A multi-gigawatt co-location market looks set to take off within the next five years, however uncertainty over DC coupling, the need for costly symmetric grid connections and outdated regulatory frameworks risk stymying the market’s growth.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hosted a technical conference on hybrid resources – pairing storage with generation – examining in order to overcome barriers that exist to the otherwise fastest-growing phenomenon of the grid.

Energy generation has never been a single technology market and energy storage is no different, says Ed Porter from Invinity Energy Systems.

Capacity payments that solar-plus-storage developers could earn from winning in Portugal’s big 700MW solar tender are an interesting first step, but will likely only be a supplementary income to add to what could be earned from ancillary services.

In the past few months Spain has announced a 2.5GW energy storage target by 2030 and Portugal is hosting a solar tender with a significant add-on option for storage. Clean Horizon’s experts Corentin Baschet and Tanguy Poirot spoke with Andy Colthorpe on the role batteries and other storage can play in the Iberian Peninsula’s energy transition in the present and future.

What has been described by the head of its federal regulator as the “single most important act” the US could take in smoothly transitioning to a “clean energy future” will become reality, with distributed energy storage set to join wholesale markets and compete to provide services on a “level playing field” with fossil fuel resources.

The European Union (EU) has just published its Strategy for Energy System Integration, including pledges to support renewables and energy storage as the continent targets carbon neutrality by 2050.

Battery system integrators must navigate a broad array of technologies and varying market drivers when putting systems together. Andy Colthorpe speaks to Powin Energy and Sungrow about the engineering challenges involved in building lithium-ion battery storage.

California, the world’s fifth largest economy and a global innovation engine, is confronting ambitious clean energy and GHG reduction goals. California must achieve 60% renewable energy and 5 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, and a fully decarbonised power sector by 2045.

Last year saw large-scale storage come of age in the USA and Canada, with some heavyweight storage portfolios starting to take shape. Speaking to four leading North American developers, Andy Colthorpe takes the pulse of a market poised for growth.