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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.
The European Commission has approved Britain’s Capacity Market scheme following an in-depth investigation into its state aid compliance.
60MW of energy storage developed by Fluence and Sembcorp Energy UK has come online, lauded as one of the largest transacted fleets of its kind in Europe.
Quentin Scrimshire, head of energy storage at Kiwi Power, said the latest prices didn’t achieve the mechanism’s purpose, and instead only served to reward larger generators that would already be generating throughout the winter.
News in brief from around the world in energy storage.
US software and data company Autogrid has continued its roll-out of solutions into Japan’s evolving electricity market, joining a virtual power plant (VPP) project that could add more than 10,000 assets by the end of 2021.
Existing CMUs outperformed new build in the auction, and battery storage in particular struggled to complete against other generator types like open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT).
UK investment management firm Gresham House has confirmed it is to launch a fresh fund raising drive as it sets its sights on a new, 182MW pipeline of battery storage projects.
Topics previously off-limits due to commercial sensitivity or just a lack of experience from the field, were explored in depth at this year's Energy Storage Summit in London.
Long duration flow battery manufacturer CellCube will bring its large-scale vanadium redox flow systems to the UK, with the country's Capacity Market firmly in its sights, according to Immersa, which the Canadian energy storage company has signed up to partner with.
National Grid has outlined how renewables could participate in the UK's Capacity Market, unveiling technology-specific de-rating factors that range from 1–15%.
Centrica has formally announced the completion of its 49MW Roosecote battery storage project, 18 months after construction started.
The UK government is seeking the “most rapid and effective path” towards a potential re-opening of the Capacity Market (CM), but has failed to determine the consequences if a negative decision is forthcoming.
There has been a substantial drop in the levels of new battery capacity being entered into consideration for the UK’s Capacity Market (CM) mechanism, according to the prequalification results of the next auctions.
The future of the Capacity Market has been plunged into doubt after the European Court of Justice annulled the European Commission’s decision not to object to the scheme.
Arlington Energy, a clean energy investment group, has announced plans to build out a 1GW portfolio of energy storage and gas peaker projects across the UK after securing initial funding of £200 million (US$255 million) from an offshore fund of institutional investment.
The UK’s transmission system operator National Grid’s redesigned Capacity Market targets around 50GW of reserves up to 2023 and could be an early step towards longer duration energy storage batteries.
After reporting last week on the findings from EMMES, the European Market Monitor on Energy Storage from Delta-ee and trade association EASE, which demonstrated a big rise in installations by MWh in 2017 across the continent, we delved further behind another record-breaking year with the report’s lead author, Valts Grintals of Delta-ee.
Cleve Hill Solar Park, the joint venture (JV) of Hive Energy and Wirsol intending to develop a 350MW+ solar farm on the Kent coast of England, has yet to make any decisions regarding the battery storage element of its plans, contrary to media reports.
Fluence says it has secured the single largest energy storage portfolio transaction for a technology provider announced in the UK to date after being selected by UK Power Reserve (UKPR) to deliver half of its battery storage portfolio.
Ørsted, formerly DONG Energy, has confirmed its entry into the UK battery storage market with a new 20MW project near Liverpool.
Ofgem is to consider Scottish Power’s proposal to create demand side response (DSR) technology classes intended to apply new de-rating factors to energy storage used as part of DSR bids into the Capacity Market in 2019.
British vertically-integrated utility Scottish Power has come under scrutiny from the demand side response (DSR) sector after proposing to national regulator Ofgem that de-rating factors applied to large scale battery storage should be extended to those used to provide DSR in the Capacity Market.
The “devil is in the detail” when it comes to making regulatory changes in the US to open up wholesale markets for energy storage to participate in, a regional chief of regulator FERC has said.
The capacity market is rapidly becoming “outdated” after the latest auction failed to secure capacity and value for new technologies like energy storage, which is now in “a state of flux” following changes to de-rating factors.
Over 9,000MWh of battery energy storage could be deployed in Britain over the next five years as the sector enjoys a trend towards “explosive growth”, a market analyst has said.
The latest auction for the UK’s Capacity Market cleared at a record low price at the end of last week as battery storage projects seemingly struggled to compete.
GE has formed a strategic alliance with UK energy infrastructure company Arenko to develop grid scale batteries in the UK, starting with a 41MW system in the Midlands.
Battery storage and demand-side response have continued to play a crucial role in the UK’s power mix, together landing more than 500MW of contracts in the most recent T-1 Capacity Market auction.
The vast majority of battery projects set to compete in Britain's upcoming Capacity Market (CM) auctions will face significantly decreased de-rating factors after it emerged that most projects are still set to use either 30 minute or one hour duration batteries.