Utility Scale Storage

The remarkable results of what is already being called a ‘historic’ 2022 federal election have put Australia “back on the map” in the eyes of big low-carbon investors.

The Heysham site is intended to reduce curtailment from half a dozen offshore wind farms and to replace local grid services which will be lost when two nearby nuclear reactors are powered down.

The inverter and battery manufacturer says its new Sella 2 factory will produce cells for its residential solar-plus-battery products as well as for other applications.

Green Gravity, a startup proposing to use old mine shafts for gravitational energy storage, has secured AUD 1.4 million ($990,000) in its first formal capital raise.

Having warned of in-house solar wafer and cell capacity as recently as the third quarter of 2021, the company has announced it will be adding even more production lines this year.

Shell plans to construct a 50 MW solar park and a 50 MW wind farm in the Netherlands. It said the two installations will share the same connection point.

In other news, Shinshu University researchers developed a graphene-wrapped molecular-sieving membrane that is reportedly 100 times more efficient than that of conventional polymer separation membranes. Topsoe aalso nnounced the construction of the “world’s largest electrolyzer production facility,” and Toho Gas said it would produce blue hydrogen in Japan for local consumption.

NYSE-listed iron flow battery specialist ESS is expanding into Europe to meet demand for long-duration energy storage. It has already bagged its first order in Spain, with local manufacturing in the cards.

Startup Morrow Batteries has raised €100 million ($105.9 million) in a funding round led by Siemens and ABB. It will use the money to build its first battery cell factory in Norway, its home market.

MSE international and its partners have concluded the feasibility study for an organic large-scale flow battery project in Portsmouth, England. The 650 kW/6.1 MWh project might end up having have a lower levelized cost of electricity than lithium-ion or vanadium redox flow batteries.