Utility Scale Storage

The Rural Areas Electricity Company wants to build hybrid plants in 11 non-interconnected areas of the sultanate. The projects will have a total of 48 MW of solar power generation capacity and 70 MW of diesel and the storage component will have total installed power of 28 MW and a storage capacity of 14 MWh.

The Swiss battery maker Leclanché will build a 35.6 MW / 44.2 MWh solar-plus-storage power plant, which will provide with clean power state-owned St.Kitts electric utility Skelec over a 20-year period. The new facility will be able to cover around a fourth of the archipelago’s total electricity demand.

French renewables developer Neoen has won development approval from the South Australian government for a major renewable energy project, with 125 MW of wind, 150 MW of solar PV and 130 MW/400 MWh of lithium-ion battery storage. The project could also include up to 50 MW of on-site hydrogen production capability.

Australian renewables developer Windlab has connected and energized its landmark energy park in northern Queensland, comprising 43 MW of wind, 18 MW of solar and a 4 MWh battery.

Railway operators can now feasibly connect solar plants to traction substations, claims a consortium that is now working on a similar demonstration project in the U.K. Almost all of the 30 kW installation’s output will be used to move trains, but in the future storage could come into the picture for larger “railway-connected” solar power projects, says 10:10, the U.K.-based climate change charity that developed the pilot.

The analyst has published its latest Energy Storage Outlook report and says large scale deployment will provide the majority of the 1,095 GW/2,850 GWh of battery storage worldwide in 2040, with prices driven down further by grid services demand and EVs.

The scheme will test the potential of distributed energy resources such as rooftop systems, battery storage and controllable load devices aggregated into VPPs to provide scalable energy and network services traditionally performed by large scale, conventional electricity generators. With registration open, the Australian Energy Market Operator wants VPPs to register to accelerate shared learning.

As renewable energy development is ramped up to address the climate crisis, negative side-effects should be avoided, especially when technology and resources could maximize the benefits. ‘Techno-ecological’ crossovers could ensure win-win outcomes for solar development and ecosystem and biodiversity conservation.

After it deployed a record $1.3 billion into the clean energy sector in a 12-month period, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation said it will sharpen its focus on energy storage and other technologies to support the stability of the national grid.

The Palo Alto company says it has improved its large scale battery offering with the new product in the wake of the success of its Powerpack-driven big battery in Australia. The Megapack can be deployed at a 250 MW/1 GWh clean energy plant four times faster than a fossil fuel alternative, claimed the business in a blogpost.