Firm spies potential for more than 4.5GW of flexible power capacity in the UK alone and a home energy management industry which it expects to be worth more than US£2 billion (US$2.58 billion) a year by 2025.
Cloud-aggregated virtual power plants using residential or C&I battery storage as part of a smart energy management system can benefit the grid, integrate renewables and EVs and hopefully add a powerful long-term value proposition for home storage. Andy Colthorpe and David Pratt report on how some of the UK’s first VPP projects are proving the concept.
International battery brand Duracell is set to launch a home energy storage system in partnership with a UK energy supply and services company which claims it has enabled big increases in revenues available to owners of the devices.
Cheap solar electricity will be traded between neighbouring residents in apartment blocks in Western Australia, enabling peer-to-peer trading of electricity in a project supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
Shell, which has just participated in an investment round for sonnen, is one of the big players in the incumbent energy industry that “really acts” on clean energy, rather than just talking about it, sonnen’s CEO has said.
Germany’s sonnen introduced a scheme a while back in which customers pay a flat, reduced rate for their electricity each month while the company aggregate their batteries together to benefit the grid – and now the offer has been extended to electric vehicle owners.
Carsten Reincke-Collon of Younicos continues his look at the potential – and limitations – of using blockchain in the energy system. This second part covers how energy storage and storage management software could be the key to the ‘puzzle’.
Blockchain technology is being touted as the next big step forward in the digitalisation of the energy system. But storage and storage management software are the critical pieces of the puzzle needed to maximise its potential, writes Carsten Reincke-Collon of Younicos.
A 250-home ‘virtual big battery’ was switched on in Canberra, Australia last week, allowing residents to sell solar-generated power at a significantly higher price than available to them through feed-in tariff (FiT) policies.
