In this final episode of the Solar Media Podcast for 2020, Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe reflect on the biggest stories of the year and gaze into their crystal balls for 2021.

A couple of weeks ago the New York Power Authority (NYPA) began trialling an energy storage system using lithium batteries based around start-up Cadenza Innovation’s ’Supercell’ architecture which aims to eliminate the threat posed by thermal runaway. NYPA’s R&D lead Alan Ettlinger and Cadenza Innovation CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud spoke with Energy-Storage.news as the trial got underway.

Google is investing in battery energy storage to serve as a backup power solution at one of its data centres, in a project described as a first step in changing data centres “from climate change problems to critical components in carbon-free systems”.

NREMC, a rural utility cooperative in Indiana, has just announced that it is deploying 108MWh of battery storage in a five-year project with energy storage technology and solutions provider FlexGen.

An agreement has been signed for a 100MW / 400MWh battery storage project in Queens, New York, by utility company Con Edison and Hanwha Group-affiliated renewable energy developer 174 Power Global.

The latest edition of PV Tech Power – PV Tech Power 25 – is now available to download from the PV Tech Store. Volume 25 of our downstream solar journal tackles a number of the most pressing topics in utility-scale solar development today and includes Storage & Smart Power, the section contributed to every edition by the team here at Energy-Storage.news.

Swell Energy, a provider of distributed energy storage systems headquartered in Southern California, is seeking to develop four virtual power plants (VPPs) by mid-2023, through aggregating 100MW of solar PV with 200MWh of battery storage capacity at customer sites.

Renewable energy developer Terra-Gen has partnered with construction firm Mortenson to build what the pair claim is the world’s largest standalone solar-plus-storage project to date.

A new strategic plan putting the New York Power Authority (NYPA) on the path to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035 – five years earlier than the target set out in the US state’s policy goals – has been approved by the state public power organisation’s Board of Trustees.

Ensuring high quality levels in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries is critical to preventing underperformance and even safety risks. Benjamin Sternkopf, Ian Greory and David Prince of PI Berlin examine the prerequisites for finding the ‘sweet spot’ between a battery’s cost, performance and lifetime.