California’s government has issued a roadmap for the US state to achieve its long-term goal of 100% clean energy, while an immediate State of Emergency has been declared over concerns the electric system will struggle under heat waves this summer.
A seasonal heat storage plant which will have a capacity of about 90GWh looks set to begin construction next year in Vantaa, Finland, with water stored in underground caverns heated to 140°C using renewable energy and waste heat.
Two startups seeking to disrupt the energy sector with novel long-duration energy storage technologies have formed partnerships with established industry players.
California is facing a huge shortfall of electricity capacity on its grid and advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) can fill the gap, Hydrostor has proposed.
Malta Inc, developer of a grid-scale electro-thermal energy storage technology, has closed a Series B funding round, raising US$50 million from investors that include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
Batteries, hydrogen and other energy storage should be a “key topic of energy policy,” in the EU, Members of European Parliament (MEP) that worked together on formulating a report into the role of storage in a decarbonised, fair and secure energy system have said.
While lithium-ion batteries get most of the headlines, long-duration solutions of various types are gaining ground. Alice Grundy and Andy Colthorpe profile some of the established and emerging concepts in this increasingly important field.
