South Korean lithium-ion battery manufacturer SK Innovation will begin construction on the second of two manufacturing plants in the US state of Georgia this summer, with the first already under construction.

The cost of battery energy storage has continued on its trajectory downwards and now stands at US$150 per megawatt-hour for battery storage with four hours’ discharge duration, making it more and more competitive with fossil fuels. Andy Colthorpe spoke to Tifenn Brandily, lead author of BloombergNEF’s latest LCOE report.

“We are happy about the Italian government’s decision that allows us to fully resume business operations in Italy,” Manz AG CEO Martin Drasch has said, following a ruling that deems lithium-ion battery production to be of ‘strategic importance’ for the European country.

Energy storage manufacturing giant CATL has partnered with Shenzhen KSTAR Science & Technology to construct a new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility Fujian, China.

The upstream segment of the US energy storage industry is expecting “more widespread and greater revenue declines” and bigger reductions in employment in the first quarter of 2020 than the downstream, a survey by the national Energy Storage Association (ESA) has found.

The COVID-19 crisis is bringing into the public eye the US’ dependency on importing goods, particularly batteries for advanced energy storage and electric vehicles, the CEO of a battery materials startup has said.

“We work hard every day to continue to push forward to the best of our ability, as we believe that we must do all that we can do to keep our projects on track and support the greater economy.”

Production of commercial energy storage systems has begun at Tesvolt’s new 255MWh annual capacity factory in Wittenberg, Germany, with staff working in isolation due to the risk of COVID-19 infection.

SimpliPhi Power closed down its manufacturing operations briefly due to the COVID-19 pandemic last week before reopening this week, having made adjustments to try and ensure the safety of workers.

US-headquartered energy storage manufacturing startup KORE Power has said that its supply partner in China has resumed operations “and is presently working to meet KORE Power’s customer orders”.