A planned commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage project in England could increase onsite solar consumption to the point that no power will be drawn from the grid on some days of the year.

Islands around the world provide ideal conditions for trialling new approaches to energy provision. David Pratt reports on some of the work going on globally to bring the benefits of cutting-edge renewable energy, storage and smart grid technologies to the world’s geographically isolated communities. To be continued later this week on Energy-Storage.news.

VC funding for battery energy storage companies in the first half of this year has already exceeded 2016’s total and looks on the way to bettering 2017, with US$539 million raised across 29 deals.

Long duration energy storage will be put to use in Germany’s grid, with RedT, a UK-headquartered maker of flow energy storage ‘machines’, announcing an initial 80MWh deployment to the country.

UK transmission network operator (TNO) National Grid has used a new web-based platform to dispatch ancillary services using battery storage in the first example of the new system being implemented across its reserve products.

Battery installations are underway at a European Regional Development Fund-backed project deploying low carbon infrastructure on the Isles of Scilly, in a model that it is hoped could be widely replicated elsewhere.

Hyderabad-headquartered firm Greenko Energies has received state government approval for a huge renewable energy project involving 1GW of solar, 550MW of wind and 1.2GW of pumped energy storage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

UK renewable electricity supplier Solo Energy is set to launch a ‘free battery’ business model to UK homeowners after a successful pilot on the remote Scottish islands of Orkney.

Tom Kenning of PV Tech/Energy-Storage.news visited a village in the heart of the North Indian plains where Uttar Pradesh borders Bihar, to see how a bold mix of biomass, solar and energy storage technologies is transforming local businesses by providing round-the-clock clean energy at prices cheaper than those of the main grid – all the while helping to solve India’s long struggle with power theft.

Currently attracting developers and investment alike, the opportunity to reduce energy costs for businesses in Ontario has led to an agreement for another 42MWh of energy storage from project developer NRStor and solutions provider IHI Inc.