Would-be investors and interested stakeholders in a 50MW battery energy storage project in Colombia have been invited to respond with comments to the Energy Mining Planning Unit (UPME) of the government Ministry of Mines and Energy.

This week’s roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage focuses on recent products and services launches.

The number of sites pairing renewable energy with energy storage in the US more than doubled from 2016 to 2019 and the trend is expected to continue, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.

While the performance of lithium batteries has increased tremendously, there’s still room for improvement to lower cost, increase sustainability and maximise their impact on decarbonisation, says Marcos Ierides, consultant and materials expert at innovation consultancy Bax & Company.

The UK government has confirmed changes to the Capacity Market which are designed to remove barriers for demand side response (DSR) and energy storage, making it easier for clean technologies to compete in auctions.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has extended bid submission deadlines for a number of solar projects with battery storage co-location requirements.

Utility PG&E has asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for approval of five large-scale battery projects, each with four-hours duration, that will take the investor-owned utility (IOU) past 1,000MW of battery energy storage in its service area.

Sungrow is to partner with Huanghe Hydropower, providing PV inverter and energy storage systems for a major solar-plus-storage project in Qinghai Province, China.

Battery software company Arenko has teamed up with National Grid ESO to provide upward and downward reserve flexibility in a “first of its kind trial”.