In the previous instalment of this blog, we looked at how our respondents from across the energy storage industry had viewed 2018’s biggest challenges. This time out we look at what some of 2018’s biggest successes were.

Following a report on Friday that Hawaiian Electric has contracted PPAs with 75MW of solar projects including battery storage with developer Clearway, the utility has put before regulators proposals for five other grid-scale projects.

While market opportunities for energy storage in Texas are considered to be limited, the largest battery project in the state so far, a 42MWh system, has just come online.

San Francisco-headquartered firm Clearway Energy Group has signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with utility Hawaiian Electric Company for two solar-plus-storage projects on Oahu, Hawaii, with a combined PV capacity of 75MW.

After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GWh of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In this first part, we look at the challenges faced by the industry in 2018.

Electricity from 100MW of energy storage facilities will be purchased by US public utility company El Paso Electric, following a competitive solicitation process.

While a recent study said 10GW of energy storage by 2030 would offer overall benefit to Nevada, NV Energy will move forward with an Integrated Resource Plan: 1,000MW of renewables including 100MW of storage – by 2021.

Andy Colthorpe spoke with Janice Lin of the California Energy Storage Alliance on what sort of role energy storage will play in reaching the ‘100% carbon-free retail electricity’ goal of the state’s SB100 legislation. This is Part 2 of a feature interview originally included in Solar Media’s quarterly journal PV Tech Power.

24M, a start-up angling to disrupt the already-disruptive lithium-ion battery industry with the design and production of semi-solid lithium cells, has raised US$21.8 million in a Series D funding round.

Andy Colthorpe spoke with Janice Lin of the California Energy Storage Alliance on what sort of role energy storage will play in reaching the ‘100% carbon-free retail electricity’ goal of the state’s SB100 legislation. Part 1, with the second half to follow later this week on Energy-Storage.news.