Israel-headquartered SolarEdge launched a software platform for aggregating household energy storage units – and other distributed energy equipment – into virtual power plants, last week. The company’s solution has already been chosen for a VPP project in Australia by AGL, one of the country’s biggest utilities. The commercial launch of the VPP platform direct to customers is now underway. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lior Handelsman, one of SolarEdge’s founders and vice president of marketing and product strategy.

Virtual power plants (VPPs) can greatly increase the value of home energy storage systems for a range of stakeholders including grid operators, utilities and their customers, according to SolarEdge, which has just launched a VPP software platform.

G2 Energy, one of a small number of companies in the UK authorised to make new grid connections to the country’s electricity transmission and distribution networks, claims it has now surpassed the 100MW mark of battery projects worked on, as it announced the completion of connection works at a new 29MW battery storage facility in Kent, southern England.

There will be no benefit to basing home energy storage systems on automotive batteries, in the medium or long term, a representative of Mercedes-Benz Energy has said.

Voltstorage, a German company founded in Munich in 2016, is launching a vanadium-redox-flow (VRF) energy storage system aimed at the residential market.

A glass packaging facility in Scotland is getting a 2MW Tesla battery on a ‘no-money-down’ deal after Irish state-owned utility ESB agreed to take on the risk for raising commercial revenues from the asset.

French utility Engie and German energy storage firm sonnen have formed a partnership to offer a package of solar and energy storage to households in France, according to Reuters.

Ørsted, formerly DONG Energy, has confirmed its entry into the UK battery storage market with a new 20MW project near Liverpool.

A partnership between a local developer and South Korea’s Hanwha Group could bring two 100MW battery energy storage projects to the Midlands of Ireland, the developer, Lumcloon Energy, has confirmed.

RWE Generation is investigating the construction of a 100MW battery at its Tilbury power station in England as part of plans to convert the former coal-fired plant to a gas peaking plant.