First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the second of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe dives deeper into questions of bankability, market segmentation and manufacturing strategies with four very different providers of flow energy storage technology.

While the relationship between renewable energy and energy storage is a close one, combining storage with natural gas is also an important stepping stone measure in the transition to 100% renewables, Energy-Storage.news has heard.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$40 million loan to support a 41MW hybrid distributed renewable energy system combining wind, solar, battery storage and a thermal heat pump in Mongolia.

With a view to creating a mass market design for vanadium flow batteries, Australia’s Protean Energy will deploy a 4MWh battery energy storage project in South Korea that will be researched over eight years of operation.

The first ever wind and solar hybrid project in India, completed in April 2018, is to be retrofitted with energy storage after strong winds this year led to a curtailment of solar production.

juwi Renewable Energy and the University of Queensland signed off on an agreement on 30 August 2018 to develop a PV / flow battery hybrid power solution at the Heron Island Research Station located in the Great Barrier Reef.

Masdar, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, has partnered with the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) of the Seychelles to build a 5MW solar PV plant with 5MW / 3.3MWh of battery storage.

Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.

Macquarie Capital Korea, a subsidiary of investment firm Macquarie Group, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the county office of Goesan in South Korea to finance a significant solar-plus-storage project, while it has also invested in what is said to be the largest energy storage project base in the country.

The Australian state of Victoria has been given a “taste of what’s possible” with the launch of utility Origin Energy’s first virtual power plant (VPP) project to date.