A 1MW battery storage system with as much as 150 hours of storage duration, using an as-yet unrevealed battery chemistry, is being deployed in a pilot by Minnesota electric utility Great River Energy.

What is thought to be the largest operating containerised vanadium redox flow machine system in the UK has been connected to the grid by manufacturer redT energy, with the 1MWh project becoming the first to sign up to a local energy market being set up by British multinational utility Centrica.

Solar cell and battery hybrid technology could become a commercial success as long as it clears the “valley of death” out of academia, a scientist working on the project has claimed.