Microgrid

The minigrid space continues to attract a lot of attention from development partners in Africa. Minigrids can actually generate profits, so there is no doubt that commercial finance players will eventually jump on the bandwagon, according to the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).

RIC Energy has built a 1.3 MW PV array and a 4.5 MWh battery system for two water treatment plants and five water pumping stations in Malawi. The hybrid system will treat enough water to supply more than 200,000 people.

Singapore-based VFLowTech is manufacturing compact, scalable vanadium redox flow batteries with 24/7 operation over lifespans of 25 years. It is now setting up a 200 MWh production line, with plans to scale up the production of modular, long-duration storage solutions.

Discovery Battery’s new lithium iron phosphate battery system has a nominal voltage of 51.2 V and a capacity of 100 Ah. Up to six 5.12 kWh battery modules can be stacked in a single enclosure, and up to four enclosures can be connected in parallel for a total capacity of 120 kWh.

Rapidly deploying 5.2 GW of planned solar and storage in Puerto Rico, a possibility raised in a report by six national laboratories, would require an improvement in the Puerto Rico utility’s practices. A mandated procurement process has suffered delays at many steps.

Buoyant predictions about a rosy future for African photovoltaics, based on the continent’s abundant solar resources, continue to overlook the difficulties of securing investment, as Empower New Energy co-founder and CEO Terje Osmundsen explains, referring to a report published by the Africa Solar Industry Association at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi today.

PV integration in smart grids is a complex but highly relevant issue, with various aspects to be considered to develop different scenarios. Researchers in the IEA-PVPS Task 14 program are conducting a survey to collect opinions from peers in the PV branch to perform such an analysis.

This year has witnessed upheaval in the global energy system as inflation, geopolitical conflict, and the reality of a changing climate continue to drive the transition to cleaner energy. Next year, these trends are likely to continue and accelerate as renewable energy adoption continues to grow and the inextricable link between energy security and national security is increasingly recognized. Alan Greenshields, of US-based iron-salt flow battery maker ESS Inc, offers four predictions for 2023.

US-based Nomad Transportable Power Systems (NOMAD) has started offering plug-and-play, utility-scale mobile energy storage systems. There are three versions – 2 MWh, 1.3 MWh, and 660 kWh – with a patent-pending docking platform.

Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has published its annual report for the 2021-22 financial year. The regulator granted nine licenses for solar projects, totaling 44.74 MW of installed capacity, and 7,032 net-metering licenses for a total of 243.43 MW.