CATL sold 21.31GWh of lithium batteries in 2018, primarily to the EV market in China, but after exhibiting at two major trade shows in the west, claims its 12,000 cycle lithium iron phosphate batteries are ready to take on the stationary energy storage system (ESS) market, too.

Energy Storage Special Report 2019, from the editorial teams behind Energy-Storage.news and PV Tech, brings you no less than seven feature articles and technical papers looking at everything from the policy and regulatory initiatives that still need to happen, to bankability and profitability of ESS, system technologies and architecture, all the way to recycling and end-of-life care for batteries.

DC-coupling of combined solar and energy storage plants could be a more effective way to save energy that would otherwise be clipped and ‘lost’, benefitting the grid and helping efforts to reduce the amount of carbon pumped into the air, the COO of Fluence has said.

NEC will be using so-called ‘liquid metal’ batteries produced by Ambri in projects that could require more than four hours’ duration of energy storage, the company announced at SPI / ESI this week.

We’ve arrived at Day One of Smart Energy Week – hosting Solar Power International and Energy Storage International in Utah. Here are some of my observations: both on and ‘off’ the record.

A 300MW pipeline of behind-the-meter energy storage projects in Canada and the US will be executed by large engineering firm Honeywell, with Canadian project developer NRStor.

While sized only at 30kW, the successful installation of a battery energy storage system in Puebla, Mexico, is nonetheless being hailed as a milestone as it is claimed to be the first such system to deliver frequency regulation services in the country.

A new white paper from Wärtsilä Energy shows that being able to integrate and then optimise all of these different assets is the key to ensuring that your project – and your investment – is going to provide the maximum benefit, longest possible lifetime in the field – and the best business case. Risto Paldanius, Director of Business Development, Energy Storage and Integration at Wärtsilä told us a bit more about what optimization really means in today’s energy market.

Solarwatt shows off new ‘training and explaining’ app for installers of the company’s modular battery energy storage systems.

While lithium-ion enjoys the most media and customer interest at the moment, alternative technologies for storing energy could become competitive – if investors are willing to take them on to the extent that manufacturing efforts can be greatly scaled up.