Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) last week approved power purchase agreements for what is thought to be the cheapest solar-plus-storage project so far in the US.

Despite the huge strides energy storage has made, significant hurdles remain before the technology in its many guises can be claimed to have fulfilled its massive potential. E-S.n editor Andy Colthorpe assesses the key successes and ongoing challenges for this indispensable part of the future power system.

California’s success in embracing renewable energy technologies, particularly solar, has brought with it challenges around reliability of supply to consumers. Janice Lin and Jack Chang of Strategen explore how the Golden State is pioneering the deployment of energy storage as it pursues its goal of complete energy decarbonisation by 2045.

Of the four projects, all in California, one has already closed financing.

Standalone energy storage can challenge new gas peaker plants as a “mainstream” option in the US right now, Fluence has said.

ENGIE Storage will provide a 4MWh energy storage system paired with a solar PV install as part of San Diego International Airport’s wider energy transformation plan.

Ørsted understood to have invested low double-digit million dollar figure to purchase HelioSage, subsidiary of Panasonic-owned Coronal.

The ‘world’s first dedicated energy storage infrastructure fund’ will invest in California battery energy storage projects, with Macquarie set to sell 50% of a 340MWh tranche to the fund’s owner, SUSI Partners.

Many of the most polluting thermal power plants on the US grid today are also the most lucrative to run, but the service they provide could already be done twice as cheaply using solar and storage, developer 8minutenergy has claimed.

Flow battery maker Avalon has initiated a novel business model aimed at lowering the cost of deployment of its energy storage units, effectively ‘renting’ the electrolytes in the devices to a customer in California.