Emad Zand, president of Northvolt Systems, on factors impacting the growth of a European battery storage industry.

It’s been a positive week for thermal energy storage technology, with utility Edison International validating a cold storage solution, a collaboration between two groups to achieve 100% round trip efficiency, and an acquisition involving several intellectual property rights patents.

Centrica Business Solutions has acquired a 30MW battery energy storage project which will help manage North Sea offshore wind farms.

A 50MW/50MWh BESS will demonstrate the ability of smart inverter technologies to support the stability of the power grid in Australia. 

Long duration energy storage (LDES) technologies may have a difficult time competing with lithium-ion over the next decade as the latter’s cost-competitiveness at longer durations increases, possibly even to 24 hours, according to Haresh Kamath, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Jamaica has received proposals from a consortium of local and international companies to implement a proposed pumped hydro electric storage (PHES) project.

A newly-announced battery gigafactory in the US from startup SPARKZ will make batteries suitable for grid storage and will be built in the heart of Appalachian coal county in West Virginia. 

Swedish public utility Vattenfall has opened its Energypark Haringvliet in the Netherlands, which combines wind, solar and a 12MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

Pivot Power has secured planning permission for two 50MW/100MWh lithium-ion battery storage sites in the UK.

Energy group Enel has started operating a 4MW/1.7MWh backup power storage system at a plant in Spain’s North African territory using 78 repurposed Nissan electric vehicle (EV) batteries.