The dramatic fall in cost, occuring alongside the mass roll-out of home storage systems in Germany since 2013, has highlighted the potential of decentralised batteries in virtual power plants to utility companies and grid operators.
Gone are Europe’s weekly FCR auctions, replaced by daily auctions in a move designed to create greater flexibility and improve international co-operation in these markets in Europe, writes Jean-Paul Harreman of EnAppSys.
Idaho-headquartered KORE Power claims it will have 6GWh annual production capacity for its lithium battery energy storage solutions, based on high-power nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells, up and running during the first quarter of next year.
The latest project to be switched on in Nigeria’s solar electrification programme for universities is also thought to be the largest ‘hybrid’ plant of its kind on the African continent so far, inaugurated this week at Bayero University Kano (BUK).
A £55 million (US$67.8 million) fund has been earmarked for five projects in the UK looking at developing the next generation of battery storage technology.
Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is set to launch a demonstration of how solar panels, energy storage and customer-sited demand side response (DSR) can be used to drive down costs of the IESO’s network.
Energy use by air conditioning can be both expensive and taxing for the environment, with the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, set to trial a three-storey ‘water battery’ to reduce both energy demand and cost.
Ameren Missouri is planning three grid-scale solar facilities with energy storage, reportedly marking the first ever instance of an energy company in the US Mid-West state powering its customers’ homes with batteries.
As battery owners and operators seek to maximise the returns from their assets, they simultaneously face the Herculean challenge of managing degradation.
