In the past few months Spain has announced a 2.5GW energy storage target by 2030 and Portugal is hosting a solar tender with a significant add-on option for storage. Clean Horizon’s experts Corentin Baschet and Tanguy Poirot spoke with Andy Colthorpe on the role batteries and other storage can play in the Iberian Peninsula’s energy transition in the present and future.

This week’s roundup comes once again from the pages of our UK sister sites, where there’s been plenty of action.

Batteries can offer a cost-effective option for upward and downward reserve to the UK grid, a project run by AI and automation tech firm Arenko with transmission network operator National Grid ESO has found.

One of the first large-scale solar farms in Japan so far to be equipped with battery storage in order to meet the requirements of a local grid operator and utility, has been completed on the island of Hokkaido.

Battery system integrators must navigate a broad array of technologies and varying market drivers when putting systems together. Andy Colthorpe speaks to Powin Energy and Sungrow about the engineering challenges involved in building lithium-ion battery storage.

Our ability to generate renewable energy is scaling up fast, and solutions to integrate that energy will rely on technologies like blockchain to help keep new solutions on track. Power Ledger’s executive chairman and co-founder, Dr Jemma Green, looks at the role blockchain plays within her company’s platform to integrate and automate solar energy trading and balancing.

Coal retirements, liberalised energy markets and declining costs continue to improve the business case for energy storage in Australia, but the coronavirus pandemic is among factors creating uncertainties and risks, new research has found.

Adding well-optimised energy storage to solar PV projects in the US state of Massachusetts can increase project revenues by up to 50%, Stem Inc has claimed, as the energy storage provider announced the completion of a front-of-meter solar project with 8MWh of storage.

Independent renewable energy asset producer Neoen will build a 30MW / 30MWh grid-connected battery energy storage system (BESS) in Finland to help integrate the growing capacity of local wind energy.

SPONSORED: EDF are one of the largest aggregators of distributed flexible assets in Europe with significant presence in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium. Chris Regan, Head of Energy Trading Services, speaks to Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe about EDF’s view on battery storage and optimisation, the impacts of the pandemic on this market and what the future could look like.