Canadian public utility company and transmission system operator Hydro-Québec has launched a battery energy storage subsidiary as well as announcing a large-scale green hydrogen project.

While planning a better future for California’s energy system will take time and lies in the hands of many, many stakeholders from regulators to government to citizens and corporations, here are a few more of the recent moves forwards in clean energy in the state.

Sodium-sulfur (NAS) batteries made by NGK Insulators will be supplied by a subsidiary of chemicals company BASF for power-to-gas projects by South Korean company G-Philos in global territories.

Iberdrola is to develop a landmark solar-storage-hydrogen facility in central Spain, professing it to be the largest industrial green hydrogen facility in Europe once complete.

An Australian government-backed trial to create “virtual gas wells” using renewable electricity may demonstrate that small-scale, “stackable” units could be viable in making power-to-gas technology work at scale, the company providing electrolysers for the project has said.

The UK’s power system could become greener and more efficient if excess generation, typically from renewable sources, was used to create hydrogen, a national association of engineers has said.

ADS-TEC has just completed and connected a 2.5MW energy storage system in Germany, designed to smooth the variable output of wind power generation, while RES Group has just been awarded a 10MW energy storage project contract in the same country.

A new project could make power-to-gas “commercially viable” by exploiting links with the automotive industry, according to Germany’s Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).

Doosan Fuel Cell America will supply 30.8MW of hydrogen fuel cells to Busan, South Korea, in a deal also involving Samsung Construction and Trading (Samsung C&T) and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power.

The €32 million (US$36 million) Hydrogen Mobility Europe programme was launched today, with Germany, the UK, the Scandinavian countries and France signing up with the aim of expanding hydrogen refuelling station coverage across the continent. Andy Colthorpe speaks to one of the companies behind the project and power-to-gas energy expert Christopher Hebling of Fraunhofer ISE about this “modern fairytale” technology.