Solar-plus-storage with smart controls could cut 97% of evening peak, UK study finds
A combination of residential solar, storage and smart controls could "dramatically reduce" evening peak grid usage at homes in Britain.
Articles tagged with: Virtual Power Plant
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Guest blog
Digitising the solar revolution
Our ability to generate renewable energy is scaling up fast, and solutions to integrate that energy will rely on technologies like blockchain to help keep new solutions on track. Power Ledger’s executive chairman and co-founder, Dr Jemma Green, looks at the role blockchain plays within her company’s platform to integrate and automate solar energy trading and balancing.
Sunrun picks AutoGrid software platform to optimise aggregated fleets of solar-plus-batteries
Sunrun has made a further expansion in providing grid services by choosing AutoGrid’s software to help manage its fleets of aggregated home solar and battery systems.
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.
Sunrun sets up 300-home virtual power plant for Southern California Edison
US residential solar installer Sunrun is deploying aggregated rooftop solar-plus-batteries in partnership with utility Southern California Edison (SCE), in a demonstration project of the systems’ capabilities to run as a virtual power plant (VPP).
SimpliPhi solar-storage VPP helps Louisiana with tentative grid-modernisation steps and backup
A project demonstrating aggregated solar-plus-storage in Louisiana involving energy storage company SimpliPhi Power, technology partner Heila and local utility SWEPCO has started off small, but is “expected to transition into a larger network of distributed systems, soon”.
QCELLS invests in Australian DER software company SwitchDin
QCELLS has invested AU$5 million (US$3.45 million) in SwitchDin, an Australian distributed energy resources (DERs) software company that offers capabilities including virtual power plant aggregation and microgrid-forming.
Sector-coupling demonstrator project in UK will integrate low carbon energy, heat and transport
A £31 million (US$38.06 million) demonstrator project in the UK, integrating heat, transport and energy is to progress despite COVID-19 restrictions.
‘Feasible community-scale decarbonisation’: LA neighbourhood gets blockchain-backed energy solution
With the award of funding from the California Energy Commission, advanced energy hardware and software including solar-plus-storage, blockchain and EV charging stations will help demonstrate the feasibility of decarbonising a disadvantaged community in Los Angeles.
‘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.
European grid operators launch blockchain-based flexibility platform
Three European Transmission System Operators (TSO) have collaborated to launch a new, blockchain-based flexibility platform, Equigy.
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.
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Analysis
Virtual Power Plant demonstration in Australia shows financial and network value of home batteries
Home batteries in a South Australia delivered significant revenues from their first six months of participation in a virtual power plant to help balance the grid, even with only an initial 1MW - 2MW of aggregated customer systems participating.
Sonnen: Latest German VPP’s use of blockchain ‘proves energy storage can solve grid congestion’
Blockchain technology and a digital trading platform enables sonnen’s latest virtual power plant (VPP) project in northeast Germany to store wind energy that would otherwise be curtailed and ‘lost’.
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Interviews
#ESSummit2020 Q&A: ‘Ireland’s market design allows meaningful action towards 70% renewables by 2030’
Ireland's DS3 is a "really interesting market" but there is a lack of clarity of what the enduring arrangements for procuring DS3 look like, says Statkraft Market's head of UK energy storage, Nick Heyward.
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Analysis
PV and ESS in Japan’s changing energy market landscape
It has always been anticipated that by the early 2020s, the feed-in tariff would have tapered away in Japan’s booming solar market. Andy Colthorpe speaks with analyst Izumi Kaizuka at RTS Corporation to learn more about what the future holds for post-subsidy solar in Japan.
Kruger Energy commissions ‘multiple revenue’ commercial energy storage VPP in New York
Kruger Energy said that along with smart software and technology solutions company Peak Power, it has deployed three commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage projects into a behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP).
Tesla talks up virtual power plant solutions to target Japan
Tesla Inc. today showed off recent activities in the virtual power plant (VPP) space at Tokyo's Smart Grid Expo, with a view to bringing them at scale into the country's rapidly changing energy market.
PODCAST: The energy transition in the Middle East, VPPs in Italy and coal’s diminishing status
In today’s episode, ESN’s Andy Colthorpe and Liam Stoker explore the way grids are changing in the Middle East to accommodate clean energy, the role virtual power plants are playing in Italy, and the contrasting role coal is playing in Germany and bush fire-stricken Australia.
AMS chief Kennedy steps aside as company steps up AI to the ‘next level’
Susan Kennedy has stepped down as CEO of Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS), with chief product officer Seyed Madaeni appointed to take her place.
VPP ROUNDUP: Latest including Japan, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, France
In what is unlikely to become a regular feature of Energy-Storage.news, but seems apt nonetheless, this edition rounds up news from some of the latest behind-the-meter orchestras of small-scale resources in the past few weeks.
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Analysis
Batteries and the blackout: how energy storage saved the UK’s grid
At 4:52pm on Friday 9 August 2019, the UK suffered its first wide-scale blackout in more than a decade. More than 1.1 million consumers were plunged into the dark as rail lines screeched to a halt, traffic lights failed and even airports reported problems. Liam Stoker looks at the root causes, and how battery storage came to the rescue.
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Analysis
Market and technology development of stationary battery storage systems in Europe
The business models and technologies underpinning the development of stationary energy storage markets are evolving rapidly. Dr. Kai-Philipp Kairies, Jan Figgener and David Haberschusz of RWTH Aachen University look at some of the key trends driving the sector forwards, in a paper which first appeared in PV Tech Power's Energy Storage Special Report 2019.
‘Transactive energy’ powers households as Australia’s AGL expands virtual power plant
Virtual power plants made up of household solar and battery systems look set to continue their rise in Australia, with utility AGL expanding the scope of an ongoing project significantly.
Almost 4GW of virtual power plants are in operation worldwide, Navigant says
Navigant Research has created a definition for virtual power plants (VPPs) in the course of creating a market report which finds that nearly 4GW of such projects are already in operation, with rapid growth forecasted over the next decade.
DoE celebrates Georgia Power’s first ‘Smart Neighbourhood’
The US state of Georgia’s fledgling energy storage market took another step forward with the ceremonial switch on of Georgia Power’s ‘Smart Neighbourhood’ in Atlanta.
Sunrun solar-plus-battery systems to hasten the demise of California gas peaker plant
California electricity company East Bay Community Energy has hired Sunrun to install solar and battery systems on 500 low-income housing units in the area before 2022.
National Grid picks SolarEdge’s ESS inverters to join peak reduction scheme in New England
SolarEdge’s StorEdge inverters have been deemed eligible for a programme rolled out by National Grid in the US states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island encouraging customers to help reduce peak demand on local networks.
UK distribution network’s ‘flexibility tender’ saves on costly grid reinforcements
Over half a million dollars of contracts to supply flexibility to a distribution network in Britain have been awarded through a commercial tender to resource operators including behind-the-meter energy storage systems.
Statera puts 1GW of flexible generation into Stakraft’s virtual power plant
Under the agreement, Statera will develop 1GW of high-efficiency gas reciprocating engines and energy storage.