By the middle of the 2020s, using hybrid ‘portfolios’ of batteries and renewable energy sources will economically outperform existing gas power plants, while the combination of technologies is already cost-competitive with building new gas plants, a new report from the US-based Rocky Mountain Institute has said.

KORE Lithium Technologies Inc (KORE Power), a US headquartered manufacturer of nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery racks for the utility-scale stationary energy storage market, has retained renewable energy investor CohnReznick Capital as its Investment Bank of Record.

Australian renewables investor Lyon Group has penned an agreement with China Huadian Corporation which will see the duo co-develop and invest in power-plus-battery energy storage systems across Australia, China and other Asian markets.

New technologies and designs aimed at driving down the cost of energy storage facilities are currently the focus of intense industry R&D. Sara Verbruggen reports on DC coupling, an emerging system architecture that many believe will soon become the industry standard.

CATL sold 21.31GWh of lithium batteries in 2018, primarily to the EV market in China, but after exhibiting at two major trade shows in the west, claims its 12,000 cycle lithium iron phosphate batteries are ready to take on the stationary energy storage system (ESS) market, too.

The huge upsurge in lithium-ion battery deployment expected over the next two decades poses a particular problem: what to do with cells that have reached the end of their useful life. Stefan Hogg investigates how lithium recycling will come into its own to handle spent batteries

Energy Storage Special Report 2019, from the editorial teams behind Energy-Storage.news and PV Tech, brings you no less than seven feature articles and technical papers looking at everything from the policy and regulatory initiatives that still need to happen, to bankability and profitability of ESS, system technologies and architecture, all the way to recycling and end-of-life care for batteries.

A new white paper from Wärtsilä Energy shows that being able to integrate and then optimise all of these different assets is the key to ensuring that your project – and your investment – is going to provide the maximum benefit, longest possible lifetime in the field – and the best business case. Risto Paldanius, Director of Business Development, Energy Storage and Integration at Wärtsilä told us a bit more about what optimization really means in today’s energy market.

This week at the Solar & Storage Live show in England, Energy-Storage.news met with system integrator and inverter maker Multi-Source Power (MSP), which is now working on EV charge solutions using AFC’s fuel cells.

Despite the huge strides energy storage has made, significant hurdles remain before the technology in its many guises can be claimed to have fulfilled its massive potential. E-S.n editor Andy Colthorpe assesses the key successes and ongoing challenges for this indispensable part of the future power system.