Fluence has been able to keep working on “all but two or three” of 73 utility-scale battery projects, with battery energy storage increasingly considered an essential part of grid infrastructure in many parts of the world.

In light of Virginia’s goal to go 100% renewable and clean energy by 2050, utility Dominion Energy has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for 1,000MW of onshore wind and solar and up to 250MW of energy storage as well as laying out longer-term plans.

Solar Media’s Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe discuss the continuing effects of COVID-19 on worldwide power markets, reflecting on IEA forecasts for historic energy demand lows and what they mean for renewables.

“We are happy about the Italian government’s decision that allows us to fully resume business operations in Italy,” Manz AG CEO Martin Drasch has said, following a ruling that deems lithium-ion battery production to be of ‘strategic importance’ for the European country.

Despite a subdued year in 2019 and a challenging start to 2020 caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, the outlook for energy storage remains strong, says Julian Jansen of market research group IHS Markit, taking a deep dive across segments and geographies.

The upstream segment of the US energy storage industry is expecting “more widespread and greater revenue declines” and bigger reductions in employment in the first quarter of 2020 than the downstream, a survey by the national Energy Storage Association (ESA) has found.

Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges (MITECO) said it will be receiving comments for 15 days after the current COVID-19 crisis-related state of emergency the country has declared is over.

The latest episode of the Solar Media Podcast is now available to stream, featuring considerable discussion around the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the energy storage sector.

The COVID-19 crisis is bringing into the public eye the US’ dependency on importing goods, particularly batteries for advanced energy storage and electric vehicles, the CEO of a battery materials startup has said.

“We work hard every day to continue to push forward to the best of our ability, as we believe that we must do all that we can do to keep our projects on track and support the greater economy.”