Energy Storage

Chinese li-ion battery manufacturer CATL has delivered a 100 MWh battery storage system to the country’s largest mixed renewables plant, which features 400 MW of wind energy, 200 MW of PV and 50 MW of concentrating solar.

State-owned utility Hydro-Quebec will deploy its first 10 MW of ground-mounted solar to test the technology at the province’s latitude. The hydropower company is also using storage to better manage winter peak demand. Bifacial modules will be included in both projects.

Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, explains how the world’s future energy landscape may include pan-regional super-grids. However, prosumer states seeking energy independence could also be in the mix. According to Overland, the two developments will go hand in hand and the balance between them will be determined by the competitiveness of storage technologies.

The target company, which specializes in supercapacitors, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elon Musk’s business.

The Robertstown region could host two big renewable energy projects – a 500 MW solar farm co-located with a 250 MW/1 GWh battery storage capacity, and a construction-ready 200 MW PV project with 120 MWh of storage that forms part of the Solar River Project, the size of which could eventually double.

A research team has conducted a demonstration of the economic feasibility of battery-assisted, low-cost hydrogen production from solar. The scientists claim their system will mean hydrogen could be produced for $0.15-0.25 per cubic meter in 2030.

Only three months after issuing the project tender, the Dubai Water and Electricity Authority is building the plant with the support of Expo 2020 Dubai and Siemens.

The acquisition of a 4.8 MW solar plant in the Kyoto prefecture and creation of a joint venture with Japanese storage specialist Exergy are part of the group’s 2020 plan to diversify its business into renewables and acquire 1 GW of capacity in them.

Federal and state governments need to do a whole lot more to help the transition to electric vehicles, says the senate, after poll results indicated strong popular backing for the switch from fossil fuel transport.

An article published in the FT this week was right to point out that pricing new energy capacity involves more than just comparing strike prices, but if you are in the business of calculating real costs, do it properly. For nuclear in particular, that’s a case of ‘in for a penny, in for (several) pounds’.