First transactions made using Renewable Energy Hub’s ‘Virtual Storage’ contract in Australia
Renewable Energy Hub has announced the first transactions as part of its new ‘Virtual Storage’ electricity swap contract in Australia..
Commercial
‘Growing interest from battery sector is driving vanadium demand growth’
Vertically-integrated vanadium mining, production and supply company Largo Resources wants to launch its own vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) onto the market within a year-and-a-half, predicting that the technology will play a “critical role” in addressing significant demand for energy storage.
Corporate funding in battery storage in 2020 was up by 136% compared to 2019, Mercom says
The amount of corporate funding coming into the global battery storage industry in 2020 was more than double the amount the previous year, with over US$6.5 billion raised last year compared to around US$2.8 billion in 2019.
McKinsey: Continuous fall in battery prices is enabling the rapid rise of renewable energy
Renewable energy uptake and the falling costs of battery energy storage are “inexorably linked” as the global economy faces a crucial decade ahead in its urgent need to decarbonise, according to work by McKinsey & Company.
Siemens signs technology deal with Britishvolt to create ‘most efficient’ UK battery gigafactory
Siemens has partnered with the company behind what is to be the UK’s first lithium-ion battery gigafactory, providing it with its Digital Enterprise Technology, which can simulate gigaplant production processes and flows ahead of construction.
Feature
Guest blog
Merchant risk in energy storage project financing makes compelling case for traditional players
At first glance, renewable power generation has created, in the eyes of traditional industries, an investment nirvana. By understanding how these better-capitalised companies view renewables’ merchant risk, we can identify where future energy storage projects should seek finance partners, says Charles Lesser, a partner at Apricum - The Cleantech Advisory.
US$47m funding from US Department of Energy for disruptive tech mostly goes to batteries, smart grid
The lion’s share of new funding announced this week to help scale-up potentially disruptive technologies by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) of the US government Department of Energy (DOE) will go to battery and smart grid technologies.
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.
PODCAST: World’s biggest battery storage system and a New Year opens a new step-up for global solar
The Solar Media Podcast returns for a new season to mark the new year. In this first episode of 2021, sponsored by SKE Engineering, Andy Colthorpe and Liam Stoker cast their gazes at the horizon and profile what the immediate future holds for the solar and storage industries.
Feature
Analysis
What the fire service wants you to know about your battery
Tom Bensen, Nick Warner, Ryan Franks and Michael Bowes from energy storage and fire safety expert group Energy Safety Response Group (formerly Energy Storage Response Group) discuss some of the most important aspects of creating a safe battery storage industry.
Trafigura clean energy JV’s first project will be 25MW / 100MWh battery storage system in Belgium
Commodities trading company Trafigura has said that it is building a large-scale battery storage plant in Belgium through a newly-launched renewable energy joint venture (JV) company.
ROUND-UP: SimpliPhi certified, Stem Inc wins SGIP incentives, Enphase and Sunnova sales tie-up
A round-up of energy storage news in brief; this edition has a distributed, behind-the-meter flavour.
Industry calls on UK gov’t to reverse decision to remove consumer tax break for energy storage
UK energy storage firm AceOn has joined a call to reverse changes to Value Added Tax (VAT) rates applicable to energy storage systems that came into effect in the country in 2019.
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.
‘Growth, competition and consolidation’: Energy storage system integrators face fast-changing market
System integrators - companies that create large-scale and commercial and industrial battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions to order - have driven the market’s rapid growth so far but face a diversifying landscape marked by competition and consolidation in the years ahead.
Energy storage tech company Fluence to become ‘unicorn’ with Qatar investment
The sovereign wealth fund of Qatar has agreed to invest in energy storage solutions provider Fluence in a transaction that values the technology company at more than a billion dollars.