The decision by the new owners of UK gigafactory startup Britishvolt to pivot its initial focus towards energy storage rather than EVs has pros and cons, a senior industry consultant told Energy-Storage.news

British renewable energy investment company Thrive Renewables is offering Bristol Energy Co-operative up to 20% investment in its new 20MW/30MWh battery energy storage project, in a first for co-ownership.

A total of 16GW was added last year, equivalent to a 68% of year-on-year growth.

Canadian Solar doubled its energy storage shipments to 1.79GWh in 2022 although expects significant lower growth in 2023 due to transitioning its utility-scale product.

The European Commission has approved a €103 million (US$125 million) package of direct grants from the government in Romania for battery storage projects.

A solar-plus-storage project has been commissioned in Saxony, Germany, the first in the state from the recent ‘innovation tenders’ to do so.

UK utility SSE has put £100 million (US$123 million) into its Coire Glas pumped hydro project in Scotland for pre-construction activities, but said that new policy is needed for it go to final investment decision (FID).

The European Commission support for manufacturing of clean energy technologies a “game changer” for making the battery industry competitive.

Some 1.9GW of grid-scale battery energy storage was deployed across Europe last year, of which nearly 85% was in UK, Ireland, Germany and France according to research and consultancy LCP Delta.

Norwegian firms Morrow Batteries and Eldrift have announced a non-binding offtake agreement for 1.5GWh of Morrow’s lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.