News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Industry commentators have expressed shock and surprise that NEC Corporation’s Energy Solutions business has been wound down, while an analyst said the reasons for the energy storage system integrator’s demise are likely to go back further than the COVID-19 pandemic.

Energy solutions company Alfen has seen its quarterly revenue climb across all three of its business lines, with its energy storage arm seeing revenues increase by 144% against the first quarter of 2019.

A 5MW / 20MWh energy storage system built around the batteries BMW uses in its i3 electric vehicles (EVs) will help integrate renewable energy into the electric grid in Uppsala, Sweden.

Wärtsilä Corporation has announced 126MWh of energy storage across two project deals in the past week in two far-apart regions of the world.

Alfen has been awarded the contract to deliver a 10MW / 10MWh energy storage system, which will provide frequency regulation services and voltage control support in its home country of the Netherlands.

Not only can energy storage be used to “mimic” the roles of existing assets in the electricity network, a gigawatt-scale initiative in Germany shows how ways of thinking about energy storage could save transmission and networks “billions of dollars”, the COO of Fluence has said.

Halfway through 2018 and large-scale battery storage in the UK has reached over 450MW installed capacity, with around 250MW being completed this year alone. This is made up of projects bigger than 1MW, including larger behind the meter projects that have begun to emerge.

A spokesman for S&C Electric has confirmed the company will no longer be producing its power conversion system (PCS) for energy storage systems but will remain in the market as a system integrator.