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”.
Eskom, the state-owned electricity utility of South Africa, has begun tendering for a battery energy storage system (BESS) of minimum size and capacity 80MW / 320MWh.
There’s a race to develop new technologies – and adapt existing ones – that can either be complementary to lithium batteries, or even compete with them. Representatives from three technology providers offer up some case studies, data, insights and opinions on where they think the market could go.
Germany company Voltstorage, claiming to be the only developer and maker of home solar energy storage systems using vanadium flow batteries, raised €6 million (US$7.1 million) in July.
Lithium battery cells will be rolling off a production line at a 16GWh-capacity factory in France in 2023, with manufacturing startup Verkor then planning to scale up to 50GWh “in line with market dynamics”.
Independent power producer EDF Renewables North America has signed a 22-year power purchase agreement with NV Energy for a 200MWac solar project coupled with a 180MW, four-hour battery storage system.
US developer and utility NextEra Energy has said there is currently a “terrific opportunity” for wind, solar and battery storage while Texas-based CPS Energy plans to add up to 900MW of solar, 50MW of battery storage and 500MW of new technology solutions to its portfolio.
Long duration energy storage is “essential” to help accelerate renewable deployment, according to the US Department of Energy’s Dr Imre Gyuk, who moderates this panel discussion with Matt Harper from flow battery provider Invinity Energy Systems and Russ Weed from gravity energy storage company ARES.
Northvolt has now raised over US$3 billion to support its plans to become a major player in the European battery manufacturing space, including US$1.6 billion in debt financing which it announced today.
