When most people think of the metals that power today’s energy storage systems, vanadium and lithium are at front of mind. Ron MacDonald, president and CEO of Zinc8, argues the case for another metal playing an important role.

A project to create performance standards for residential and small-scale commercial battery energy storage systems in Australia has been completed, with project leader DNV GL raising hopes that the rules can inform the global market too.

Why the real competition is fossil fuels, which battery optimisation strategies yield the best returns and bringing safety rules and guidelines to the attention of first-responders are among the topics discussed on the latest special episode of the Solar Media podcast.

Construction looks set to begin this year on a factory building flow batteries, as a joint venture (JV) formed by German tech company Schmid Group and Saudi Arabian investment company Nusaned closed the transaction to seal its partnership.

A 1MW battery storage system with as much as 150 hours of storage duration, using an as-yet unrevealed battery chemistry, is being deployed in a pilot by Minnesota electric utility Great River Energy.

Accelerator selected the maker of an organic flow battery among a group of “startups with the potential to dramatically alter the future global energy landscape”.

Australian stock exchange-listed flow battery manufacturer Redflow has scored a second order for its devices from the Rural Connectivity Group, a New Zealand-based telecommunications company.

There exist opportunities for flow batteries to target areas of the market lithium-ion “can’t provide in an economically justifiable way,” the chief commercial officer of Invinity Energy Systems has said.

Realising the theoretical promise of solar-wind-storage hybrids is far from straightforward, with individual projects likely to vary considerably. Ben Willis examines some of the technical complexities of combining different technologies into a single, profitable entity.

“The bottom line is that this is a good business decision. We will get back our money in eight to 10 years at the current price of power. As the price of energy goes up, we’ll pay it back even quicker.”