Legislation that requires battery storage facilities to put in place safety and communication protocols has been signed into law.

A liquid coolant leak caused thermal runaway in battery cells which started a fire at the 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery in Australia.

This year’s Winter Storm Uri caused havoc in Texas, particularly in the energy sector, where extreme weather and a resultant set of generation problems and transmission grid issues led to loss of power and even loss of life across the US state. Ricardo F. Rodriguez, a senior consultant from analysis and research group Guidehouse looks at another aspect of the situation: the impact on the state’s telecommunications infrastructure and how battery energy storage could provide a greater degree of certainty and resilience to this vital network.

Tom Bensen, Nick Warner, Ryan Franks and Michael Bowes from energy storage and fire safety expert group Energy Safety Response Group (formerly Energy Storage Response Group) discuss some of the most important aspects of creating a safe battery storage industry.

More up-to-date training could have prevented severe injuries sustained by four firefighters in the April 2019 fire and explosion at battery storage facility in Arizona, according to a report into the incident from UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute (UL FSRI).

A solar-plus-storage microgrid is powering a mobile intensive care unit (ICU), set up to treat people suffering from COVID-19 symptoms at a migrant camp on the border between Texas and Mexico.

A Tesla Powerpack energy storage system with 7MWh capacity has been deployed for a train company in Japan, adding backup power capabilities to trains and adding the system to an ongoing virtual power plant project.

Redox flow energy storage systems, earmarked by Navigant Research to be one of the fastest growing electrochemical storage technology sets over the next decade, are being deployed in recent or upcoming projects by Cellcube Energy Storage Systems and Redflow.