Developers who were successful in winning contracts within last week’s Capacity Market auction have lauded the “crucial role” battery storage is set to play in the future for the national grid.

News in brief: Sunverge launches AC-coupled systems, whether South Australia’s blackouts could have been a different story with batteries, German government approves model region project for renewables, storage and grids.

The number of battery storage projects to have won 15-year contracts in the latest Capacity Market auction is a sign of “considerable confidence” in the technology, according to the director of the Electricity Storage Network.

Storage projects have landed more than 3.2GW of contracts in the latest UK provisional Capacity Market auction results.

Ireland’s first Tesla Powerpack commercial-scale energy storage system has been installed successfully recently, while England’s first was officially opened with a visit from a government minister yesterday.

A US state-backed organisation is partnering with the government of Singapore to build and test up to three energy storage systems using a variety of technologies on the island state.

Solar tracking manufacturer NEXTracker has unveiled a storage solution paired with its PV tracking infrastructure.

A local authority in the UK has approved planning permission for the construction of a 20MW energy storage system which will provide real-time grid stabilisation to the local distribution network.

US energy storage had a fairly quiet period in the third quarter of this year deploying just 16.4MW/31.4MWh but enjoyed a record quarterly sum of US$660 million of corporate investment.

A corporate venture fund set up by oil and gas company Statoil has invested in North American energy storage developer Convergent Energy + Power.