The grid operator for the Canadian province of Alberta’s forthcoming technology pilot for fast frequency response services is a “step in the right direction” to enable energy storage deployment, but current regulatory conditions present barriers to maximising the value of batteries and other storage, Energy-Storage.news has heard.

10MW / 20MWh of Tesla Megapacks used for Alberta’s first-ever large-scale battery energy storage system have gone into action as TransAlta Renewables announced the project has reached commercial operation.

More news in brief from around the world in energy storage.

The first grid-scale battery energy storage project in the Canadian province of Alberta is on-track to go into operation this month, while TransAlta, the company behind the project, has expedited plans to retire a coal plant citing “future market conditions”.

UK-headquartered distributed energy services provider Kiwi Power has made its first official expansion into the US, operating in the ERCOT market of Texas and planning a further step into the PJM Interconnection service area.

Battery system integrators must navigate a broad array of technologies and varying market drivers when putting systems together. Andy Colthorpe speaks to Powin Energy and Sungrow about the engineering challenges involved in building lithium-ion battery storage.

Stem Inc has won out in a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) to manage a 345MWh fleet of commercial and municipal energy storage systems in Los Angeles, California.

Residential energy storage provider Sunverge has won out in a competitive bidding process to provide systems and software for a proposed virtual power plant (VPP) project in Maryland in the US.

While the renewable energy industry has suffered significant blows such as loss of employment during the COVID-19 crisis, venture capital (VC) funding into the battery energy storage sector in the first quarter of this year nonetheless saw a significant increase over the previous year’s equivalent period.