Arkansas, currently ranked 31st among US states for solar deployment, will get a solar-plus-storage plant with 100MW of photovoltaic generation and 10MW / 30MWh of battery storage after regulator Arkansas Public Service Commission approved the project.

Battery assets have been used in the UK’s Balancing Mechanism for the first time via a virtual power plant, marking the start of what could be a new era for energy storage business models in Britain.

US utility Florida Light & Power (FPL) has followed up the US’ first DC-coupled grid-scale battery system with the announcement of a solar-plus-storage project pairing 10MW / 40MWh of energy storage with an existing 74.5MW PV plant.

The largest grid-connected energy storage system in Massachusetts will be used to determine the value of the technology throughout the US Commonwealth territory, supported by a Department of Energy Resources (DOER) grant.

A research project aimed at validating technologies for the “industrial scale” storage and dispatch of solar generated electricity in Switzerland has received CHF2 million (US$2.17 million) in funding from a local government agency.

Samsung SDI will supply its lithium-ion batteries to a Japanese company building a 1MW solar farm, with the deal expected to then go on to furnish an initial 20 solar farms with batteries.