The EU’s latest Clean Energy Package (CEP) is “undoubtedly positive” for energy storage, with the technology expected to play a key role in meeting the legislation’s ambitious “32% by 2030” renewables target, Brittney Elzarei, senior policy officer at trade organisation EASE has said.
Despite policy uncertainty spanning years, and Brexit looming large, we still hear from the industry that the UK is a key market. Andy Colthorpe takes a closer look.
With Brexit day less than a month away and still no certainty around what the final deal will look like, the time is now for the energy storage sector to prepare for every eventuality so it can play to its increasing strengths, writes Stephen Irish, co-founder of Hyperdrive Innovation.
With carbon reduction goals a long way off from being met in Europe’s transport sector, energy storage can play a key role in coupling transportation and energy technologies, the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has said.
Britain’s feed-in tariff scheme will close in full to new applicants from 31 March 2019 and the end of the present scheme without an explicit next step laid out is troubling for many in the renewable energy industries and those that care about energy security and climate change.
European Commission vice president for energy, Marcos Sefcovic has referred to an EU action plan for ‘green batteries’ to be made in Europe, citing the technology as vital for renewable energy integration as well as giving the continent a ‘competitive edge’.
In the past week, developer RES Group has just got a front-of-meter battery project underway for a utility company in northern Germany, while storage system provider Tesvolt has just signed a deal with another utility in the European country to distribute energy storage behind-the-meter for commercial customers.
The UK government’s head of smart energy has admitted that Brexit – Britain’s planned departure from the European Union – is causing delays in the passage of primary legislation to define energy storage, which may not be achieved until 2022.
At this week’s Energy Storage Europe event, Energy-Storage.News heard from German politician Thorsten Herdan that strong cooperation with other countries in Europe is vital for creating smarter, reliable and cost-effective energy networks.
