A 100MWh battery energy storage system has been integrated with 400MW of wind energy, 200MW of PV and 50MW of concentrated PV (CPV) in a huge demonstration project in China.

VRB Energy, a maker of flow batteries headquartered in Canada and owned by a metal resources and mining company, said the first phase of a 40MWh flow battery project in China has now been commissioned.

China’s State Grid Corporation will build 6GW of pumped hydro storage as part of ongoing efforts to cut rates of wind and solar power curtailment.

CATL, a major Chinese manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, has just opened its first sales and service centre in North America.

Vanadium redox flow battery maker VRB Energy has begun commissioning a 3MW / 12MWh energy storage system project in Hubei, China, which is expected to help serve as a demonstrator for much larger projects to come.

Quoting an expected doubling in installed PV capacity over the next five years, a partnership between Chinese battery storage system maker BYD and European PV inverter company SMA is targeting the USA market, identifying it – along with Africa – as having “high growth potential” for the pair’s products.

As well as Elon Musk remarking that the company may have had its “best ever quarter” for solar since the SolarCity takeover, Tesla’s energy storage deployments have enjoyed a ramp up, while a fellow exec hinted the stationary battery business is constrained by cell supply.

There are very different drivers for deploying energy storage in the four provinces of China that announced significant capacities of projects this year, the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) has said.

Energy storage projects were under construction across four provinces of China, amounting to 340.5MW of new capacity during the first half of this year in the country, according to the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA).

News in brief from around the world of energy storage.