Solar Media’s Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe discuss the continuing effects of COVID-19 on worldwide power markets, reflecting on IEA forecasts for historic energy demand lows and what they mean for renewables.

Vanadium redox flow batteries are almost as reliable as diesel generators in providing resiliency, but won’t be competitive against lithium-ion unless cost reductions can be achieved with the scaling up of manufacturing and deployment.

Tesla has kept financial losses at bay in the first quarter of 2020, but battery storage deployments fell significantly from the previous quarter.

The levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) that can be achieved today for battery energy storage means that “new-build batteries can be competitive on cost with gas peaker plants,” according to BloombergNEF.

Arkansas, currently ranked 31st among US states for solar deployment, will get a solar-plus-storage plant with 100MW of photovoltaic generation and 10MW / 30MWh of battery storage after regulator Arkansas Public Service Commission approved the project.

Recent news in brief from around the world in energy storage – this edition is collected from the pages of our sister site PV Tech.

A design consultancy service contract for a 1200MW pumped hydro energy storage project, paired with solar and wind energy and under development by independent power producer (IPP) Greenko has been awarded to AFRY India.

A solar and battery storage project combining 13.5MW of solar PV generation with 8MW / 8MWh of batteries in rural Alberta, Canada, has been approved by the local provincial regulator, the Alberta Utilities Commission.

Stephen Coughlin, CEO of Fluence since the energy storage technology provider jointly owned by AES and Siemens was launched in 2018 will step down at the beginning of May.

There exist opportunities for flow batteries to target areas of the market lithium-ion “can’t provide in an economically justifiable way,” the chief commercial officer of Invinity Energy Systems has said.