Northern Powergrid, one of the six distribution network operators (DNOs) responsible for delivering power across regions of the UK, is to plough £1.9 million (US$2.53 million) into the creation of a smart energy grid across its network, allowing its eight million customers to trade power and services using their home solar, battery systems and electric vehicles (EVs).

Over the past couple of weeks, various flow battery makers have touted new sales and supply chain agreements as the fledgling sector fights for a share of the stationary energy storage market.

Verv, an energy monitoring and AI company, has laid claim to launching the UK’s first energy trading community at a housing estate in Hackney, East London.

Start-up Romeo Power has opened a lithium battery pack factory in Los Angeles, aimed at the EV and stationary energy storage markets, aiming to ramp up to 4GWh production capacity by next year.

While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.

The goal of the project, as with the rest of Centrica’s activities in Cornwall, is to harness renewables and smart energy technologies to free up capacity on the local grid and provide flexibility to the distribution network operator or the national grid.

UK renewables and battery developer Anesco has warned that the looming de-rating of battery storage in the Capacity Market risks scaring investors away from the technology.

We often hear about California’s leading position in solar and latterly in energy storage. Perhaps lesser known than direct policy support for energy storage and renewable technologies is the way California’s network operator (CAISO) is starting to reconfigure how it procures demand response, with a positive impact for energy storage – and particularly behind-the-meter assets, as Ted Ko, policy director of Stem, explains.

Eelpower has commissioned a 10MW battery energy storage system (BESS) in England, backed with both frequency response and capacity market contracts, in the first of a new pipeline of projects being planned by the company over the next decade.

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has applauded the coming together of National Grid and his Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to jointly research areas including grid-scale storage and grid modernisation.