News in brief from around the world of energy storage.

A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.

Automation and engineering group ABB has signed on to become a supplier to a planned European lithium-ion battery ‘Gigafactory’ for Swedish start-up Northvolt.

Swiss utility and power distribution company EKZ (Elektrizitätswerke des Kantons Zürich) is building a grid-balancing and renewables integrating 18MW / 7.5MWh energy storage system and has appointed NEC Energy Solutions to execute the project.

Swiss engineering and automation company ABB will be supplying Dong Energy’s 90MW Burbo Bank wind farm in the UK with battery energy storage.

A 2MW utility-scale battery energy storage system has been successfully built and connected for California municipal utility Glendale Water & Power (GWP).

While Germany is one of the world’s leaders in solar PV and now an early leader in residential energy storage, utility-scale energy storage is still “under discussion” and not yet a mature proposition, industry figures have said.

Two large-scale solar plants planned for the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido will be paired with utility-scale energy storage, in order to meet regulations set out by the region’s electricity authority.

Renewable Energy Systems ranks alongside US firm AES at the top of a new leader-board of energy storage systems integrators; its two new National Grid contracts will see it top the table, it says.

ABB has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chennai-based engineering and research organisation, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) to partner on building microgrids and develop R&D in the battery energy storage area.