Construction is set to begin in Australia on a grid-scale power generation and long-duration energy storage project combining solar power and thermal energy storage, after the company behind the project said this morning that funding has been secured.

TWAICE, a software company headquartered in Munich, has launched a platform aimed at helping energy storage system operators manage the profitable use of their assets against the impact that has on the health of their batteries.

Let’s take a look at the news stories that had the most page views on the site since the beginning of 2020. The list covers everything from always-in-focus topics of cost reduction and competitiveness, to fire safety, innovation and commercialisation of new technologies and, of course in this year, COVID-19.

While lithium-ion continues to dominate big project announcements worldwide, three providers of long-duration non-lithium battery technologies have claimed various milestones in commercialisation.

Dr Kai-Philipp Kairies, a battery scientist and CEO of battery software start-up ACCURE, spoke to Andy Colthorpe about how his company aims to be a ‘software-as-a-service’ provider in negotiating the complexity of managing batteries.

Update 1 September 2020: EnerVenue CEO Jorg Heinemann got in touch with Energy-Storage.news post-publication of this story to give a few extra pieces of detail on the company and its commercialisation plans for the metal-hydrogen batteries.

Power shut-offs affecting millions in California, enacted by utilities Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to prevent wildfires and their spreading, are a “draconian” measure and don’t address the real problems, SimpliPhi Power CEO Catherine Von Burg has said.

Energy Vault, a Swiss maker of energy storage systems based around gravity, has made its technology commercially available, with India’s Tata Power expected to be the first customer.

Axion Power International, focusing on “hybrid battery technology” that combines lead acid with the properties of carbon-based supercapacitors, has warned that it is in financial trouble after failed attempts to commercialise its devices.

Investment by UK tech entrepreneur and inventor James Dyson into battery company Sakti3 was among the biggest deals in the sector in the first quarter of this year, a new report has found.