Tesla’s much-hyped battery announcement in April raised important questions over what business models will drive the deployment of stationary battery storage. As Andy Colthorpe reports, one answer is the virtual power plant, in which residential and commercial battery systems are aggregated to provide grid services.
The latest claimant to the crown of ‘largest flow battery installation in North America and Europe’ has emerged, with the award of a 2MW project in Canada to US manufacturer Vizn Energy.
Following the announcement of a ‘virtual power plant’ pilot in Australia, Sunverge energy storage systems have been selected for another trial project to test the capabilities of customer-sited storage, this time in the US.
Construction has begun on what is claimed to be the world’s first modular large-scale battery storage system, a 5MW device at a research university in Aachen, Germany.
Production of stationary storage systems has already begun at Tesla’s facilities in Fremont California, while the company’s Gigafactory is “on track” and could even be expanded beyond original plans, company executives said yesterday.
India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has invited expressions of interest (EOI) for energy storage demonstration projects to integrate renewables, recognising that the technology “has the potential to become highly attractive for both grid-connected and off-grid renewable energy applications”.
PV Tech Storage’s publisher, Solar Media, recently conducted a round table discussion event, bringing together a range of industry figures from analysts to manufacturers, to discuss the future of the UK residential energy storage industry. While there is more in depth coverage of event to come on PV Tech Storage and through Solar Media’s various other channels, here are two short videos summing up some of the thoughts of attendees on key topics.
Enphase CEO Paul Nahi has said that the “unique” modularity of the company’s battery solution could be “incredibly valuable” to help it to meet the needs of customers in regions including Australia, where there is a “real economic case” for energy storage.
Some news in brief from around the world of energy storage this week: One of the big solar inverter players, KACO, has picked out Ideal Power’s patented technology to boost its storage push, Electrovaya has been quick to highlight the positive impact it said it received from purchasing Litarion, an EV fast-charge station could be the first step in a big change for West Australia.
Mercom Capital Group’s second quarter 2015 report into VC funding in the energy storage, smart grid and energy efficiency sectors made for interesting reading for the battery and storage space. As PV Tech Storage noted on 21 July from the report, VC funding almost doubled over the first quarter of the year and the sector saw Arnold Schwarzenegger put his money where his green credentials are, bringing some celebrity investor gloss to the proceedings. PV Tech Storage spoke to Mercom Capital chief Raj Prabhu to delve deeper into the statistics.
