Residential PV system owners who signed up to Japan’s feed-in tariff policy for 10-year contracts, that will soon expire, may be able to find new ways to benefit from their solar using battery storage.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that it will provide assistance to “techno-economic” studies for two pumped storage hydropower plants, with a combined generation capacity close to 2GW.

BIRD Energy, a foundation jointly created by the US Department of Energy (DoE) and Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE) will invest around half the amount required to fund US$12 million of solar, storage, energy efficiency and microgrid projects in Israel.

Finland-headquartered clean energy solutions provider Fortum is to deploy the largest battery so far in the Nordic region, a 6.2MWh system at a hydropower plant in Sweden.

Steven Marshall, the Premier of South Australia, has welcomed the start of assembly-line work at Sonnen’s new factory in Adelaide, while rival Tesla’s virtual power plant (VPP) in the state is beginning its second phase of development.

Energy-Storage.news has heard from the founder and CEO of start-up Lumenion that the company’s technology, now being trialled in Germany by Vattenfall, can store energy in steel structures for up to 48 hours.

Kokam has been awarded contracts to deliver 40MWh of battery energy storage at solar power plants in South Korea, including its newest High Energy Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (HE NMC) batteries.

​Arsenal football club’s Emirates Stadium has become home to what could be the first behind the meter battery of its size aimed at wholesale energy trading over frequency response.

The economics of rural electrification using microgrids should be considered an investment for the future, akin to how Silicon Valley tech providers plough money into initially loss-leading products and services, the chief of developer and manufacturer Solar Philippines has said.

Australian Vanadium (AVL) and VSUN Energy have signed an agreement to work with the Future Batteries Industry Cooperative Research Centre (FBI CRC) on developing vanadium extraction and processing skills, particularly in Western Australia.