Two major Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region projects combining solar PV and battery storage have progressed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt through ACWA Power and Scatec, respectively.

NextEra Energy Resources and Meta have signed 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements totalling 2.5GW.

Clearway Energy Group has negotiated tolling agreements with SDG&E for one of its solar and storage complexes in Kern County, California.

NHOA Energy has secured contracts from Engie for an 80MW/320MWh BESS at Engie’s Drogenbos power station, near Brussels, Belgium.

AFC and public-private-partnership (PPP) Cabeolica have inaugurated 13.5MW of wind power generation and 26MWh of battery storage in Cape Verde.

In this Energy-Storage.news roundup, Energy Vault enters the Swiss energy storage market, ZincFive raises Series F financing, and Convergent Energy and Power secures a multimillion-dollar facility provided by NY Green Bank.

The 600MW/1.6GWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub has commenced commercial operations in Victoria, Australia.

European energy independence is achievable if long-duration energy storage is factored into the mix, writes Oonagh O’Grady of Hydrostor.

Vena Energy has signed a battery storage supply agreement with CATL for a project which would export renewable energy from Indonesia to Singapore.

A Western Australian government initiative to deploy the largest vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) project outside China is a “pivotal moment,” one technology provider has said.