Presenting the most-read news stories on Energy-Storage.news for the first half of 2023, including policy, technology and market developments shaping the industry.

A battery storage system in the UK has begun delivery of reactive power services, claimed as a world first contract of its kind.

News of major project acquisitions in another busy week for the UK battery storage market.

UK battery storage developer and investor Pivot Power, battery technology provider Wärtsilä and major utility company EDF’s 50MW/50MWh Kemsley battery energy storage system (BESS) has gone live.

A 100MW battery energy storage system just announced in the UK by battery storage developer, owner and operator Zenobe Energy is the first such system to win a long-term contract from the country’s transmission system operator to directly absorb reactive power from the transmission network.

Energy-Storage.news was delighted to host a sponsored webinar with Wärtsilä Energy on how energy storage is being used to support the uptake of electric transport last week – and you can now watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel.

UK energy storage solutions provider Zenobe Energy is targeting an additional 500MWh of storage and 1,000 electric buses following a £150 million (US$198.94 million) investment the infrastructure equity investment arm of investment manager M&G.

Residential energy storage provider Sunverge has won out in a competitive bidding process to provide systems and software for a proposed virtual power plant (VPP) project in Maryland in the US.

Batteries are to be used for reactive power services for the UK grid as part of a ‘world-first’ project to create a new reactive power market for distributed energy resources.

Plans by ScottishPower Renewables to build a 50MW battery next to its Whitelee onshore wind farm have been approved by the Scottish government, with the developer hailing it as a “significant step” towards renewable energy providing the baseload for the grid.