Two major Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region projects combining solar PV and battery storage have progressed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt through ACWA Power and Scatec, respectively.

NextEra Energy Resources and Meta have signed 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements totalling 2.5GW.

Clearway Energy Group has negotiated tolling agreements with SDG&E for one of its solar and storage complexes in Kern County, California.

The first of 46 solar minigrids planned in Angola has been inaugurated by João Baptista Borges, the African country’s Minister of Energy and Water.

RWE Clean Energy has commissioned the Stoneridge Solar PV project in Texas, adding 200MW of solar PV and 100MW/200MWh BESS to its operational portfolio.

A trio of Germany grid-scale BESS news items, with Next Kraftwerke and ju:niz Energy agreeing a seven year toll, Alpiq announcing a 370MW pipeline, and WBS Power selling the country’s largest solar-plus-storage project and planning a data centre on the same site.

Jason Beer of Fluence Australia, discusses some energy trends in Australia that are set to influence the development of the storage market.

Zenith secures 25-year PPA with Northern Star for 532MW hybrid project featuring a 138MW/300MWh BESS at Kalgoorlie gold mine in Australia.

The World Bank will invest in a huge 4GW, 5.12GWh solar-plus-storage complex in Malaysia, part of a pan-Southeast Asian power grid initiative.

A joint venture (JV) between EDF and developer AME has begun construction of large-scale battery and solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Chile, with 2GWh storage capacity.