The US national Energy Storage Association’s policy director, Jason Burwen, spoke with Andy Colthorpe about the seven early adopter states of energy storage targets and whether this is likely to be a spreading pattern across the country.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Industry commentators have expressed shock and surprise that NEC Corporation’s Energy Solutions business has been wound down, while an analyst said the reasons for the energy storage system integrator’s demise are likely to go back further than the COVID-19 pandemic.

Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.

After securing a US$225 million financing facility, US solar developer 8minute Solar Energy has said the “vast majority” of projects in the company’s pipeline “are solar-plus-storage”.

Stem Inc has won out in a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) to manage a 345MWh fleet of commercial and municipal energy storage systems in Los Angeles, California.

SPONSORED: EDF are one of the largest aggregators of distributed flexible assets in Europe with significant presence in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium. Chris Regan, Head of Energy Trading Services, speaks to Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe about EDF’s view on battery storage and optimisation, the impacts of the pandemic on this market and what the future could look like.

QCELLS has invested AU$5 million (US$3.45 million) in SwitchDin, an Australian distributed energy resources (DERs) software company that offers capabilities including virtual power plant aggregation and microgrid-forming.

The contract is for the 35MW hybrid York solar farm designed and constructed by developer GRIDSERVE, which was completed late last year.

Battery energy storage deployed at Cleve Hill, the largest solar farm planned in the UK to date, will be installed and operated in line with a safety plan agreed with local fire services and the national Health and Safety Executive.