A solar-plus-storage microgrid is powering a mobile intensive care unit (ICU), set up to treat people suffering from COVID-19 symptoms at a migrant camp on the border between Texas and Mexico.
Two grid-scale battery energy storage projects, one just completed in Texas and one just announced in California, give an indication of the growing market opportunities in the US’ regional grid operators’ service areas.
Fluence has been able to keep working on “all but two or three” of 73 utility-scale battery projects, with battery energy storage increasingly considered an essential part of grid infrastructure in many parts of the world.
Contracts have been awarded to 770MW of battery energy storage project proposals by Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the US state of California’s three major investor-owned utilities (IOUs).
Australia’s government-owned green bank, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), has pledged AU$300 million (US$192 million) of existing funding towards “building investor confidence in renewable hydrogen”.
Vanadium redox flow batteries are almost as reliable as diesel generators in providing resiliency, but won’t be competitive against lithium-ion unless cost reductions can be achieved with the scaling up of manufacturing and deployment.
Moving from today’s gas stations to their electrified equivalent can present a challenge so “dramatic” that in some cases, microgrids may be the only viable solution, a representative of Schneider Electric has said.
Two commercial battery energy storage systems owned by a family-owned wholesale food business in the UK have been used by aggregator Flexitricity to trade in the Balancing Mechanism (BM)
Solar-plus-storage projects on France’s overseas territories are on course to add around 200MWh to global battery storage deployment figures, with the latest power plant just completed by independent renewable energy producer Albioma.
