The results of Spain’s auction last week for 3GW of renewables capacity have been widely welcomed by the country’s solar sector, but calls have been made to tweak future auctions to support smaller-scale projects as well as encourage the participation of bids with energy storage.

The biggest battery energy storage system (BESS) in mainland France went into operation in late January, and will provide grid-balancing services to national transmission system operator RTE.

Tesla reported a significant increase in energy storage deployments for the fourth quarter of 2020, more than doubling record figures from the previous quarter as battery manufacturing expansions led to greater product availability but demand still outstrips supply.

There are seven utility-scale energy storage system integrator companies that currently lead a global market poised for significant expansion, with Fluence and Tesla currently competing for the top spot, according to a new industry ranking report from Guidehouse Insights.

Solar PV bidders secured two-thirds of allocated capacity in the first of Spain’s new renewable energy auctions, while energy storage was not included in any of the winning bids.

While it might be more than 200 times smaller than the world’s biggest battery energy storage system so far, a 1MW / 5.1MWh project awarded to technology provider FlexGen is expected to be the biggest of its kind in the US state of Kansas.

Wärtsilä Corporation’s CEO has said that “activity in the energy storage market held up well” in 2020 despite a difficult year for the company due to prevailing market conditions around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finland has launched a new battery development strategy and is touting for investors to build up its manufacturing industry.

Norwegian state-owned energy company Statkraft is to provide market access and trading optimisation for battery storage assets being developed by RWE in Ireland.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage: this edition has a distinctly British flavour.