The April 2021 episode of the Solar Media Podcast, sponsored by Honeywell, is now available to stream. We discuss everything from long-duration energy storage and floating solar technologies to the UK’s greenest weekend ever and Vietnam’s solar rush.
As society moves away from centralised fossil fuel generators to increasing shares of distributed renewable energy resources, the idea that customers’ homes could become host to virtual power plants (VPPs), joining the dots between electricity supply and demand across the grid, has gradually gathered traction. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Suleman Khan CEO of Swell Energy, which has raised nearly half a billion dollars in financing for solar-plus-storage VPPs in 14,000 homes across California, New York and Hawaii.
For the US to thrive while achieving its decarbonisation goals, it needs a robust clean energy economy, creating well-paid jobs and a strong trajectory for technical innovation, argues Philip Brennan, CEO of Echogen, an Ohio-based provider of waste-heat recovery systems and electro-thermal energy storage solutions.
South Korea’s LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation have reached an agreement to settle litigation between the pair which has been ongoing since April 2019 and threatened to derail plans to scale up battery manufacturing efforts in the US.
A zinc-air energy storage system (ZESS) offering 10 hours of storage is being trialled in a New York Power Authority (NYPA) project, while a US Department of Defense-funded investigation into flow batteries has moved into a physical validation and evaluation phase in Colorado.
US power generation holding company Vistra has renewed its call for legislation designed to assist the transition from coal to renewable energy in the US state of Illinois.
Software is rapidly becoming recognised as key to the value proposition and bankability of energy storage, which in turn lies at the heart of the energy transition. Andy Colthorpe speaks to three providers of software aimed at the energy storage industry.
Hickory Park Solar project, a 200MW PV power plant in the US state of Georgia, will be equipped with a battery energy storage system that allows the local utility company to maximise the benefit of the renewable resource.
While 2020 may have been and gone, the strange times we’re collectively experiencing certainly have not. Looking back at least gives us an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned during the past year or so and Aaroh Kharaya, product manager at solar PV and battery storage quality assurance, supply chain management and engineering services firm takes us through his top takeaways from a time that we may otherwise seek to forget.
