The award of contracts to battery storage developers in a recent auction by Italy’s transmission system operator proves the technology’s competitiveness in providing grid services once again, an analyst has said.

Italy’s transmission system operator Terna has awarded five-year contracts for battery energy storage systems (BESS) to provide Fast Reserve grid services in an oversubscribed pilot auction.

ENGIE EPS incurred increases in operating expenses and extraordinary costs due to COVID-19 which “more than offset” an increase in revenues that ENGIE’s energy storage subsidiary earned in the first half of this year.

The greatest value aggregrators putting batteries and other assets in the UK’s electricity markets offer to their customers today is in providing access to the Balancing Mechanism (BM), through which the electricity system operator National Grid ESO matches supply and demand in real-time.

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

Batteries, hydrogen and other energy storage should be a “key topic of energy policy,” in the EU, Members of European Parliament (MEP) that worked together on formulating a report into the role of storage in a decarbonised, fair and secure energy system have said.

More than 60MWh of residential battery energy storage systems from sonnen will be used in a virtual power plant (VPP) project in California that will fit out solar-powered energy solutions for around 3,000 residential apartments.

“Intelligent energy platform” company Kaluza is claiming a UK first as it provides one of the country’s distribution network operators (DNOs) with flexibility from domestic batteries and transport solutions using one platform.

More electricity storage and longer durations will be needed for the UK to meet net zero, according to electricity system operator National Grid ESO’s latest modelling.