Bigger projects, increased synergy with renewable energy generation, better evolved business models and a forward-thinking market design have contributed to the success of battery storage in the UK, with neighbouring Ireland also showing strong signs of rapid growth.

Colocating battery energy storage systems alongside renewables projects will be ‘critical’ to energy networks in the future, and could help level up debt financing.

Battery storage was called into action in Britain after a newly-inaugurated interconnector with France tripped.

Key to the rapid success and growth of the energy storage industry in the US, China and other maturing markets has been the presence of a small number of system integrators. IHS Markit association director Julian Jansen examines what it is that system integrators do that makes them so vital to the industry and why the future ahead looks to be one characterised by growth, competition and consolidation.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage: this edition has a distinctly British flavour.

National Grid ESO, the electricity system operator tasked with keeping the lights on in the UK, is looking to enable multiple application stacking for providers of a new frequency response service that also participate in the national Balancing Mechanism.

Despite the fall in unit prices for energy storage, a total of US$3.6 billion of investment was committed to energy storage projects in 2020, around the same amount as in 2019.

The US energy storage industry remained “remarkably resilient” during what most of us have found to be a difficult year – to say the least. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Key Capture Energy’s CEO Jeff Bishop and FlexGen’s COO Alan Grosse – two companies that made 2020 one of growth in their energy storage businesses – to hear what lessons can be learned and why economics rule.

The amount of corporate funding coming into the global battery storage industry in 2020 was more than double the amount the previous year, with over US$6.5 billion raised last year compared to around US$2.8 billion in 2019.