Australia’s defence minister has welcomed the start of work on a solar-plus-energy storage microgrid at a military base in Perth by developer Carnegie Clean Energy.

There is increasing high-level interest in the potential for energy storage in the Middle East, with grid-connected systems forecast to reach 1.8GW in the region by 2025, according to I.H.S Markit.

Australia’s chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel has recommended that after 2020, wind and solar projects should be required to pair with energy storage capacity or dispatchable generation plants to enhance the security of the power system.

In a major energy strategy upheaval, the South Australian government is providing significant funding to support energy storage projects, starting with a 100MW grid-connected battery that will be the largest in the country.

Lichtblick, a retailer of ‘green electricity and green gas’ headquartered in Germany, is looking to take its concept for integrating multiple distributed generation sources into a single network into international markets.