The decision by the new owners of UK gigafactory startup Britishvolt to pivot its initial focus towards energy storage rather than EVs has pros and cons, a senior industry consultant told Energy-Storage.news

UK utility SSE has put £100 million (US$123 million) into its Coire Glas pumped hydro project in Scotland for pre-construction activities, but said that new policy is needed for it go to final investment decision (FID).

Some 1.9GW of grid-scale battery energy storage was deployed across Europe last year, of which nearly 85% was in UK, Ireland, Germany and France according to research and consultancy LCP Delta.

The European Commission has cleared an investment by Canadian pension fund BCI into Eku Energy, a new utility-scale BESS platform launched by Macquarie last year.

Energy storage funds managed by UK-based Gore Street Capital and Gresham House increased their net asset value (NAV) per share in 2022, but by very different rates.

Inverter supplier Sungrow and developer Constantine Energy Storage are partnering on 825MWh of BESS projects in the UK, including two with discharge durations of nearly three hours.

The UK government is looking to bring in policy specifically around long-duration energy storage (LDES) by the end of next year.

The battery storage sector is about to enter its first ever phase of large-scale augmentations of systems as they reach 3-5 year degradation points and there are questions over how this will pan out, Burns & McDonnell told Energy-Storage.news.

Powin “very close” to announcing first US factory, company working to extend its reach into new markets including the UK.  

Managing your battery energy storage system (BESS) supply chain is a complex issue with no easy fixes, according to leading developers, system integrators and investors.