A ceremony was held yesterday in Niedersachsen, Germany, to welcome the start of operations at a ‘hybrid’ energy storage plant that will use a combination of sodium-sulfur and lithium-ion batteries to stabilise the grid.
Vanadium redox flow battery maker VRB Energy has begun commissioning a 3MW / 12MWh energy storage system project in Hubei, China, which is expected to help serve as a demonstrator for much larger projects to come.
South Korea’s government is planning for 100MW of battery storage as part of a nearly 3GW hub of solar PV and wind on reclaimed land in Saemangeum, which is an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
As well as Elon Musk remarking that the company may have had its “best ever quarter” for solar since the SolarCity takeover, Tesla’s energy storage deployments have enjoyed a ramp up, while a fellow exec hinted the stationary battery business is constrained by cell supply.
As Japan’s heavily regulated energy markets continue a process of liberalisation and supposedly increasing consumer choices, utility TEPCO has launched a smart electricity tariff enabled by the capabilities of residential battery storage.
An agreement to buy 75% of Korean battery manufacturer Kokam gives SolarEdge a level of vertical integration that could make the PV company a ‘one-stop-shop’ for customers, while SolarEdge could diversify into areas outside solar energy.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi made an official commitment towards the launch of the country’s first National Energy Storage Mission yesterday at a ministerial event also attended by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
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.
