Three new battery energy storage system (BESS) projects from the US that may not individually make headlines for their relative size, but nonetheless prove the value and flexibility of batteries for the grid.
In the first part of this interview with Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan we heard about how Swell Energy has been working to ‘productise’ the virtual power plant proposition: making it attractive to utilities and to their end-customers and then wrapping that into a long-term agreement. This time out, we speak to Suleman about some of the finer details of the VPP proposition and where he thinks the market is heading.
The Canadian federal government is financially supporting the development of a large-scale advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) project capable of providing up to 12 hours of energy storage.
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.
