China has once again been ranked top for involvement in the global lithium-ion battery supply chain by BloombergNEF, but for the first time the US has come in second amid a policy rush to support the domestic industry. 

South Korean energy company SK E&S has agreed to acquire Key Capture Energy, a developer, owner and operator of grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in various regions of the US including Texas and New York.

SK Innovation has established a partnership with US energy storage system integration solutions and services company IHI Terrasun Solutions that could see the South Korean manufacturer’s lithium-ion batteries used in Terrasun projects from 2022.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation have reached an agreement to settle litigation between the pair which has been ongoing since April 2019 and threatened to derail plans to scale up battery manufacturing efforts in the US.

LG Energy Solution, formerly known as LG Chem, has announced plans to invest in significantly increased production capacity within the US for batteries to be used in electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems (ESS).

UK investment management group Downing LLP has announced its first utility-scale battery storage site in the country, a 50MW/53MWh project in Nursling, Southampton on England’s southern coast.

The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the world’s leading centre of lithium-ion cell manufacturing for the next decade, but it won’t just be price reductions in batteries that will drive a 30% drop in front-of-meter battery storage in key markets China, Australia and South Korea.

Targeting a national economic goal in mind of making hydrogen competitive with natural gas, Australia’s government has put AU$70 million (US$44.3 million) into a “deployment funding round” for renewable hydrogen.

Former Governor of New York George Pataki has welcomed the possible siting and construction of a vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) factory in the state.