Demand for more reliable electricity from a district of the Republic of Bashkortostan will soon be answered by the largest hybrid solar and energy storage project in the region to date.

Subsidiaries of state-run energy conglomerate China Energy Engineering Corp have started constructing two major solar plants and one of the largest energy storage systems in China, according to filings on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX).

NEC has now executed five grid-scale battery energy storage projects in China and been awarded another, winning deals in spite of what a company representative described as “aggressive” price competition from domestic vendors.

The sale of Nissan’s power battery business, Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) to Envision Group has been completed, with the new owner aiming for 20GWh of annual production capacity of nickel manganese cobalt batteries in China.

A Tesla Powerpack energy storage system with 7MWh capacity has been deployed for a train company in Japan, adding backup power capabilities to trains and adding the system to an ongoing virtual power plant project.

Chinese solar inverter manufacturer Sungrow not only continues to lead the global market for inverter shipments, the company’s energy storage business enjoyed huge growth in revenue during 2018.

Andy Colthorpe caught up with Moixa CTO Chris Wright to hear about how a tie-in with trading company ITOCHU and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is creating smarter energy networks in Japan using solar, batteries, electric cars – and Moixa’s GridShare software platform.

Nippon Koei, one of Japan’s largest engineering firms, has formed a joint venture with a British battery storage firm to construct two 50MW behind-the-meter energy storage projects in the UK.

The new mission focuses on local manufacturing across the whole supply chain for electric vehicles (EV) including battery and cell manufacturing while also supporting clean energy and storage uptake.

India has released another significant solar-plus-storage tender – this time in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.