More news in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa), has commissioned the Middle Eastern country’s first ever megawatt-scale battery storage system in time to measure the pilot project’s effectiveness at dealing with peak demand in summer.

Australian startup Vast Solar said it has picked a site in Queensland where it could develop a AU$600 million (US$427 million) power plant combining different low emissions technologies to provide baseload power cost-effectively over a 30-year lifetime.

Controlled Thermal Resources and Lilac Solutions are creating facilities for lithium extraction and chemical processing at a geothermal plant at Imperial Valley’s shallow, saline Salton Sea.

Testing of Yotta’s microstorage units at CSUDH’s campus in Carson marks new mainstreaming attempt for hybrid technology others have tried to take to commercial viability in the past.

The capabilities of virtual power plants (VPPs) to provide capacity as well as frequency regulation services to the grid in Australia will be demonstrated through a new integration trial.

German renewables firm BayWa r.e. has commissioned a combined PV and battery system in Zambia’s Chisamba province, to supply irrigation for aquacultural farming.

A new redox flow battery demonstration project was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this week.

Centrica, multinational major utility and owner of British Gas, is to launch a £19 million (US$24.2 million) UK pilot project which will assess the development of a virtual energy marketplace with renewables and storage at its heart in the UK.

Tucson Electric Power (TEP), a utility in Southern Arizona with around 420,000 customers, has received approval to build two 10MW energy storage systems, including one co-located with solar, from the state’s regulator.