Industrial battery storage systems can lower electricity costs for the facilities they are installed at, but could also help manage the cost of power for all consumers.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Reducing peak demand for commercial and industrial (C&I) electric utility customers in Ontario remains a big opportunity for using battery energy storage to reduce costs and decarbonise, three partner companies working on a 2MWh project have said.

Why have battery energy storage and solar-plus-storage become such a key part of the US energy industry in a way that they have not in Europe, as yet? Corentin Baschet at technical consultancy and market analysis firm Clean Horizon took some of our questions.

Ontario’s policy of rewarding large users of energy that reduce their demand for grid energy at peak times has resulted in Shell New Energies announcing 21MWh of projects with Convergent Energy + Power.

News in brief from around the world of energy storage.

The CEO of Primus Power agrees that at present, lithium battery systems are more bankable than the flow battery energy storage systems of the type his company makes, but asserted that he believes this will change over time.

Jigar Shah has said that the addition of backup power helped persuade a California school district to add energy storage as well as going solar and that adding batteries can help “decision makers” see the true value of PV.

A liberal arts college in California will get a 1MW/2MWh energy storage system from Green Charge that could save the facility US$800,000 over its lifetime.

SolarCity and Green Charge have announced two commercial scale energy storage systems in California, one completed and the other yet to be built, which will each save the host over US$100,000 a year in energy costs.