While utility Hawaiian Electric (HECO) stands poised to announce the finalists of its recent massive procurement of solar-plus-storage and standalone energy storage projects, developers with winning bids seem determined to steal the utility’s thunder.

This week’s roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage focuses on recent products and services launches.

From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.

While the performance of lithium batteries has increased tremendously, there’s still room for improvement to lower cost, increase sustainability and maximise their impact on decarbonisation, says Marcos Ierides, consultant and materials expert at innovation consultancy Bax & Company.

The UK government has confirmed changes to the Capacity Market which are designed to remove barriers for demand side response (DSR) and energy storage, making it easier for clean technologies to compete in auctions.

With the award of funding from the California Energy Commission, advanced energy hardware and software including solar-plus-storage, blockchain and EV charging stations will help demonstrate the feasibility of decarbonising a disadvantaged community in Los Angeles.

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 Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed a loan deal for its first wind energy-plus-battery storage project in Thailand, which is also the country’s first private sector initiative to combine the two technologies at scale.

The largest renewable tender in Hawaii’s history has chosen its winners, contracting a solar and storage pipeline that exceeds anything the US state has ever seen.

Climate-smart principles must steer the global search for the minerals and metals required by the green energy boom to make sure the process remains sustainable, according to the World Bank.