With a quarter of all solar project proposals in the US including batteries, transmission grid operators across the country are taking a variety of steps to evaluate the role that can be played in wholesale electricity markets by hybrid power plants – defined as generation coupled with energy storage.
Convergent Energy & Power’s first projects out of a joint venture with Shell have come online, while GE Renewable Energy touted the imminent implementation of the country’s ‘first hybrid electric gas turbine’ project.
Neoen, the French developer which partnered with Tesla on the 129MWh large-scale battery at Hornsdale Wind Farm, South Australia, wants to build an energy superpark in the state that comprises 1.2GW of wind, 600MW of solar and 800MW of battery storage capacity.
The latest project to be switched on in Nigeria’s solar electrification programme for universities is also thought to be the largest ‘hybrid’ plant of its kind on the African continent so far, inaugurated this week at Bayero University Kano (BUK).
Energy use by air conditioning can be both expensive and taxing for the environment, with the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, set to trial a three-storey ‘water battery’ to reduce both energy demand and cost.
European energy company Vattenfall is combining a 22MW wind power plant with 38MW of solar PV at a hybrid project in the Netherlands, integrating the capacity with 12MWh of batteries from carmaker BMW.
Australia may be one of the leading major economies in terms of renewable deployments, but it’s woefully underprepared at a network level to actually make the transition…
Cordova, Alaska, is isolated from the grid, but fortunate to be blessed with hydropower resources – and now a 1MWh battery storage system will help this coastal Arctic community increase its self-reliance in a “harsh and unforgiving climate”.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development, owner and operator of the only known “Gulf Coast” style domal-quality salt formation in the western US, have launched an initiative that will see the start of the development for the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in central Utah. Tabbed by MHPS as the world’s largest project of its kind, the ACES initiative will develop 1GW of renewable energy storage.
Pivot Power will collaborate with manufacturer and system integrator redT on what is claimed to be the world’s first grid-scale hybrid battery energy storage project to use a combination of lithium-ion and vanadium technologies.
