The US government Department of Energy has issued a Request for Information as it prepares to rollout a package worth more than half a billion dollars to support development and commercialisation of long-duration energy storage.

Rising demand for batteries, largely coming from the electric vehicle (EV) sector, means raw materials prices continue to be volatile.

Global system integrator Fluence increased its revenues for the first three months of 2022, its second quarter, 249% to US$343 million.

Iron flow battery company ESS Inc continues to await recognition of revenues, but has “strong confidence” in its trajectory towards profitability.

Renewable energy development company Ameresco has signed a non-exclusive purchasing framework with system integrator Powin Energy, totalling 2.5GWh of Powin’s Stack750 battery energy storage system (BESS) product until 2025.

Eos Energy Enterprises added 65MWh of production capacity in the first quarter of this year.

Norwegian lithium-ion battery gigafactory group FREYR has signed a conditional offtake agreement with energy storage system integrator Powin Energy totalling 28.5GWh over six years.

Natural resources giant Glencore has agreed to back the Canadian battery recycler to the tune of US$200 million.

Energy storage deployment in the US is growing at a phenomenal pace. But the appetite for storage is much greater than the ability to build, and getting grid interconnection rights is often the biggest hurdle.

New sodium-ion battery production facilities have been announced in the US and Sweden by Natron Energy and Altris, respectively, with both set to start production in 2023.