Virtual power plants (VPPs) in California using technologies including home batteries and demand response (DR) could provide 7.5GW of capacity in ten years’ time, 15% of peak demand, analysis from consultancy the Brattle Group shows.

For this third instalment of our look back at 2021, we’ve something of a mixture of views from around the industry.

Supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada-headquartered residential and small commercial battery storage company Eguana Technologies’ sales figures hard, the company has said. 

Stem Inc and Sunverge, best known for providing battery and solar-plus-storage solutions for businesses and homes respectively, are partnering with companies in the electric vehicle (EV) sector. 

Puerto Rico has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to construct 1GW of renewable energy capacity and 500MW of battery energy storage on the island.

A new three-year project allowing residential solar and batteries to trade electricity and grid services in Victoria, Australia, is aimed at creating a replicable model marketplace that could be widely expanded across the country.

Tesla said that it more than doubled production volumes of grid-scale energy storage solution Megapack in the third quarter of 2020 as the company continues to ramp up production to “match unprecedented demand across the globe”.

FERC Order 841 looks set to allow distributed storage to participate in wholesale markets in the US. Energy-Storage.news has collected a wide range of reactions and views from industry participants on what it means.

More than 500 residential energy storage batteries will be aggregated into a virtual power plant (VPP) by US utility Portland General Electric (PGE), with some participating households offered US$5,000 rebates on battery system purchases as well as money off their monthly electricity bills.

AutoGrid has been developing “co-optimisation” capabilities that will allow residential battery storage deployed to mitigate power outages to continue participating in market opportunities.