The repercussions of Texas’ Winter Storm events in February, may be felt for years. Scott Burger, Annie Baldwin, Jason Houck and Marco Ferrara at long-duration energy storage start-up Form Energy discuss how in-depth system modelling of current and future grids offers some early takeaways which might help prevent the next crisis and how multi-day energy storage could play a leading role.
The editorial team brings you the top takeaways from this year’s Summit, spanning everything from finance and the growing appetite for investment in the market today, to the technologies and policies that could help the UK and other nations to meet urgent deadlines for decarbonisation.
Uplight, a US energy software company that helps electric utilities reduce their baseload energy use by monitoring and adapting how their networks operate based on consumer behaviour, has reached a valuation of US$1.5 billion following investment from groups including Schneider Electric.
The battery storage market in the UK has become a viable investment opportunity in just the past few months, even without the backing of long-term contracts for grid services, according to an investment manager in the renewable energy sector.
Co-located battery storage’s ability to help mitigate risk and counter renewable yield compression has been hailed as a “fantastic opportunity” by renewables investor Bluefield Partners’ investment director Jan Libicek.
The success of an auction for fast reserve grid services held by Italy’s transmission system operator (TSO) indicates a strong appetite for battery storage, but market rules and regulations need some revision to capture that opportunity.
Malta Inc, developer of a grid-scale electro-thermal energy storage technology, has closed a Series B funding round, raising US$50 million from investors that include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
The sudden and rapid use of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) to launch privately-held companies into publicly-listed entities is a minor phenomenon of our time and some players in clean energy industries including energy storage, have been quick to join the wave. It can work out really well, but it can also all end in tears: so choose wisely, says Charles Lesser, partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory.
The energy storage market is poised for strong growth over the next decade and opportunities are likely to emerge for alternatives to lithium-ion that offer longer durations of storage, but three key challenges remain for those technologies.
Greek industrial group Mytilineos has acquired a portfolio of solar and battery storage projects in a €56 million (US$67.8 million) transaction it says “heralds the transition to a new era” for the company.
