California’s second-largest investor-owned utility Pacific Gas & Electric has warned customers of a challenging summer ahead, beginning with a record-breaking heatwave expected in some parts of the state this week.

A large-scale vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) demonstration project in California which has been providing grid services on a commercial basis will now also trial the use of the technology for microgrid applications.

While planning a better future for California’s energy system will take time and lies in the hands of many, many stakeholders from regulators to government to citizens and corporations, here are a few more of the recent moves forwards in clean energy in the state.

While redesigning California’s energy system will take some time, in the past couple of weeks alone, Energy-Storage.news has become aware of numerous initiatives and projects, both publicly and privately-driven, that are seeking to modernise, add resilience to and lower the emissions of the California grid.

A preliminary report has been issued by California energy authorities into power outages which occurred in August and among the key recommendations it makes is that generation and energy storage projects proceed without delay.

Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe return for the August 2020 episode of the Solar Media podcast, reflecting on the biggest news stories from the global solar and energy storage ecosystems.

Update 21 August 2020: An LS Power representative contacted Energy-Storage.news to provide further information on the Gateway project’s storage capacity.

Update 21 August 2020: A representative of Capital Dynamics contacted Energy-Storage.news with additional information on the sizing and capacity of the projects.

Stem’s virtual power plants (VPPs) have been utilised to provide emergency demand response services in California during a major heatwave.