Commercial and large-scale storage projects to be recognised by Solar Media’s annual awards in

May 31, 2016
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S&C Electric, among partners working on a much-feted microgrid in Texas for transmission and distribution utility Oncor, was also one of the companies behind the UK’s Smarter Network Storage ‘Big Battery’ trial project. Image: S&C Electric.
The Solar Power Portal Awards, an annual celebration of the PV industry from Energy-Storage.News’ UK-based publisher, Solar Media, will include commercial and large-scale energy storage as a category for the first time this October.

The awards event returns for its fourth successive year and will be co-located with the inaugural Clean Energy Awards, established to celebrate the successes of the wider clean technology space.

This year’s ceremony, sponsored by major vertically integrated Chinese solar company Trina Solar, will be hosted by British stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr.

Nominations deadline is 30 June.

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Large-scale storage project

Entries will not be restricted to completed projects, in order to keep the field as wide as possible in this still-emerging industry. There has been much discussion of the potential for all scales of storage in the UK over the past couple of years, not least from the Solar Media-backed Energy Storage Alliance. Much of this seems to be coming to fruition now, with numerous demonstration projects deployed. A tender for some 200MW of grid-balancing enhanced frequency response (EFR) services is imminent this summer and additionally, sole UK grid operator National Grid has just contracted Renewable Energy Systems (RES) to build a 20MW project for dynamic frequency response.

While there are still questions of where storage fits in to the bigger picture in terms of regulation and legislation, when the government and regulator has pledged to answer during this year, meaning that a market-based approach is still in its earliest stages, demonstrations like the 6MW/10MWh Smarter Network Storage trial in the east of England and pioneering projects such as AES’ 10MW array in Kilroot, Northern Ireland, are certainly establishing an early benchmark to live up to.

Enter now

Do you have a project that you want to shout about? Enter your project now for the 2016 Solar Power Portal Awards.

Click where prompted to nominate
Create a profile by clicking ‘Login’ in the navigation bar, and inputting all the required information. Once logged in, you will be able to see information on all this year’s categories and judging criteria
Log in to your online account and under the submissions tab, click “add new”
Select your required category from the drop down box, and go through the process by following the simple steps
You can add the names of associated applicants and save a submission to be continued later. Once complete, click “save and submit”.

The Awards dinner will be held on Wednesday 5th October 2016 at the Hilton Metropole NEC. Tickets can be booked by contacting Stuart Bradshaw.

13 October 2026
London, UK
Now in its second edition, the Summit provides a dedicated platform for UK & Ireland’s BESS community to share practical insights on performance, degradation, safety, market design and optimisation strategies. As storage deployment accelerates towards 2030 targets, attendees gain the tools needed to enhance returns and operate resilient, efficient assets.

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