Australian firm Resolute Mining has signed an agreement with Africa-focused power developer Ignite Energy to set up a 40MW hybrid solar, battery and heavy fuel oil (HFO) plant at its Syama Gold Mine in Mali, according to an Australian Stock exchange (ASX) filing.
Daystar Power, a clean energy supplier based in Africa, has teamed up with Nigerian retail banking group Unity Bank to power the latter’s switch away from diesel, using renewable energy and energy storage.
The global energy storage market will grow to a cumulative 942GW/2,857GWh capacity by 2040, attracting US$620 billion in investment, caused by sharply decreasing battery costs, according to a Bloomberg NEF (BNEF) report.
Quoting an expected doubling in installed PV capacity over the next five years, a partnership between Chinese battery storage system maker BYD and European PV inverter company SMA is targeting the USA market, identifying it – along with Africa – as having “high growth potential” for the pair’s products.
French power giant EDF has acquired a 50% stake in the Togo-focused unit of off-grid renewable energy specialist BBOXX, with EDF adding its financial clout to speed up solar home system deployments and its technical expertise to improve the energy storage offering.
South Africa’s state-owned utility Eskom has unveiled its Distributed Battery Storage Programme at an event this week, committing to solar-plus-storage and energy storage projects totalling 1400MWh.
An agreement to buy 75% of Korean battery manufacturer Kokam gives SolarEdge a level of vertical integration that could make the PV company a ‘one-stop-shop’ for customers, while SolarEdge could diversify into areas outside solar energy.
Rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented change is required to limit climate change to 1.5C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned.
First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the second of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe dives deeper into questions of bankability, market segmentation and manufacturing strategies with four very different providers of flow energy storage technology.
