A provider of home battery storage systems aggregated via an artificial intelligence (AI) platform has won the first ever fully domestic weekly Firm Frequency Response (FFR) contract with the UK’s transmission network operator, National Grid ESO.

The largest battery storage project to be owned by a local government authority in the UK, the 30MW Fideoak project, required a novel software solution to ensure that the best return and maximum impact could be made with public money invested, as Thomas Jennings of Kiwi Power explains.

More than 60MWh of residential battery energy storage systems from sonnen will be used in a virtual power plant (VPP) project in California that will fit out solar-powered energy solutions for around 3,000 residential apartments.

A series of smart energy projects in the town of Alice Springs in central Australia could be exemplary to the direction of travel for the energy transition across the country if successful.

Lynn Jurich, CEO at major US residential solar installation and leasing company Sunrun has spoken of the big opportunity for aggregated solar-plus-storage systems to provide grid services and in doing so help lower the cost of installations.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.

Bringing a proven, flexible, virtual power plant (VPP) platform into North America is a step towards “unleashing the potential” of distributed energy, the chief commercial officer of UK-headquartered solutions provider Kiwi Power says.

A roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage, this week with a US flavour.

Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.

Sunverge CEO Martin Milani talks about the system architectures and technologies that can make residential storage virtual power plants economically viable and useful to the local electricity network. As told to Andy Colthorpe.