Indonesia’s state-owned utility and battery producer have launched a 5MW battery energy storage system (BESS) pilot project, the first up to 2GW of battery storage it could deploy on its national grid.

Hitachi Energy has been selected to supply a large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) for a wind farm in the Faroe Islands, as the remote archipelago targets a goal of 100% renewable energy.

German developer and EPC contractor juwi has secured a deal to design, supply and build a solar-storage hybrid project at an off-grid gold mine in Egypt.

A just-commissioned solar and battery storage system will reduce diesel consumption by at least 80% at a base for 300 humanitarian workers in South Sudan, managed by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The economics of rural electrification using microgrids should be considered an investment for the future, akin to how Silicon Valley tech providers plough money into initially loss-leading products and services, the chief of developer and manufacturer Solar Philippines has said.

Daystar Power, a clean energy supplier based in Africa, has teamed up with Nigerian retail banking group Unity Bank to power the latter’s switch away from diesel, using renewable energy and energy storage.

A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.

Microgrids ensure energy security for mission-critical loads at military bases, and reduce reliance on fuel during grid outages. While they have much in common with many of the technologies used in ‘other’ microgrids, the stringent technical requirements involved add a new layer of complexity, explain Lisa Laughner and Tony Soverns from provider Go Electric.

A US government energy saving scheme will pay out US$40 million for the development of a solar-plus-storage microgrid at a missile test site operated by the country’s military.

Africa’s largest private equity firm has led a round of financing for Off Grid Electric to fuel the microgrid provider’s expansion in the continent, with investors including an arm of General Electric (GE).