Google will procure energy from a US$600 million portfolio of renewables and energy storage assets specially-designed to enable the search engine company’s data centres in Virginia to run on 90% carbon-free electricity.

Mitsubishi Power Americas and Powin Energy have been appointed to retrofit 640MWh of batteries to solar PV plants in California, while a community energy group in the state has just signed a power purchase agreement for a 100MW solar plant with 150MW / 600MWh of storage.

Talen Energy Corporation, a US power and infrastructure development group with 13GW of mostly fossil fuel assets in its portfolio to date has said that it is developing a gigawatt of battery storage projects.

Safety is a consideration when it comes to any energy asset and lithium-ion batteries are no exception. Fires are rare, but do happen, particularly when you consider how much juice lithium storage systems can pack into a fairly small space. In this panel from the Energy Storage Summit 2021, experts including firefighter Charlie Pugsley of London Fire Brigade talk about the strategies stakeholders should be using today and in the future to ensure a safe industry for all.

With batteries today finally reaching the size and capacity that enables renewables to replace medium-sized natural gas generators, a future ruled by solar and storage is just around the corner, writes Radoslav Stompf, CEO of FUERGY.

Leaders in the UK and international battery storage space discussed how the industry has rapidly evolved to become a viable business at the heart of the transition to low carbon and renewable energy in this panel session from the Energy Storage Summit 2021.

Since its IPO in November 2018, Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, a utility-scale battery storage investment fund listed on the London Stock Exchange has seen its total share price return of 27.3% significantly outperform the 7.9% returns across the FTSE All Share weighted index.

Stem Inc’s shares begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today, after the “artificial intelligence-driven clean energy storage services” company completed its business combination with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Star Peak Energy Transition Corp.

UK energy storage investor Gore Street Energy Storage Fund raised £135 million (US$187.89 million) towards deploying a 1.3GW development pipeline, with the funds also to be used for a potential 80MW acquisition for its portfolio of battery projects.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the company is already achieving “good margins” on the residential Powerwall product, but that “some additional work is needed” for its utility-scale Megapack to do so.