The pipeline for utility-scale battery storage in the UK has been continually increasing and is now over 20GW across more than 800 projects. A recent surge in submitted applications for battery storage has led to a record breaking quarterly submitted capacity for Q2’21.
Vertically-integrated solar PV company Canadian Solar won nearly 1GWh of battery storage contracts in 2020 and CEO Shawn Qu has said it expects to “capture around 10% of the battery storage market in the US alone” during this year.
Global renewable energy project developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) said construction work has begun on its second battery storage project in the UK — and the world — with local partner Harmony Energy.
Ireland’s first grid-scale battery system was commissioned at the beginning of 2020 but was followed just a few months later by another one 10 times larger. The opportunities for further development in the country appear huge, with a grid operator willing to recognise the role energy storage can play in balancing the network.
Energy company Total and solar-plus-storage developer 174 Global, a division of Hanwha Group, have formed a joint venture to develop utility-scale solar and storage projects with a total capacity of 1.6GW in the US.
French utility EDF is launching a major solar-plus-battery storage hybrid initiative in England and Wales as part of plans to double its installed renewable base.
“This next phase we’ve entered is a large number of projects in a lot of places,” Fluence VP for marketing and strategy, Brian Perusse, tells Energy-Storage.news.
Fluence has been able to keep working on “all but two or three” of 73 utility-scale battery projects, with battery energy storage increasingly considered an essential part of grid infrastructure in many parts of the world.
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.
In just the past few days, nearly US$500 million has been committed to downstream activity in the battery energy storage space, with AES Distributed Energy raising US$341 million of debt financing and EsVolta US$140 million of borrowing.
