A debt financing deal closed by independent power producer (IPP) sPower for a 100MW / 400MWh battery storage project in California demonstrates that significant project finance investment can be achieved for large-scale battery facilities.

Updated 7 January 2020: Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) will supply lithium-ion batteries to energy storage system integrator FlexGen for two large-scale energy storage projects totalling 220MWh in Texas.

Vertically-integrated solar company Q CELLS has completed the acquisition of US-based Growing Energy Labs Inc (Geli) that was announced in August.

The battery storage optimisation and energy trading teams at EDF and Centrica Business Solutions – stalwarts of the UK’s Big Six of utility companies – have won 40MW of new deals to optimise large-scale battery storage systems.

US energy storage safety expert advisory Energy Storage Response Group (ESRG) was created through a meeting of minds from the battery industry and fire service. Andy Colthorpe speaks with ESRG principal Nick Warner and business manager Ryan Franks on what the industry needs to do to win the trust of firefighters, code officials and other stakeholders including banks and insurers.

UK stock exchange-listed energy storage investment fund Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has applied to triple its capacity in the Republic of Ireland, up to a total of 180MW.

The importance of software for the bankability of a project is growing, as the opportunities for energy storage around the United States continues to expand.

The fire unit at global multinational engineering firm Honeywell made its first move into lithium-ion safety in recognition of battery storage’s “huge potential” for decarbonisation and to help the world move “in a more energy efficient way”, the company has said.

PV Evolution Labs (PVEL), has introduced a Product Qualification Programme (PQP) for energy storage, which “identifies and validates battery-based energy storage solutions for specific applications”.

The 10 most popular blogs on Energy-Storage.news during 2019 offer a fairly strong indication of the overall topics leading industry thinking during the year – so without further ado, here they are: