A “hybrid power plant”, controlling the grid for an entire island and its inhabitants, has been created with the addition of a management and control platform from energy storage system integrator Greensmith.

The digital ledger system blockchain has been both praised and misunderstood in equal measure and its relationship to the physical world of electrons is at its earliest stages of exploration. In the latest ‘Storage & Smart Power’ section of PV Tech Power, Carsten Reincke-Collon, CTO of Younicos looks at how energy storage and management software will interact with blockchain-led or blockchain-like systems of data processing and recording.

Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil’s Batwind project in Scotland, combining wind turbines with energy storage, will have a battery system installed by system integrator Younicos.

Younicos has completed the installation and commissioning of an upgraded 3MW battery-based energy storage system on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Younicos replaced the previously installed lead-acid systems with advanced lithium-ion batteries — expanding the system’s operational lifetime while boosting performance.

Updated: Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) will trial the use of lithium batteries and redox flow energy storage to help integrate renewable energy onto its grid, delivering services both in-front and behind-the-meter.

Europe’s ‘first commercial battery park’, a 5MWh lithium-ion battery system that was recently tripled in size to 15MWh, has been used to successfully restart a disconnected power grid in Germany.

Energy storage provider and system integrator Younicos has been bought out by Aggreko, a power generation equipment and energy controls supplier.

The key value propositions for commercial energy storage are based around “maximising economics subject to operating constraints”, according to Stem and other energy storage system integrators and operators.

Austin Energy, a publicly-owned electric utility in Texas, is delivering megawatt-scale storage systems as part of the US Department of Energy’s Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV (SHINES) project.

Younicos’ CEO Stephen Prince gives the lowdown on the hottest trends in energy storage, why standardisation will create a mainstream market and more.