July was a busy month for large-scale battery storage activity in the UK, with Engie commissioning a system, Masdar and Fidra hitting financial close on projects, Eku Energy buying one, project consents for Aura Power and Starlight Energy, and more.

Japanese utility Tokyo Gas has entered into a long-term offtake agreement for a 49.7MW/202.1MWh battery storage project in Fukushima Prefecture.

AMPYR Australia has received a 5.3.4 letter from AEMO for the 270MW Northern Battery near Port Augusta in South Australia.

The largest grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) project in the Czech Republic has gone online, supplied by a company invested in by lithium-ion OEM CATL. 

Home energy management company Plentify will put over 160,000 connected home battery storage systems in South Africa into a virtual power plant (VPP).

Massachusetts’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 1,000MW of energy storage in the US state.

IPP Prosalia has commissioned a 15MW/60MWh battery storage system at a solar PV plant in Portugal, while power group EDP has added one to a hybrid wind and solar project in Spain.

Iron-air battery company Ore Energy has raised US$43 million in a Series A funding round to commercialise its multi-day energy storage technology.

Habitat Energy has been appointed by Octopus Australia to provide optimisation services for two DC-coupled solar-plus-storage sites.

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has classified foreign-produced power inverters and “advanced robotic devices” as national security threats.