Energy Storage

French start-up Verkor is planning to build a 16 GWh manufacturing facility for EV batteries in southern France. French industry consultant Capgemini has joined the project to improve the manufacturing processes.

Work is underway for the deployment of the huge project in the Indian union territory of Ladakh. Land identification and preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) for the necessary transmission infrastructure have already begun.

Chinese inverter maker Sungrow has switched on a 6 MW / 21 MWh solar-plus-storage facility on the island. The FIT project’s connected AC capacity is limited to only 845 kW, but the containerized storage solution provided by the company ensures its viability.

The U.S. storage market is booming. But while the solar PV industry has come a long way, with decades of deployment to look back on, battery energy storage is still coming of age. And when things move fast, things can go wrong. At pv magazine’s Virtual Roundtables USA event in late-November 2020, experts raised the challenges that accompany opportunities for battery storage. A move toward greater maturity allows some lessons to be learned from solar – leveling up energy storage will require commitment from the sector with standards, testing, and quality performance.

The expedition to Manaslu Peak (8,163m) in Nepal, led by Alex Txikon, will not consume a single liter of fossil fuels thanks to two portable photovoltaic installations. The initiative is being promoted by Eki, a foundation created by Spanish solar company Solarpack and supported by the Basque Energy Agency (EVE).

Australia’s Star Scientific has signed a deal with the Department of Energy in the Philippines to use its hydrogen tech. The partnership could see Star Scientific transform every coal-fired power plant in the nation to green hydrogen, while also using the tech to provide desalinated water.

Kenyan utility KPLC wants to retrofit 23 diesel mini-grids by adding wind and solar power generators. PV is the only option available for 21 of the selected sites.

The SunPower solar monitoring app draws inspiration for its user interface from unlikely non-energy sources such as Spider-Man.

The success of unsubsidized clean power facilities in the country – whether driven by corporate power purchase agreements or selling direct to the wholesale electricity market – has prompted the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ponder whether contracts-for-difference payments will be fit for purpose in the years ahead.

An international research team has presented challenges and knowledge gaps in the implementation of large scale underground storage of hydrogen. The main issues associated with this technology relate to the fluid flow behavior of hydrogen in subsurface reservoirs, geochemical reactions caused by hydrogen injection, biotic reactions caused by excess hydrogen, and the geomechanical response of the subsurface to hydrogen storage.