Country part of Latin America’s lithium triangle will tap into sizeable reserves of sought-after metal to create industrial ecosystem, top official says at PV plant launch.

New four-project portfolio heralds the emergence of New England’s solar-plus-storage industry after years of “behind-the-scenes” activity, firm says.

A 300MW pipeline of behind-the-meter energy storage projects in Canada and the US will be executed by large engineering firm Honeywell, with Canadian project developer NRStor.

While sized only at 30kW, the successful installation of a battery energy storage system in Puebla, Mexico, is nonetheless being hailed as a milestone as it is claimed to be the first such system to deliver frequency regulation services in the country.

A new white paper from Wärtsilä Energy shows that being able to integrate and then optimise all of these different assets is the key to ensuring that your project – and your investment – is going to provide the maximum benefit, longest possible lifetime in the field – and the best business case. Risto Paldanius, Director of Business Development, Energy Storage and Integration at Wärtsilä told us a bit more about what optimization really means in today’s energy market.

While lithium-ion enjoys the most media and customer interest at the moment, alternative technologies for storing energy could become competitive – if investors are willing to take them on to the extent that manufacturing efforts can be greatly scaled up.

US solar and storage developer Nexamp is to deploy its maiden energy storage projects, clinching a six-strong portfolio of assets totaling 51MWh.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) last week approved power purchase agreements for what is thought to be the cheapest solar-plus-storage project so far in the US.

Despite the huge strides energy storage has made, significant hurdles remain before the technology in its many guises can be claimed to have fulfilled its massive potential. E-S.n editor Andy Colthorpe assesses the key successes and ongoing challenges for this indispensable part of the future power system.

“With no large-scale batteries participating in the wholesale market in New York, the first day we turned the battery on it was exciting to see if all our internal models were correct in how the battery would behave,” KCE’s COO Dan Fitzgerald told us.