24M, spun out of an MIT laboratory, claims its latest semi-solid battery ‘breakthrough’, Dual Electrolyte technology, heralds a new era to come for advanced lithium batteries. Andy Colthorpe spoke to some of the company’s leadership team to find out more.
Norwegian utility Statkraft has partnered with flow machine specialist redT on a fully-financed solar-plus-storage offering for the UK’s thriving C&I renewables market.
A contract with utility Southern California Edison (SCE) has led to Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) supplying 2GWh of grid services from just 60MWh of energy storage during 2018, with one analyst dubbing the feat an “impressive milestone”.
Walking around Energy Storage Europe this year it was obvious that the show, like the market, has grown from a small handful of “strong believers” as one source put it, to a forward-looking show focused on a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.
NextEra Resources will build a 100MW solar farm for Arkansas utility Entergy Arkansas, to include 30MW of battery energy storage, as Entergy seeks to build out solar capacity in the state.
Unlike the solar PV sector where there’s often an attitude of “let’s sell the project first and worry about O&M later,” storage projects must have services built in to the thinking and financial process from the beginning. With storage, a strong O&M plan and team become part and parcel of making and closing a strong productive deal, NEXTracker’s Marty Rogers argues.
Sales of battery storage units to residential households in Germany are booming, but it’s the value of services the batteries can provide, rather than the hardware itself that offers a long-term economic opportunity, a Siemens representative has said.
