It’s been a positive week for thermal energy storage technology, with utility Edison International validating a cold storage solution, a collaboration between two groups to achieve 100% round trip efficiency, and an acquisition involving several intellectual property rights patents.
A total of 1,613MW/4,727MWh of energy storage was installed in the US in the last quarter of 2021 according to Wood Mackenzie, which says annual residential storage installations will hit 2GW by 2026.
Long duration energy storage (LDES) technologies may have a difficult time competing with lithium-ion over the next decade as the latter’s cost-competitiveness at longer durations increases, possibly even to 24 hours, according to Haresh Kamath, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).
Jamaica has received proposals from a consortium of local and international companies to implement a proposed pumped hydro electric storage (PHES) project.
KORE Power, a company building a lithium-ion gigafactory in Arizona, has launched a full service storage integrator division with the acquisition of an existing provider.
A newly-announced battery gigafactory in the US from startup SPARKZ will make batteries suitable for grid storage and will be built in the heart of Appalachian coal county in West Virginia.
