Israel-headquartered SolarEdge launched a software platform for aggregating household energy storage units – and other distributed energy equipment – into virtual power plants, last week. The company’s solution has already been chosen for a VPP project in Australia by AGL, one of the country’s biggest utilities. The commercial launch of the VPP platform direct to customers is now underway. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lior Handelsman, one of SolarEdge’s founders and vice president of marketing and product strategy.
Virtual power plants (VPPs) can greatly increase the value of home energy storage systems for a range of stakeholders including grid operators, utilities and their customers, according to SolarEdge, which has just launched a VPP software platform.
The Thailand subsidiary of Delta Electronics, which makes equipment including solar inverters, has confirmed that it is investigating energy storage systems as part of a clean energy drive, following reports in local press.
1414 Degrees, an Australian startup manufacturing thermal energy storage systems using a proprietary silicon storage medium is preparing to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and build a 200MWh ‘module’ at a renewable energy facility.
Australia’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which has been waived through for a final decision in August, would significantly harm the country’s large-scale renewables pipeline, with just 1.5GW expected to be completed by 2025 despite the current 16GW pipeline, according to the head of the country’s solar and storage council.
South Australia state-run firm SA Water plans to deploy 152MW of solar PV and 35MWh of energy storage over the next two years in order to reach its target of zero net electricity costs by 2020.
The huge increase in demand for safe and reliable batteries to store energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind heralds a new lease of life for advanced lead batteries, argues Dr Andy Bush of the International Lead Association.
Singapore-based clean energy provider Sunseap Group has contracted German energy storage firm Hoppecke Asia Pacific to bring storage to Sunseap’s hybrid off-grid solar system at Tanglin Academy, the largest tennis academy in Singapore.
