The first phase of a 1,000MW behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP) is expected to begin deployment in Australia as soon as the state of Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown is over.

The latest annually-published figures from financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard show that the on the levelised cost of energy storage (LCOS) continues to fall, with solar-plus-storage becoming increasingly price competitive.

The locations for three ‘community battery’ projects have been announced by Australian electricity distribution company Ausgrid, set to be deployed next year.

We caught up with Bo Normark in his capacity as EIT InnoEnergy executive to discuss the past, present and future of energy storage, with his organisation taking the lead in the European Battery Alliance.

Energy-Storage.news was delighted to host a sponsored webinar on ultracapacitors with EITInnoEnergy a few weeks ago and you can watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage: this edition rounds up some recent big solar-plus-storage stories from sister site PV Tech.

Pumped hydro project, Oven Mountain, has been declared to be Critical State Significant Infrastructure by the NSW Government.

Energy Renaissance’s AU$28 million lithium-ion battery factory is to be located in Tomago in the Hunter region of Australia.

UL has created a database on its website that allows energy storage system manufacturers to list the results of their UL 9540A thermal runaway fire propagation tests.

Rosatom, Russia’s biggest electricity provider and the country’s supplier of nuclear fuel for power plants, has opened an energy storage business unit baed around lithium-ion batteries.