Microgrid simulation facilities at universities in Germany and Australia are being supplied with technical solutions by major global power equipment and systems providers AEG Power Solutions and Hitachi ABB Power Grids.
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.
DERs interconnected with the grid position a utility to better manage peak demand, avoid transmission overloads and keep electricity flowing, but interconnection of battery, solar and other DERs is not without its challenges. Jason Allnutt from IEEE Standards Association discusses a standard that has become an "essential resource" for stakeholders.
A new three-year project allowing residential solar and batteries to trade electricity and grid services in Victoria, Australia, is aimed at creating a replicable model marketplace that could be widely expanded across the country.
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.
Maxine Ghavi, head of grid edge solutions at Hitachi ABB Power Grids speaks to Energy-Storage.news about the role of battery storage in the global energy transition.
Siemens and Macquarie Group have created a new joint venture that will develop distributed energy resources such as solar and battery storage for US corporations and institutions.
Within the US, different jurisdictions are at different points of DER adoption and interconnection: Ravi Subramaniam at IEEE asks commissioners from across the country about the different drivers and dynamics they see.
A newly released standard creates nationally applicable guidance for DER manufacturers on how grid support functions in their products will be tested. Brian Lydic, chief regulatory engineer at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), talks about what this means for enabling the grid modernisation that will be needed to support high levels of renewable energy and energy storage.
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.
UK-headquartered distributed energy services provider Kiwi Power has made its first official expansion into the US, operating in the ERCOT market of Texas and planning a further step into the PJM Interconnection service area.
The optimal integration of distributed energy resources such as solar, battery storage and smart thermostats becomes an ever-more complex and pressing question. Rahul Kar, general manager and VP for New Energy at AutoGrid Systems looks at the role artificial intelligence can play in smarter energy networks.
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.
A new guide has been published in the US to “help stakeholders assure prudent use of funds by electric utilities” when it comes to upgrading the distribution grid.
Moving from today’s gas stations to their electrified equivalent can present a challenge so “dramatic” that in some cases, microgrids may be the only viable solution, a representative of Schneider Electric has said.
Three European Transmission System Operators (TSO) have collaborated to launch a new, blockchain-based flexibility platform, Equigy.
Even the US states leading in energy storage market development still have work to do when it comes to adopting the best and lowest-cost grid interconnection procedures, an expert in regulatory affairs at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), has said.
Power shut-offs affecting millions in California, enacted by utilities Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to prevent wildfires and their spreading, are a “draconian” measure and don’t address the real problems, SimpliPhi Power CEO Catherine Von Burg has said.
Energy-Storage.news spoke with Samir Succar, a director and DER analyst at consultancy group ICF, shortly after he spoke on a panel at Solar Power International / Energy Storage International in Utah.
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.
Make no mistake - headlines in the mainstream press this week around Australia, climate change and energy are not positive. But enthusiasm at state level, where arguably politicians have closer relationships with their constituents, appears to run counter to apathy or even obstructionism from the top.
The new business will design, build, own and operate distributed solar and storage solutions for industrial, commercial and public-service customers.
The UK’s energy retail market is witnessing an exodus of customers leaving the so-called Big Six for independent suppliers, who are attracting them with home solar systems and a battery to match. Liam Stoker uncovers what’s behind the trend for new energy suppliers taking to domestic PV
National Grid, in its capacity as the UK’s Electricity System Operator (ESO), last week launched a new ‘Distributed Resource Desk’ in its control room in a move hailed as a “huge step forward” for electricity flexibility markets.
‘Energy resilient infrastructure upgrades’ planned for a US military facility will involve the deployment of 20MW of solar PV, 4MW / 8MWh of battery storage and 4MW of gas-fired backup generation in a project worth US$133.5 million.
Australia-headquartered engineering and professional services company WorleyParsons said its first EPC contract for a battery storage project in the US shows how the energy sector is moving from “mega projects” to “portfolios of smaller projects”.
Business models used by Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS), including creating “Hybrid Electric Buildings” with energy storage, take the industry to a “new level”, VC investor Nancy Pfund has said.
From the outside, the VPP looks like a single power production facility that publishes one schedule of operation and can be optimised from a single remote site. From the inside, the VPP can combine a rich diversity of independent resources into a network via the sophisticated planning, scheduling, and bidding of DER-based services. Peter Asmus examines the role energy storage can play within this architecture.
South Korean corporate industrial holdings company Doosan has acquired Seattle-based 1Energy Systems, which develops the software platform needed to automatically integrate distributed energy resources (DER) into the grid.
The future for Tesla-SolarCity could lie in aggregating rooftop PV with stationary energy storage, EVs and other distributed energy resources, the head of energy storage market analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has said.