Northern Ireland’s Queens University Belfast (QUB) has found that battery-based energy storage can provide inertial response for system reliability much more efficiently, at a lower cost and with substantially reduced emissions than thermal generation. Dr Marek Kubic at Fluence, which is working with QUB, explains.

While decreases in costs continue to make energy storage more and more competitive, financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard has highlighted just how variable project economics can be, citing examples of US projects with 9%, 11% and 21% IRR (internal rate of return).

Project financing for six large-scale energy storage systems in Germany has been helped along by due diligence provided by testing, certification and knowledge services group TÜV SÜD.

Sharp Electronics will add software modelling the performance of energy storage systems to its commercial storage offering, with software an area industry figures and experts have highlighted as one of the most critical areas of competition and progress in the sector.