Private equity fund SoftBank Vision Fund has officially signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to develop 3GW of PV and energy storage capacity within Saudi Arabia.
The amount of VC funding invested in battery energy storage companies in the first nine months of this year has more than doubled from the equivalent period of 2016, according to a report from Mercom Capital.
Independent accreditation and testing company DNV GL has created Battery XT, the first testing-based verification of battery lifetime for Li-on batteries.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) have both financed the Kennedy hybrid solar, wind and storage project in north Queensland, which is being developed Windlab and Eurus Energy.
Australia’s government has dropped plans for introducing a Clean Energy Target (CET) post-2020, opting instead for a technology-neutral plan that it claimed would prioritise reliability and bringing prices down.
Australian energy provider MPower has been selected to deliver a grid-scale battery energy storage system in New South Wales that could save the local grid operator AU$1 million (US$0.78 million) a year in network upgrades.
Submissions for Thailand’s first 300MW hybrid PPA scheme, which encourages use of energy storage to supplement renewable energy generation, are due by 20 October.
State-run coal mining and power firm NLC India has auctioned a 20MW solar PV project to be combined with 28MWh of energy storage capacity in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
One of the ‘value of energy storage’ questions that was being asked a lot two or three years ago was around the use of batteries and decentralised system architecture instead of traditional “poles and wires” grid networks. However, advancements in this area have been slow to materialise and Navigant Research’s recent ‘Energy Storage for Transmission and Distribution Deferral’ report sought to fill the knowledge gap. Andy Colthorpe took the opportunity to ask lead author Alex Eller three quick questions around the topic.
