Over a gigawatt of bids from battery storage project developers have been successful in the first-ever competitive auctions for low-carbon energy capacity held in Japan.

Utility and independent power producer (IPP) Iberdrola will deploy battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Spain adding up to 150MW/300MWh, to be co-located with existing PV plants.

There exists a strong potential for energy storage to provide ancillary services in the Iberian Peninsula’s booming renewables market, but regulatory stability should be provided to encourage the sector’s growth, a panel has suggested.

The award of contracts to battery storage developers in a recent auction by Italy’s transmission system operator proves the technology’s competitiveness in providing grid services once again, an analyst has said.

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.

Ireland’s DS3 is a “really interesting market” but there is a lack of clarity of what the enduring arrangements for procuring DS3 look like, says Statkraft Market’s head of UK energy storage, Nick Heyward.

Median bids received by US utility Xcel Energy in a solicitation for energy resources for energy storage paired with solar came in at US$9 per megawatt lower than the previously observed record.

Nidec ASI has been selected to construct and maintain four PV plants with co-located energy storage systems on the French island territory of Corsica.

No one moment took energy storage into the mainstream of the UK power system more than the outcome of National Grid’s August 2016 tender for Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR). Reporter David Pratt examines the business case behind Vattenfall’s first EFR project and asks what grid operators and regulators’ next moves are likely to be.

Submissions for Thailand’s first 300MW hybrid PPA scheme, which encourages use of energy storage to supplement renewable energy generation, are due by 20 October.