Australian utility AGL is now inviting tenders to procure battery storage which will help it meet climate and sustainability goals – but the company expects to be economically dependent on coal as well as gas for years to come.
Canadian Solar has highlighted the increasing importance of adding energy storage to PV projects and the “significant growth opportunities in the solar-plus-storage market” while reporting its latest quarterly financial results.
Lynn Jurich, CEO at major US residential solar installation and leasing company Sunrun has spoken of the big opportunity for aggregated solar-plus-storage systems to provide grid services and in doing so help lower the cost of installations.
While energy storage is still a small part of their respective businesses overall, recent quarterly financial reports from US-based geothermal company Ormat and standby generator maker Generac emphasised expectations of market growth going forwards.
AES Corporation reaffirmed its 2020 financial guidance in presenting its latest quarterly results, which showed a total backlog of renewables and energy storage contracts of 6.2GW, while the company said it will reduce generation from coal to less than 30% of its total capacity by the end of this year.
The first grid-scale battery energy storage project in the Canadian province of Alberta is on-track to go into operation this month, while TransAlta, the company behind the project, has expedited plans to retire a coal plant citing “future market conditions”.
US developer and utility NextEra Energy has said there is currently a “terrific opportunity” for wind, solar and battery storage while Texas-based CPS Energy plans to add up to 900MW of solar, 50MW of battery storage and 500MW of new technology solutions to its portfolio.
Energy solutions company Alfen has seen its quarterly revenue climb across all three of its business lines, with its energy storage arm seeing revenues increase by 144% against the first quarter of 2019.
