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.
According to reports carried last week in national outlets including Yonhap News and the Korea Herald, defective battery cells were not found to be the cause.
Grid-connected energy storage deployments have enjoyed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 74% worldwide in the years 2013 to 2018, with a “boom” in deployment figures expected over the next five years, analysis firm Wood Mackenzie has said.
Kokam has been awarded contracts to deliver 40MWh of battery energy storage at solar power plants in South Korea, including its newest High Energy Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (HE NMC) batteries.
South Korea’s government is planning for 100MW of battery storage as part of a nearly 3GW hub of solar PV and wind on reclaimed land in Saemangeum, which is an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
With a view to creating a mass market design for vanadium flow batteries, Australia’s Protean Energy will deploy a 4MWh battery energy storage project in South Korea that will be researched over eight years of operation.
Macquarie Capital Korea, a subsidiary of investment firm Macquarie Group, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the county office of Goesan in South Korea to finance a significant solar-plus-storage project, while it has also invested in what is said to be the largest energy storage project base in the country.