A roundup of recent BESS development planning consent news in the Great Britain (GB) market this week, from the pages of our sister site Solar Power Portal.

The Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) was one of the early movers in the UK BESS industry and now has operational assets in Great Britain (GB), Ireland, Germany, Texas and California.

Wind developer WestWind Energy has signed a lease agreement with Australia’s New South Wales government for the development of a 1,500MWh wind-plus-storage site in the south-west of the state.

UBS Asset Management has selected data analytics software company ACCURE to optimise a portfolio of battery storage assets in Texas, US.

State-owned utility and power generation firm NEK is deploying BESS at its hydropower plants across Bulgaria.

Gold Green Energy has secured consent for a 400MWh solar-plus-BESS site, whilst AEMO has seen 18.1GW of BESS seeking a connection to the NEM.

Ørsted has taken a final investment decision (FID) on a 250MW/500MWh BESS that will be co-located with one of the company’s operational solar facilities in Fort Bend County, Texas.

Virtual power plants (VPPs) are networks of small-scale, distributed energy resources, such as solar panels or batteries (and in some instances vehicles) which can together function as a single power plant, providing stability to the electric grid.

Battery storage played a crucial role in the Baltic region’s switch from Russia over to the Continental European grid over the weekend, coinciding with Lithuania launching a €100 million storage support scheme.

The energy storage market in Italy has unique characteristics that mean more risk-averse investment funds will be able to enter, but upcoming auctions could be very competitive, driving down clearing prices, a director at consultancy Timera Energy said.