While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.
Centrica has revealed plans to build a single 100MW battery energy storage system in Ireland for delivery by 2022 to take advantage of capacity market and grid services opportunities currently under development.
Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will help finance the country’s first “unsubsidised large-scale grid-connected battery”, co-located with a wind farm in South Australia.
A representative of National Grid, the UK’s transmission system operator (TSO), has said that energy storage will be “integral” to the network’s flexibility strategy – while urging developers not to rely solely on early frequency regulation contracts.
A project demonstrating the integration of energy storage onto grid networks in Hubei, China, will see the first phase of a 10MW / 40MWh project built by Pu Neng, a vanadium flow battery manufacturer.
German renewables funder Capital Stage is lining up its first battery storage move, but stressed it could be some time before business models are mature enough.
SB Energy, the renewables arm of Japanese firm Softbank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Leasing are to develop a 102.3MW solar PV project combined with 27MWh of battery stroage in Hokkaido, Japan.
Oregon-based utility company Portland General Electric intends to spend between US$50 million to100 million on around 39MW of energy storage, company executives have revealed.
Australia has launched new interactive maps of the electricity grid specifically to support decentralised usage of distributed energy resources (DERs) including battery storage, renewable energy and smart demand management.
