A solar-plus-storage project in New York which has just been completed is the first community project of its type and should help lower electricity costs for participants by 10% for the next 25 years.

Bordesholm in Germany became a showcase for how entire communities could switch over to renewable energy with the backing of energy storage capacity.

A Tesla Powerpack energy storage system with 7MWh capacity has been deployed for a train company in Japan, adding backup power capabilities to trains and adding the system to an ongoing virtual power plant project.

‘Energy resilient infrastructure upgrades’ planned for a US military facility will involve the deployment of 20MW of solar PV, 4MW / 8MWh of battery storage and 4MW of gas-fired backup generation in a project worth US$133.5 million.

A community microgrid in Chicago will be supplied with lithium-ion battery storage from aerospace and defence giant Lockheed Martin, allowing it to be ‘islanded’ from the local grid network.

The first large-scale solar and battery storage project to be connected to the grid in Australia has started providing power to 3,000 homes and businesses in Far North Queensland (FNQ) while forming a test case for deliberate ‘islanding’.

A distributed smart grid that can “heal” itself in the event of system components failing has energy storage and energy management software at its core, grid-scale system integrator Alfen has said.

Utility company Ameren and smart grid company S&C Electric Company announced that they have conducted a successful 24-hour islanding test in August at the recently deployed Ameren microgrid in Champaign, Illinois.

Conergy plans to build a 10.8MWac solar PV plant combined with 1.4MW/5.3MWh of lithium-ion battery storage near Lakeland, Australia.

A solar farm connected to a huge battery will be built on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to use solar in the evenings to meet peak demand, under a 20-year contract between SolarCity and an electric utility co-operative.