Panellists at the opening day of Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Southeast Asia event in Bangkok warned that investors who come on board quickest are going to gain a huge advantage as solar-plus-storage starts to become viable at scale.
Melbourne-headquartered mining giant BHP, in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), has projected 500MW of potential capacity combining solar, wind and energy storage at its old North American mining sites.
What is thought to be the largest operating containerised vanadium redox flow machine system in the UK has been connected to the grid by manufacturer redT energy, with the 1MWh project becoming the first to sign up to a local energy market being set up by British multinational utility Centrica.
Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich has said that using behind-the-meter systems to provide grid services could be “extremely valuable in certain targeted ways” as the company rolls out energy storage systems into key regional markets.
German renewables firm BayWa r.e. has commissioned a combined PV and battery system in Zambia’s Chisamba province, to supply irrigation for aquacultural farming.
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.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is providing a US$12 million grant as additional financing for 6MW of grid-connected solar PV combined with 3MW/12MWh of battery energy storage projects on the Cook Islands.
