The first solar-plus-storage microgrid in Asia to use Tesla’s Powerpack energy storage system is designed to end power reliability issues for a Philippines community, long used to losing light and productivity to brownouts.
Some of the “world’s biggest insurance companies” are investigating the advantages of pairing lithium batteries with ultracapacitors in energy storage systems, which can lower costs and extend battery lifetimes, the CEO of an ultracapacitor maker has said.
The UK’s first listed fund for energy storage is setting out to raise £100 million (~$139 million) for investment in battery projects, with a seed portfolio of an estimated 18MW/20MWh already arranged.
Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.
ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.
Islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters such as hurricanes. John Merritt of Ideal Power looks at some of the emerging solutions to building more resilient energy systems through the deployment of microgrids that combine multiple energy generation and storage technologies.
A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.
Mis-selling, insurance risk and the failure of associated costs to fall alongside sell prices could hold back greater battery storage deployment in Britain, a panel discussion has revealed.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems) has confirmed the expected capacity and output of a photovoltaics-linked energy storage system being developed for a railway in Canada which will use lithium-ion batteries.
A new study from Navigant Research into the strategy and execution of various lithium-ion battery providers in the utility-scale energy storage industry identified Korean companies LG Chem and Samsung SDI as “leaders” of a rapidly-growing sector.