Ideal Power, the US company best known for its power conversion systems for energy storage, has announced two recent project orders totalling 1.6MW in northern Texas and in California.

Brisbane-based renewable energy investor Lyon Group will soon start building a AU$1 billion (US$767 million) solar-plus-storage farm in South Australia – the world’s largest.

News in brief: Sunverge launches AC-coupled systems, whether South Australia’s blackouts could have been a different story with batteries, German government approves model region project for renewables, storage and grids.

Energy storage developers have an opportunity to prove the benefits of storage systems compared to fossil fuel technologies in what will be one of the fastest energy storage procurements in history pending in California, according to industry commentators and analysts.

The UK’s Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has publishing a report which looks at how unlocking the potential of electricity storage through regulatory changes would support the transition to a secure and affordable low carbon economy, adding to a chorus of recent voices on similar topics coming from Britain.

A community-owned utility company in California is preparing to install a large-scale battery system that could enable the addition of around 50MW of solar generation capacity to the local grid.

In the UK, the National Grid has recently warned the government that its capacity to supply electricity is at a seven-year low due to recent generator closures, fires and outages. The margin of capacity over demand is expected to be just 4% this winter.