How do electric grids that were state-of-the-art in the 19th Century remain stable and resilient through 21st Century climate disasters and other problems? They don’t, says Catherine Von Burg, CEO and co-founder of distributed battery energy storage company SimpliPhi Power – but giving people the power to be independent can be a solution fit for the future.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), one of California’s three main investor-owned utilities, has said that 1,400MW of battery storage is to be deployed in its service area by the end of 2023 will keep the company on-track to meet statewide renewable energy goals “while ensuring grid reliability”.

The repercussions of Texas’ Winter Storm events in February, may be felt for years. Scott Burger, Annie Baldwin, Jason Houck and Marco Ferrara at long-duration energy storage start-up Form Energy discuss how in-depth system modelling of current and future grids offers some early takeaways which might help prevent the next crisis and how multi-day energy storage could play a leading role.

Texas’ grid and the idiosyncrasies of its electricity planning system regime made global headlines in February following a harsh winter storm and subsequent blackouts that affected millions of people and businesses for almost an entire week. It may be a unique market with unique characteristics, but what wider role can batteries — and other energy storage technologies — play in assisting the grid to remain stable and prevent a situation like this from happening again?

Dozens of zinc-bromine flow battery units will be deployed at 56 remote telecommunications stations in Australia, supplied by manufacturer Redflow.

A large-scale vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) demonstration project in California which has been providing grid services on a commercial basis will now also trial the use of the technology for microgrid applications.

Microgrids in the service territories of California’s main investor-owned utilities (IOU) could get a wider opportunity to help solve the state’s challenging energy situation with wildfire season approaching.

Construction work has begun on Technology provider Highview Power’s 50MW / 250MWh liquid air energy storage (LAES) facility in Greater Manchester, England.

US electricity provider Direct Energy Business will be using some of the world’s largest battery energy storage systems to help cover its customers’ peak demand for power, signing contracts with project developer and investor LS Power.

About a year after unveiling what is thought to be the first large-scale Tesla Powerpack battery project in the Balkans, Slovenian energy services company NGEN has confirmed that it has completed its second, even bigger project.