Europe’s response to the US’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been a big talking point at Giga Europe, and one panellist said the simplicity of the IRA has been key to its success.

System integrator Powin is working on a new grid-scale BESS product to compete with increasingly competitive product from China, senior VP Danny Lu told us, while also discussing its Waratah project in Australia and fire safety.

Investor NextEnergy Capital has received a US$110 million capital commitment for its solar PV and energy storage-focused fund, NextPower V ESG (NPV ESG).

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is putting US$2.3 billion into projects increasing energy resiliency in rural communities, with two energy storage projects already shortlisted for awards in Arizona and Nebraska.

Developer rPlus and utility PacifiCorp have amended an existing PPA for a solar-plus-storage project, to increase the energy storage resource’s planned size from 400MWh to 1,600MWh.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will allocate over US$366 million for 17 clean energy projects in rural and remote areas in the US. 

EDF Renewables North America has signed a PPA with California utility Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) for part of the offtake of a solar-plus-storage project in neighbouring Nevada with a 780MWh BESS.

A roundup of energy storage news announcements from Energy Vault, Mitsubishi Power Americas and Tesla.

Developer-operator Strata Clean Energy has completed a US$559 million financing package for its 1.02GWh Scatter Wash BESS project in Arizona, US.

We catch up with the president of Canada-headquartered Hydrostor, Jon Norman, about the firm’s advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) tech, current projects, future plans and being a developer versus system integrator.