Virtual power plant (VPP) specialist Swell Energy will aggregate home solar and battery systems in a new programme from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

With a project pipeline in excess of 14GW, a developing regulatory envelope and maturing revenue streams, the UK’s energy storage sector continues to be at the forefront globally. Molly Lempriere charts the market’s development to date and uncovers how it has responded to deployment barriers.

Although there is growing interest within the energy storage industry around the National Grid’s Dynamic Containment (DC) system, operators who tap into it must be ready to adapt and maintain other revenue streams, a panel of industry experts heard this week.

National Grid, in its capacity as the UK’s Electricity System Operator (ESO), last week launched a new ‘Distributed Resource Desk’ in its control room in a move hailed as a “huge step forward” for electricity flexibility markets.

International battery brand Duracell is set to launch a home energy storage system in partnership with a UK energy supply and services company which claims it has enabled big increases in revenues available to owners of the devices.

UK demand response aggregator Flexitricity has successfully secured gas and electricity supply licences from regulator Ofgem, giving the demand response aggregator the green light to enter the country’s balancing mechanism.

Kiwi Power is to finance and develop a battery storage project at a multi-technology renewable energy site in south Wales, where it will provide constant grid services availability to National Grid for two years in a first for the aggregator.

Demand response provider Limejump has added Britain’s largest battery storage system to its aggregation assets after winning a contract from UK Power Networks (UKPN) to take on the commercial operations of Smarter Network Storage, also known as ‘The Big Battery’.