Quebec’s largest grid-scale battery energy storage system to date will maintain electricity supply and power quality for customers of Canadian utility company Hydro-Québec while it carries out major transmission line upgrade work in the province.

Fluence will deploy Lithuania’s first grid-scale battery project, aiming to prove the advantages of using batteries as an alternative to building out expensive transmission infrastructure.

The CEO of US virtual power plant provider Swell Energy has said that New York utility company Con Edison has been “very progressive” in recognising the value that aggregated home battery systems paired with solar can offer.

Energy storage systems were historically used for grid balancing purposes within Europe, limiting their use to such applications or to be considered as “auxiliaries” to renewable generation assets. However, as market prices evolve and new revenue streams emerge, stakeholders must discover the diverse applications energy storage can tap into, writes Naim El Chami.

Developer Agilitas Energy, which won a competitive solicitation to implement a non-wires solution to help an overworked substation for utility Con Edison (Coned) in New York said it has picked a site for its energy storage project.

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.

A 6MW / 48MWh battery energy storage system paired to a 15MW diesel generator has gone online on Nantucket, in what has been described by project owner National Grid as the biggest system in New England to date.

In part 2 of a technical paper first published in PV Tech Power Vol.13, Alex Eller of Navigant Research continues his look at how one of the most significant expenses for electric utilities, maintaining and upgrading transmission and distribution (T&D) networks, could be undercut using non-wires alternatives – including energy storage.