energy totalling 260MWh, to be deployed in combination with solar PV.
Monetising battery data: How machine learning can pay you back
Peaxy CEO and President Manuel Terranova joins us to discuss some of the biggest challenges facing the battery industry, and how smart software like Peaxy Lifecycle Intelligence (PLI) for Batteries can solve them.
COVID-19 hits profitability of ENGIE energy storage subsidiary
ENGIE EPS incurred increases in operating expenses and extraordinary costs due to COVID-19 which “more than offset” an increase in revenues that ENGIE’s energy storage subsidiary earned in the first half of this year.
Balancing supply and demand in real-time is biggest value driver for UK battery aggregators
The greatest value aggregrators putting batteries and other assets in the UK's electricity markets offer to their customers today is in providing access to the Balancing Mechanism (BM), through which the electricity system operator National Grid ESO matches supply and demand in real-time.
Experts react to Tesla Battery Day: Highlights, hype and honking horns
An examination, analysis and perspectives on the takeaways and highlights beyond the hype of Tesla’s latest and most ambitious plans yet, from market analysts, technologists and more.
Energy storage’s prominent role in bipartisan green recovery package for US welcomed
Legislation to help the US economy invest in clean energy jobs and support innovation and industry passed the House of Representatives this week - and Energy Storage Association (ESA) CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman applauded the prominent inclusion of energy storage in the bill.
Multi-gigawatt market for co-located solar and storage is already taking off but faces challenges
A multi-gigawatt co-location market looks set to take off within the next five years, however uncertainty over DC coupling, the need for costly symmetric grid connections and outdated regulatory frameworks risk stymying the market’s growth.
Mitsubishi Power working with US utility Entergy on hydrogen, batteries and nuclear-plus-storage
Update 24 September 2020: A few hours after the publication of this story, Entergy made public a new pledge to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2050. The company said that while it commits to this goal it will remain committed to "grid reliability and affordability for customers".
‘Every step’ of lithium battery value chain will have an interest in recycling
It will be in the interests of more or less everybody involved in the “broader lithium-ion battery supply chain” to establish effective recycling ecosystems, according to an analyst with IHS Markit.
Software to streamline commercial, distributed solar and storage deployment launched in the US
New software solutions aimed at streamlining the process of deploying commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage and for correctly sizing energy storage for distributed solar have been launched in the US.