The digital ledger system blockchain has been both praised and misunderstood in equal measure and its relationship to the physical world of electrons is at its earliest stages of exploration. In the latest ‘Storage & Smart Power’ section of PV Tech Power, Carsten Reincke-Collon, CTO of Younicos looks at how energy storage and management software will interact with blockchain-led or blockchain-like systems of data processing and recording.

The CEO of Primus Power agrees that at present, lithium battery systems are more bankable than the flow battery energy storage systems of the type his company makes, but asserted that he believes this will change over time.

Hospitals, schools and railways in South Australia will be powered by an electricity retailer started up by billionaire steel trader Sanjeev Gupta, following the signing of an agreement between the state government and Gupta’s SIMEC ZEN Energy.

ESS Inc, among several companies looking to commercialise a flow battery energy storage technology, has netted US$13 million in a Series B funding round from investors that include global chemical company BASF.

German renewables company Wirsol has tabled plans for two subsidy-free ground-mounted solar parks in the UK, for which energy storage is expected to be included in “phase two of the build-out”.

Distribution network operators (DNOs) in Britain should be able to own and operate a minimal amount of battery storage capacity in certain cases, and be able to compete in the ancillary services market to fund the projects, according to the head of regulation and strategy at Northern Powergrid (NPg), one of the country’s seven DNOs.

Powin Energy has just sold 116MWh of its project assets and pipeline of future developments to esVolta and made a deal which sees Powin become exclusive supplier to the latter’s projects.

Primus Power is among a handful of makers currently commercialising their flow batteries, with rivals that include RedT, VIZn Energy and Redflow. Early customers have included Microsoft, which installed a Primus battery at its corporate HQ in a pilot project. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Primus Power CEO Tom Stepien to learn more.

Plans are in place for a combined 160MW solar and wind project with up to 40MWh of energy storage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, while a smaller scale demonstration project experimenting with multiple technologies is being developed for Kerala.

Major Japanese business and government entities have extended their involvement in energy storage with the announcement of the country’s first virtual power plants, an investment in a US frequency regulation project and partnerships on technology.