The European Commission has given the go-ahead to a €150 million (US$160 million) state aid scheme for renewable energy and energy storage in Slovenia.

Key contracts have been awarded in Queensland, Australia, to work on what would be the world’s largest pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant.

The government of Bangladesh and potential investors into energy storage in the South Asian country were handed a European Union-funded roadmap for the technology’s development last week.

Japanese conglomerate Itochu is launching its first grid-scale BESS project with utility Osaka Gas and finance group Tokyo Century Leasing.

Dutch utility Eneco is planning a 50MW/200MWh battery storage project in Belgium for commissioning next year, and called for more policy action on storage from its own government in the Netherlands.

The government of Chile will launch a bill this year to procure large-scale energy storage systems for commissioning in 2026 totalling US$2 billion of investment, on top of 5GWh already being sought for 2027-28.

Australian Vanadium, targeting vertically integrated involvement in the flow battery market, has received the first payment from a government grant to support its manufacturing plans.

Norwegian ‘smart battery’ firm Hagal and China-based lithium-ion battery manufacturer Cospowers Technology have partnered to offer an energy storage solution.

A megawatt-scale sodium-sulfur (NAS) battery demonstration project involving South Korea’s largest electric utility has gone online.