A gold exploration and mining company has agreed to purchase a potential site for excavating lithium in Nevada, citing the “great deal of attention” brought onto the state by Tesla’s decision to locate its mammoth manufacturing facility there.

News in brief: Younicos partnership on Bavaria’s renewables integrating flow battery, Greensmith raises US$12.3 million including investment from utility AEP, UK virtual power plant triallist Moixa extends crowdfunding period.

Energy storage and microgrid software specialist Geli Energy and storage system maker Imergy Power Systems will collaborate on a California Energy Commission-funded microgrid project which could save a college district US$75,000 a year in energy bills.

Energy storage specialist Imergy Power Systems has announced that its vanadium flow batteries will be used at a “smart micro-grid” demonstration project hosted by the US Navy.

Imergy Power Systems, the California-based energy storage specialist, has received an order for four of its ESP5 vanadium flow batteries from Hawaiian renewables firm, Energy Research Systems.

The New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY BEST), like much of the storage industry worldwide, appears primarily concerned with two things – technological development and looking at how policy, regulatory bodies and other factors can help shape viable markets. Andy Colthorpe spoke to John Cerveny, director of resource management of the association about what makes New York’s storage market tick.

A team at Harvard is pursuing a metal-free battery chemistry based on organic molecules called Quinones. The technology potentially offers an abundant and safe material to use for scaling up flow batteries, but according to the energy storage team at Lux Research in Boston, there are significant limitations based on project cost.

Earlier this year New York governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled plans for an “energy modernisation initiative that will fundamentally transform the way electricity is distributed and used in New York State”. This will include the creation of a leading energy storage marketplace, argues Bill Radvak, chief executive officer of American Vanadium, whose company recently installed a vanadium flow battery storage system for New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority in Manhattan.

PV Tech Storage interviewed Bill Radvak of American Vanadium, whose company has a plan to scale up flow batteries for renewable energy integration, using its own vanadium deposits.