UK energy company Drax is to consider adding a 200MW battery storage project to its coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire in an effort to add value through greater flexibility and extend its operational lifetime.

TerraE Holding, a collaborative initiative to establish large-scale production line manufacturing of lithium-ion cells at a European ‘Gigafactory’, has signed a raw materials deal for anode materials with Australia’s Magnis Resources.

UK gas and electricity market regulator Ofgem has made a “game changer” decision for UK energy storage, by confirming that solar farms are able to retain accreditation under the government Renewables Obligation (RO) when supplying electricity to batteries.

Varta Storage, the energy storage division of consumer, automotive and industrial battery manufacturer Varta, is poised to enter the UK and Ireland residential battery markets through a new exclusive deal with Waxman Energy, as ‎global storage head Gordon Clements told our sister site Solar Power Portal the UK is “the next market that will start to open up” for the technology.

Good Energy, one of the first utilities in Britain to offer all-renewable energy for consumers, has said it aims to start work on its maiden commercial energy storage development in November this year.

France-headquartered mega-utility EDF has accepted delivery and installation of a flywheel energy storage system manufactured by Germany’s Stornetic, at EDF’s “full testing playground” south of Paris.

Heating and cooling uses more than half of Europe’s energy, but the potential “immense value” of thermal energy storage has barely been explored, the head of an energy storage trade group has said.

The IET has released a promotional video for its Code of Practice on installing and selling electrical energy storage systems for the UK consumer market, featuring representatives from storage pioneers Tesla and sonnen.

It has been the US’ busiest quarter to date for behind-the-meter energy storage installations, driven in part by residential adoption in the advanced markets of California and Hawaii, GTM Research has found.

The UK’s Solar Trade Association (STA) has refuted claims made in a recent report that a residential solar array in combination with an energy storage system was not “economically viable”, calling it flawed and lacking in detail.