Panellists at the opening day of Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Southeast Asia event in Bangkok warned that investors who come on board quickest are going to gain a huge advantage as solar-plus-storage starts to become viable at scale.

While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.

The goal of the project, as with the rest of Centrica’s activities in Cornwall, is to harness renewables and smart energy technologies to free up capacity on the local grid and provide flexibility to the distribution network operator or the national grid.

UK renewables and battery developer Anesco has warned that the looming de-rating of battery storage in the Capacity Market risks scaring investors away from the technology.

Younicos has completed the installation and commissioning of an upgraded 3MW battery-based energy storage system on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Younicos replaced the previously installed lead-acid systems with advanced lithium-ion batteries — expanding the system’s operational lifetime while boosting performance.

Gavilan College has selected SunPower to deploy a fully integrated solar and storage project on its campus in Gilroy, California.

Eelpower has commissioned a 10MW battery energy storage system (BESS) in England, backed with both frequency response and capacity market contracts, in the first of a new pipeline of projects being planned by the company over the next decade.

Melbourne-headquartered mining giant BHP, in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), has projected 500MW of potential capacity combining solar, wind and energy storage at its old North American mining sites.

The Selma-Kingsburg-Fowler County Sanitation District (SKFCSD) held a groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 8 to celebrate the start of construction on an integrated solar/battery storage system that will help power treatment facilities across 222 hectares of SKFCSD service territory.

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has applauded the coming together of National Grid and his Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to jointly research areas including grid-scale storage and grid modernisation.