Texas’ ERCOT market has been one of the US’ fastest-growing regions for renewable energy, but recent weather-driven events have made it clear that more needs to be done to ensure electricity system reliability. The answers are already here, affordable and practical, argues Wayne Muncaster, vice-president at commercial demand response platform technology group GridBeyond.

New software that helps businesses and utilities in the US to assess the value of energy storage has been launched by Sandia National Laboratories, while the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has launched its own platform for calculating the value of distributed energy resources (DERs).

A 99.9MW energy storage project in development in northern England by Renewable Energy Systems (RES) has secured planning permission, with the asset set to be operational in late 2023.

The Americas region is on track to leapfrog Asia-Pacific in terms of deployed energy storage by 2025, before accounting for more than half of global capacity by the end of the decade, new analysis from Wood Mackenzie suggests.

Stem Inc has completed a front-of-the-meter solar-plus-storage project in Massachusetts that will participate in New England’s wholesale markets run by system operator New England ISO.

Mexico’s economy, international competitiveness and quality of power on the electric grid – as well as its environment – could be given a serious boost if battery energy storage systems were given a greater chance to contribute, a developer of projects based in the country has said.

The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the world’s leading centre of lithium-ion cell manufacturing for the next decade, but it won’t just be price reductions in batteries that will drive a 30% drop in front-of-meter battery storage in key markets China, Australia and South Korea.

Independent power producer (IPP) Broad Reach Power has made the first of “several planned expansions” into California’s market for energy storage, acquiring the 25MW / 100MWh Cascade Energy Storage project.

The importance of software for the bankability of a project is growing, as the opportunities for energy storage around the United States continues to expand.

The US industry deployed 168MW / 288MWh of energy storage in the second quarter of this year, the second highest quarterly figures on record, according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.