Two major Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region projects combining solar PV and battery storage have progressed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt through ACWA Power and Scatec, respectively.

NextEra Energy Resources and Meta have signed 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements totalling 2.5GW.

Clearway Energy Group has negotiated tolling agreements with SDG&E for one of its solar and storage complexes in Kern County, California.

Last month was the first time since June that both pre-application submissions and full planning consent submissions for grid-scale UK BESS surpassed 1GWh – just before NESO announced the results of its grid connection queue reshuffle.

NHOA Energy has secured contracts from Engie for an 80MW/320MWh BESS at Engie’s Drogenbos power station, near Brussels, Belgium.

AFC and public-private-partnership (PPP) Cabeolica have inaugurated 13.5MW of wind power generation and 26MWh of battery storage in Cape Verde.

Cell manufacturing overcapacity and intense competition contributed to an 8% decline in the average cost of lithium-ion battery packs, according to BloombergNEF.

In this Energy-Storage.news roundup, Energy Vault enters the Swiss energy storage market, ZincFive raises Series F financing, and Convergent Energy and Power secures a multimillion-dollar facility provided by NY Green Bank.

The 600MW/1.6GWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub has commenced commercial operations in Victoria, Australia.

The UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) will offer grid connection offers up to 2035 to 283GW of projects following a reform of the process.