A grid-forming project in South Australia combining power electronics and battery storage to integrate wind and solar at a site near the end of a 120km 33kV transmission line is being replicated worldwide, the Head of Grid Edge Solutions at Hitachi ABB Power Grids has said.

Construction equipment contributes substantial amounts of greenhouse gas emissions all over the world, but battery energy storage and hybridisation of diesel power solutions can help the industry take big steps to putting that right, says Shaun Montgomery of xelectrix Power.

Energy storage could solve problems of reliability for grid operators in India, such as the electricity blackout which struck Mumbai last month, a panel at the India Energy Storage Week conference heard today.

South Australia’s state government has contracted for renewable energy retailer ZEN Energy to supply its facilities with power and in doing so has secured the future of a 280MW solar farm as well as a 100MW battery energy storage project.

A new report co-authored by energy expert Tony Seba predicts that the combination of solar and wind energy with batteries could undercut and disrupt the existing global energy system with “the cheapest power available” over the next decade.

Wärtsilä has installed the first utility-scale battery storage project in Singapore and received an order from a customer in Southeast Asia for a further 90MW / 90MWh of battery storage.

The acquisition of Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) saw energy storage technology provider and system integrator Fluence take on AMS’ artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled optimised bidding software for energy storage and renewable energy assets. Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe asked Fluence CTO Brett Galura and former AMS CEO Seyed H. Madaeni some key questions about the acquisition.

The federal government of Australia has given Major Project Status to the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, which it said will include “the world’s largest wind and solar electricity plant,” producing green hydrogen and ammonia.

Venture capital (VC) funding in battery storage companies in the third quarter of 2020 was up 78% on the previous quarter, while total corporate funding in the sector for the first nine months of the year rose by 62% compared to the same period in 2019.

A 50MW / 75MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Western Sydney, Australia, will receive AU$21.5 million (US$15.35 million) in assistance from the federal and state governments towards its total cost of AU$61.9 million.