Days before Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has announced US$22.92 billion in loans across eight projects.

This edition of news in brief focuses on energy storage technologies that are emerging or on the path to commercialisation.

System integrator Powin contributes to the latest of our Year in Review series, after a year in which it expanded into Europe and launched a new BESS product.

Finnish telecoms firm Elisa will manage the charging activity of a 100MWh ‘Sand Battery’ project, optimising its activity in the country’s electricity reserve market.

Officials in Greene County, North Carolina will delay issuing a special use permit for the construction of a hybrid solar and BESS facility proposed by NextEra Energy Resources.

Private equity firm Partners Group has invested in ‘green flexibility’, a BESS platform in Germany, with an initial equity commitment of €400 million.

A new study from Stanford says that sodium-ion batteries will need more breakthroughs in order to compete with lithium-ion (Li-ion).

IPP Polat Energy is deploying multiple renewables-plus-BESS projects in Turkey, and has ordered a 132MWh BESS from the system integration arm of Rolls-Royce for one of them.

A project combining solar generation and battery storage to provide 1GW of ‘round-the-clock’ dispatchable power was unveiled at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW).

Battery recycling firm Livium, via its wholly owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has partnered with Chinese battery manufacturer Hithium Energy to recycle lithium-ion batteries from Lightsource bp’s Woolooga solar-plus-storage site in Queensland.