A subsidiary of Russian state-owned nuclear technology and electric utility company Rosatom, will establish domestic lithium-ion battery cell and manufacturing facilities, following a deal to acquire 49% of South Korean company Enertech International.

Launches of a new “allstar” commercial energy storage system and a large-scale storage solution designed to be moved from one site to another with ease demonstrate the changing needs of customers for versatile and flexible energy storage options.

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.

Update 2 March 2021: A Trina Storage representative contacted Energy-Storage.news to highlight that while the company is building out production capacity for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells for stationary energy storage, the major focus of the newly-launched division is on providing full integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions to the renewables and grid storage markets.

Pylontech has said it will have 4GWh of battery energy storage system manufacturing facilities in operation within three years, after it raised around US$300 million from listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

ROUNDUP: News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Specific recommendations from a prominent industry group for tax reforms and other changes to support energy storage were not included India’s Union Budget for 2021-2022, but certain aspects of the budget such as the promotion of domestic self-reliance have been welcomed by it.

A lithium-ion battery recycling plant is under construction in Norway, focusing initially on electric vehicle (EV) batteries, but the CEO of the company behind it has said that it will also be capable of processing batteries from stationary energy storage systems (ESS).

European member states are to bankroll dozens of projects to create new battery manufacturing solutions.

The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the world’s leading centre of lithium-ion cell manufacturing for the next decade, but it won’t just be price reductions in batteries that will drive a 30% drop in front-of-meter battery storage in key markets China, Australia and South Korea.