ROUNDUP: FlexGen’s next-gen, Sonnen hails Italian VPP success, First microgrid on San Juan Islands
News in brief from around the world in energy storage.
Articles tagged with: Aggregation
Hitachi ABB Power Grids does virtual power plant and ‘greener coal mine’ projects in Southeast Asia
Hitachi ABB Power Grids will supply battery energy storage and smart controls to Singapore’s first virtual power plant (VPP), on a project aimed at validating methods for integrating more renewable energy onto the city-state’s electricity networks.
Home solar batteries in Hawaii to provide capacity, grid services through 80MW virtual power plant
Solar-plus-storage systems at customers’ homes in Hawaii will create a “comprehensive” virtual power plant (VPP) network on three Hawaiian islands of up to 6,000 individual systems.
Virginia enacts regulations to enable US’ largest procurement target for energy storage
Virginia’s clean energy policies introduced during 2020 included the US’ biggest state-level target for deployment of energy storage - and the state’s regulator has now introduced the rules intended to enable achievement of that target.
Eaton teams up with EV charging specialist to create virtual power plant offering
Distributed energy storage systems made by power management company Eaton will be able to participate in grid balancing markets through integration with a virtual power plant (VPP) platform developed by electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment provider Virta.
California utility PG&E requests approval for 387MW / 1,548MWh of battery storage procurements
PG&E, one of California’s main investor-owned utilities (IoUs) has awarded contracts for more than 1,000MW of battery energy storage projects to be deployed in its service area by the end of 2023, the company’s senior VP for energy policy and procurement has said.
Large-scale ESS in Belgium aims to prove business case for batteries in the energy transition
A 10MW / 20MWh battery energy storage project in Belgium has achieved financial close and is expected to begin construction shortly, the consortium behind the project has said.
US solar and storage event hears of financing hurdles, call for standalone ITC
Barriers to financing for energy storage could hold back the growth of solar in the US, while an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for standalone energy storage should be introduced, the audience heard as our publisher Solar Media hosted the Solar and Storage Finance USA event last week.
Tesla: Demand for Powerwall, Megapack continues to outstrip supply
Tesla said that it more than doubled production volumes of grid-scale energy storage solution Megapack in the third quarter of 2020 as the company continues to ramp up production to “match unprecedented demand across the globe”.
1,000MW industrial VPP project to begin across Australia ‘as soon as Victoria out of lockdown’
The first phase of a 1,000MW behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP) is expected to begin deployment in Australia as soon as the state of Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown is over.
Sonnen CEO steps down, company targets next stage of replacing fossil fuels
Sonnen founder Christoph Ostermann will be succeeded as CEO by chief operating officer Oliver Koch tomorrow, as the Germany-headquartered energy storage system maker targets its “next growth stage”.
Balancing supply and demand in real-time is biggest value driver for UK battery aggregators
The greatest value aggregrators putting batteries and other assets in the UK's electricity markets offer to their customers today is in providing access to the Balancing Mechanism (BM), through which the electricity system operator National Grid ESO matches supply and demand in real-time.
Local authority in England plans its second grid-scale battery storage system
South Somerset District Council (SSDC), a local government authority in the UK, is to build its second grid-scale battery storage project, announcing a 40MW facility that will be located near Fareham in Hampshire, southern England.
UK residential battery company Social Energy wins firm frequency response grid services contract
A provider of home battery storage systems aggregated via an artificial intelligence (AI) platform has won the first ever fully domestic weekly Firm Frequency Response (FFR) contract with the UK’s transmission network operator, National Grid ESO.
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Guest blog
CASE STUDY: Co-optimising a municipally owned battery storage site in Britain
The largest battery storage project to be owned by a local government authority in the UK, the 30MW Fideoak project, required a novel software solution to ensure that the best return and maximum impact could be made with public money invested, as Thomas Jennings of Kiwi Power explains.
Sonnen to deliver 60MWh for real estate group Wasatch’s US$130m California virtual power plants
More than 60MWh of residential battery energy storage systems from sonnen will be used in a virtual power plant (VPP) project in California that will fit out solar-powered energy solutions for around 3,000 residential apartments.
Future Grid project puts historic town in centre of Australia at ‘forefront of energy transition’
A series of smart energy projects in the town of Alice Springs in central Australia could be exemplary to the direction of travel for the energy transition across the country if successful.
Staying on-grid: Domestic solar provider Sunrun sees big opportunity in networked services
Lynn Jurich, CEO at major US residential solar installation and leasing company Sunrun has spoken of the big opportunity for aggregated solar-plus-storage systems to provide grid services and in doing so help lower the cost of installations.
Energy trading with batteries ‘will be scalable business in Japan’ once rules change in coming years
Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.
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Interviews
Kiwi Power: Now’s the time to take ‘decarbonisation-enabling’ VPP platform into North America
Bringing a proven, flexible, virtual power plant (VPP) platform into North America is a step towards “unleashing the potential” of distributed energy, the chief commercial officer of UK-headquartered solutions provider Kiwi Power says.
US ROUNDUP: FlexGen in Utah, Generac gears up for grid services, Delta added to Energy Toolbase
A roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage, this week with a US flavour.
Tokyo Electric’s renewables utility and ESS maker Itochu to create new business models
Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.
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Editor's blog
Meeting multiple needs to make ends meet: Sunverge CEO Martin Milani on residential VPP use cases
Sunverge CEO Martin Milani talks about the system architectures and technologies that can make residential storage virtual power plants economically viable and useful to the local electricity network. As told to Andy Colthorpe.
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Editor's blog
The beauty of distributed energy storage: Sunverge CEO Martin Milani’s ‘different view’
Sunverge has been active in the market since 2011 and Martin Milani became chief executive officer (CEO) in late 2017, taking over from company founder Ken Munson. One of the pioneers of using aggregated residential energy storage systems to create virtual power plants (VPPs), here’s some of the backstory and where the company is going these days, as told to Andy Colthorpe.
‘Opportunity to demonstrate value of residential battery systems’: Sunverge picked for Maryland VPP
Residential energy storage provider Sunverge has won out in a competitive bidding process to provide systems and software for a proposed virtual power plant (VPP) project in Maryland in the US.
Food wholesaler in England’s battery storage used in Balancing Mechanism
Two commercial battery energy storage systems owned by a family-owned wholesale food business in the UK have been used by aggregator Flexitricity to trade in the Balancing Mechanism (BM)
Australia ROUNDUP: Victoria rebate scheme, Vanadium mining, Neoen’s even bigger ‘Big Battery’
A roundup of news in brief from one of the world's hottest markets for energy storage - Australia.
Vehicle-to-grid charger maker Fermata receives UL certification
An electric vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging system, which allows for bi-directional flows of power from US maker Fermata Energy has become the first to receive certification under a new standard introduced by UL.
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Guest blog
#DefeatingtheDuck: NEXTracker + Sunrun on smart solar-plus-storage and the future of the grid
With the complete shift to renewable energy on the grid as the intended outcome, NEXTracker’s CTO Alex Au sat down in conversation with Sunrun’s VP of energy services Audrey Lee about the best ways to do that. Part of Energy-Storage.news’ #SmartSolarStorage2020 series.
Feature
Interviews
Japan Energy Challenge: An invitation to innovators
With Japanese companies keen to learn from their counterparts in deregulated energy markets such as the UK, the Japan Energy Challenge provided the ideal forum for exchanging ideas. Andy Colthorpe reports.