More than 60MWh of residential battery energy storage systems from sonnen will be used in a virtual power plant (VPP) project in California that will fit out solar-powered energy solutions for around 3,000 residential apartments.

Battery software company Arenko has teamed up with National Grid ESO to provide upward and downward reserve flexibility in a “first of its kind trial”.

With Japanese companies keen to learn from their counterparts in deregulated energy markets such as the UK, the Japan Energy Challenge provided the ideal forum for exchanging ideas. Andy Colthorpe reports.

For Japan, the famous 4Ds of the energy transition – creating a distributed, decarbonised, decentralised and digitised grid – will involve a huge scaling up of smart solutions on a market basis, various sources have told Energy-Storage.news.

Centrica and sonnen have completed a virtual power plant (VPP) project in the south of England, which will allow customers to maximise the potential of their solar panels while providing flexibility to the grid.

A regulatory framework put in place by Italy’s grid operator TERNA has enabled Enel X to aggregate residential energy storage systems to pool their capabilities.

Italy’s electric system operator, Terna, approved contracts for dozens of megawatts (MWs) of energy storage facilities to serve grid-balancing applications each month throughout 2019.

Energy-Storage.news spoke with Samir Succar, a director and DER analyst at consultancy group ICF, shortly after he spoke on a panel at Solar Power International / Energy Storage International in Utah.

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.

Stem Inc, which offers commercial and industrial (C&I) customers battery storage systems to lower their energy costs, has partnered with Canadian state-owned utility Ontario Power Generation to offer Ontario businesses ‘no-money-down’ energy storage solutions.