Hopes have been raised once again that US lawmakers could introduce an investment tax credit for energy storage.

Swedish public utility Vattenfall is about to start filling a 45m-high, 200MW-rated thermal energy storage facility with water in Berlin, Germany.

Novel project in development in Australia combining CSP, molten silicon thermal storage, solar PV and grid-scale BESS appears to be revived.

Nuclear power firm Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a state-owned energy company to build 2GWh of pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) capacity in Bulgaria.

Group co-owned by State Grid Corporation of China and Singapore Power has halted investment into a hybrid project in South Australia. 

News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

It’s been a positive week for thermal energy storage technology, with utility Edison International validating a cold storage solution, a collaboration between two groups to achieve 100% round trip efficiency, and an acquisition involving several intellectual property rights patents.

Energy Dome has scored its first commercial licensing agreement for its carbon dioxide-based energy storage solution.

The first awards of funding designed to “turbocharge” UK projects developing long-duration energy storage technologies have been made by the country’s government, with £6.7 million (US$9.11 million) pledged. 

Thermal storage startup Antora Energy has raised US$50m from a group of investment firms including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures to accelerate the development of its heat-based carbon block energy storage system for heavy industry.