With industry heavyweights eyeing up developments of solar-wind-storage projects, Liam Stoker uncovers what’s really driving hybrid power plants, and the regulatory and financing hurdles that must be surpassed to deliver them.

A trucking terminal in Ohio, US, will play host to a microgrid that incorporates around half a megawatt of wind and solar generation combined with battery energy storage from distributed energy technology company EnSync.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$40 million loan to support a 41MW hybrid distributed renewable energy system combining wind, solar, battery storage and a thermal heat pump in Mongolia.

Masdar, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, has partnered with the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) of the Seychelles to build a 5MW solar PV plant with 5MW / 3.3MWh of battery storage.

Three more vast projects pairing battery energy storage with utility-scale renewable energy installations are in the pipeline in New South Wales, Australia, through developer CWP Renewables.

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is supporting a 41MW hybrid solar-wind-storage project being developed by private Indian energy firm IL&FS Energy Development Company Limited (IEDCL) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh by providing a grant to aid the plant’s technical design and planning.

Hyderabad-headquartered firm Greenko Energies has received state government approval for a huge renewable energy project involving 1GW of solar, 550MW of wind and 1.2GW of pumped energy storage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The sanctioning of a tendering scheme for 2.5GW of hybrid wind and solar capacity in India has included a provision for developers to install any energy storage facility to help power output from such projects.

Indian power minister R.K. Singh has chaired a meeting with battery-based energy storage manufacturers calling on them to set up manufacturing units in India.

The winner of India’s first major solar-plus-storage auction, which has subsequently been scrapped for retendering, has said that despite being an unfortunate development, the firm is still keen to work closely with government on this technology for which the economics are continuously and rapidly improving.