The fact that lithium-ion batteries experience degradation over time with use should not necessarily be a limiter for their widespread use in stationary storage systems, but requires long-term strategies for their management.
Just over US$28 million has been awarded by the US Department of Energy to projects that could deliver energy storage durations of up to 100 hours, while also committing US$120m to the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR).
Sweden’s first commercial wind power developer Eolus has entered the US solar-plus-storage market, announcing the acquisition of a mega-project currently in development.
Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.
US-based energy storage technology provider Powin Energy has claimed it has a pipeline close to 500MWh of projects under contract, including recent awards totalling 70MWh for customers in North and Central America and in Italy.
The Australian state of Victoria has been given a “taste of what’s possible” with the launch of utility Origin Energy’s first virtual power plant (VPP) project to date.
The US deployed 42% megawatts more energy storage in the second quarter of this year than in the first, with residential installations overtaking utility deployments for the first time.
Using energy storage – and often renewables – could see mines, cement companies, data centres and other large industrial operations in emerging markets reduce their electricity costs drastically, the CEO of Greensmith has said.
Following news of SB100, legislation that would set California on a path to 100% renewables by 2045, the state is also on the brink of setting up a rebate programme for energy storage equipment sales.
US utilities deployed more than 520MWh of energy storage on their networks in 2017, bringing the country’s cumulative installed capacity of grid-connected energy storage systems to over 1GWh, trade organisation Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) has found.
