Quebec’s largest grid-scale battery energy storage system to date will maintain electricity supply and power quality for customers of Canadian utility company Hydro-Québec while it carries out major transmission line upgrade work in the province.
As society moves away from centralised fossil fuel generators to increasing shares of distributed renewable energy resources, the idea that customers’ homes could become host to virtual power plants (VPPs), joining the dots between electricity supply and demand across the grid, has gradually gathered traction. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Suleman Khan CEO of Swell Energy, which has raised nearly half a billion dollars in financing for solar-plus-storage VPPs in 14,000 homes across California, New York and Hawaii.
An investment worth €110 million (US$131.5 million) has been agreed by ‘thermal battery’ manufacturer EnergyNest which would make infrastructure equity investor Infracapital its biggest shareholder.
A zinc-air energy storage system (ZESS) offering 10 hours of storage is being trialled in a New York Power Authority (NYPA) project, while a US Department of Defense-funded investigation into flow batteries has moved into a physical validation and evaluation phase in Colorado.
Fluence will deploy Lithuania’s first grid-scale battery project, aiming to prove the advantages of using batteries as an alternative to building out expensive transmission infrastructure.
Software is rapidly becoming recognised as key to the value proposition and bankability of energy storage, which in turn lies at the heart of the energy transition. Andy Colthorpe speaks to three providers of software aimed at the energy storage industry.
Hickory Park Solar project, a 200MW PV power plant in the US state of Georgia, will be equipped with a battery energy storage system that allows the local utility company to maximise the benefit of the renewable resource.
While 2020 may have been and gone, the strange times we’re collectively experiencing certainly have not. Looking back at least gives us an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned during the past year or so and Aaroh Kharaya, product manager at solar PV and battery storage quality assurance, supply chain management and engineering services firm takes us through his top takeaways from a time that we may otherwise seek to forget.
South African vanadium producer Bushveld Minerals is investing US$7.5 million in vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) energy storage company Enerox, which is planning to scale up its manufacturing capabilities.
