Bringing a proven, flexible, virtual power plant (VPP) platform into North America is a step towards “unleashing the potential” of distributed energy, the chief commercial officer of UK-headquartered solutions provider Kiwi Power says.
What has been described by the head of its federal regulator as the “single most important act” the US could take in smoothly transitioning to a “clean energy future” will become reality, with distributed energy storage set to join wholesale markets and compete to provide services on a “level playing field” with fossil fuel resources.
A project demonstrating aggregated solar-plus-storage in Louisiana involving energy storage company SimpliPhi Power, technology partner Heila and local utility SWEPCO has started off small, but is “expected to transition into a larger network of distributed systems, soon”.
Industry voices in the UK have said that electricity market activity during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the network will become prohibitively expensive and possibly unmanageable without the further rapid deployment of energy storage.
Another three developers with more than a gigawatt-hour of wins in Hawaiian Electric’s (HECO’s) massive solar-plus-storage and standalone energy storage tenders have gone public with size and location details of their proposed projects.
With the award of funding from the California Energy Commission, advanced energy hardware and software including solar-plus-storage, blockchain and EV charging stations will help demonstrate the feasibility of decarbonising a disadvantaged community in Los Angeles.
A solar and battery storage project combining 13.5MW of solar PV generation with 8MW / 8MWh of batteries in rural Alberta, Canada, has been approved by the local provincial regulator, the Alberta Utilities Commission.
Ensuring battery systems used in conjunction with solar perform safely and optimally is essential in the continued roll-out of storage technology. Robert Puto and Gerhard Klein of TÜV SÜD examine independent technical assessments that must be undertaken before a storage system is built.
The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is planning to host a technical conference on ‘hybrid resources’ – energy storage paired with generation – in July this year.
Australian state governments of Western Australia and the Northern Territory have budgeted for measures to support renewables in the past few days, primarily through supporting batteries at large-scale, residential and community level.
