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.

A remote town in Canada which lies 55km away from the nearest electrical substation, was supplied with a battery system aimed at shoring up the reliability of its electricity supply.