Renewable energy uptake and the falling costs of battery energy storage are “inexorably linked” as the global economy faces a crucial decade ahead in its urgent need to decarbonise, according to work by McKinsey & Company.

A plan to invest CA$2.5 billion (US$1.97 billion) in the clean energy economy by the Canada Infrastructure Bank could lead to involvement in one of the world’s biggest battery energy storage projects so far.

Solar-plus-storage systems at customers’ homes in Hawaii will create a “comprehensive” virtual power plant (VPP) network on three Hawaiian islands of up to 6,000 individual systems.

Energy company Total and solar-plus-storage developer 174 Global, a division of Hanwha Group, have formed a joint venture to develop utility-scale solar and storage projects with a total capacity of 1.6GW in the US.

At first glance, renewable power generation has created, in the eyes of traditional industries, an investment nirvana. By understanding how these better-capitalised companies view renewables’ merchant risk, we can identify where future energy storage projects should seek finance partners, says Charles Lesser, a partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory.

The lion’s share of new funding announced this week to help scale-up potentially disruptive technologies by the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) of the US government Department of Energy (DOE) will go to battery and smart grid technologies.

Canadian Solar said that construction has begun on a large-scale solar PV project combined with a four-hour duration battery storage system in California which the company has just sold to Goldman Sachs Renewable Power.

Virginia’s clean energy policies introduced during 2020 included the US’ biggest state-level target for deployment of energy storage – and the state’s regulator has now introduced the rules intended to enable achievement of that target.

A project which will combine and then assess four different types of non-lithium technologies for long-durations of energy storage has been awarded a grant by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

The Solar Media Podcast returns for a new season to mark the new year. In this first episode of 2021, sponsored by SKE Engineering, Andy Colthorpe and Liam Stoker cast their gazes at the horizon and profile what the immediate future holds for the solar and storage industries.