A 30MW / 30MWh battery energy storage system has been inaugurated with a ceremony in Victoria, Australia, with one project partner describing the switching-on as “a real watershed moment in the continuing modernisation” of the state’s energy supply.
South Africa’s state-owned utility Eskom has unveiled its Distributed Battery Storage Programme at an event this week, committing to solar-plus-storage and energy storage projects totalling 1400MWh.
Australia is to trial using solar and wind power to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, with the hydrogen then being used for long-term energy storage in the Sydney gas network.
Ireland’s DS3 flexibility market will deploy the fastest-reacting batteries in the world under an opportunity dubbed “Enhanced Frequency Response on steroids” by energy expert Felicity Jones, partner for energy storage and flexibility at UK-based consultancy Everoze.
It’s likely a strong indication of the way the world is adopting renewable energy rapidly that just under a month ago, one of the best-established trade shows for solar in the US featured what seemed like almost as much space dedicated to national and international energy storage companies and technologies, as it did for solar.
The UK’s government has shied away from supporting large volumes of solar and other distributed energy technologies through subsidies, but commercial and industrial energy storage and solar-plus-storage could be a huge market opportunity in Britain and abroad.
The small island nation of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean has moved a step closer to having what is said to be the largest ever microgrid spanning diesel, solar and battery energy storage.
New York plans to incentivise commercial and industrial (C&I) solar-plus-storage projects, kicking off by making $40 million funding available to support 50MW of storage paired with solar from early November.
The rise of grid trading and off-peak tariffs, rather than the closure of the feed-in tariff and potentially the export tariff, will see the domestic storage market experience “huge growth” over 2019 according to SolaX’s European product manager ahead of next week’s Solar & Storage Live conference and exhibition in England.