PV energy provider SunPower announced Wednesday that it has broken ground on a 10MW PV project at the Redstone Arsenal US Army post in Alabama that will also feature a 1MW energy storage system.
A set of guidelines for safely installing energy storage at customers’ houses will probably undergo significant revision from its current draft, which has been slammed as “not fit for purpose” by the head of the Australian Energy Storage Council.
French energy storage developer and system integrator Electro Power Systems (EPS) has hailed the speedy execution of a microgrid’s expansion in Somalia, which has just been completed in less than 30 days.
Interest in energy storage in the Middle East is ‘ramping up significantly’, as we reported last week in an extract from this interview with IHS Markit analyst Julian Jansen. His firm is forecasting 1.8GW of energy storage for the region by 2025 – from an installed base of next-to-nothing today. Jansen talked us through some of the drivers, market dynamics and the general picture of what we might see developing.
There is increasing high-level interest in the potential for energy storage in the Middle East, with grid-connected systems forecast to reach 1.8GW in the region by 2025, according to I.H.S Markit.
Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.
Major solar investor Foresight Group has more UK battery storage projects firmly its crosshairs and could branch out into both C&I and co-located projects in the near future.
Power equipment manufacturer Wärtsilä has launched hybrid and standalone energy storage systems, targeting areas where it sees “high market potential”, including remote microgrids and solar PV integration.
Developer Anesco has continued to rack up utility-scale storage work after agreeing to retrofit 10 of Ancala Partner’s PV arrays in the UK with battery units.
Clearly, renewable energy is now a viable alternative to traditional generation from a cost perspective. However solar and wind’s penetration of the grid is constrained by ageing infrastructure, high grid connection costs and their intermittent, weather-dependent nature. Scott McGregor looks at how long-duration energy storage on an industrial scale can help.
