A roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage, this week with a US flavour.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) from provider NIDEC ASI will be installed for customers Neoen and Uniper at sites in Finland and Sweden.

While lithium-ion batteries continue to take the dominant share of new installations by some distance, there are a variety of other technologies looking to complement, combine or even compete. Panellists at the Energy Storage Digital Series looked at the questions of which energy storage technologies are the likeliest contenders for that future.

Taking the UK’s transmission system and the circumstances which led to a dramatic blackout as a direct example, Javier Cavada and Gary Preece of liquid air energy storage (LAES) systems company Highview Power look at how such events could be avoided, cost-effectively and with lesser environmental consequences.

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) announced today that five minute settlement windows for spot prices in the National Electricity Market (NEM) will be implemented from 21 October 2021.

Batteries can offer a cost-effective option for upward and downward reserve to the UK grid, a project run by AI and automation tech firm Arenko with transmission network operator National Grid ESO has found.

Solar Media’s Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe return for the July 2020 episode of the Solar Media Podcast.

One of the first large-scale solar farms in Japan so far to be equipped with battery storage in order to meet the requirements of a local grid operator and utility, has been completed on the island of Hokkaido.

A combination of residential solar, storage and smart controls could “dramatically reduce” evening peak grid usage at homes in Britain.

Battery system integrators must navigate a broad array of technologies and varying market drivers when putting systems together. Andy Colthorpe speaks to Powin Energy and Sungrow about the engineering challenges involved in building lithium-ion battery storage.