Utility Scale Storage

Vattenfall and Siemens Energy are building an 8MW heat pump for district heating applications in Berlin. The facility will be powered by wind and solar via the electrical grid and will provide heating and cooling to the local district heating network.

Western Australian company Global Energy Ventures has had several permissions granted for its 2.8GW green hydrogen export project on the Tiwi Islands, off the coast of the Northern Territory, including potentially increasing the acreage for its proposed solar farm.

The developer last year sold off 2.9GW of solar generation capacity to state-owned entities to reduce its debt pile by $1.76 billion and has another 298MW up for sale as it repeated its intent to switch to blue, and later, green hydrogen.

The hybrid facility is planned to be built in central Portugal. It will consist of a 365MW PV unit, a 264MW wind farm, and 168MW of battery storage. It will also be connected to a 500kW electrolyzer that will be fed with surplus power that cannot be stored by the batteries.

Researchers from The University of Queensland have developed a new nanotechnology that purportedly more than doubles the lifespan of high-voltage lithium-ion batteries, paving the way for higher density and lower-cost energy storage solutions.

Alliander and Groenleven have completed construction on the Netherlands’ first green hydrogen production facility. It is connected to a 50MW solar park and is expected to generate hydrogen from June.

Japanese automaker Toyota has used its hydrogen tank tech in a new module to expand hydrogen storage to railways, shipping facilities, cargo ports, and fuel cell generators. Its 70MPa tank has a storage capacity of 2.7 kg to 18.7 kg and a tank mass ranging from 43.0 kg to 243.8 kg, depending on the size.

NREL researchers work on developing high energy density cells to advance stationary storage.

China presented on Mar. 23 its first long-term plan for hydrogen, targeting production of green hydrogen between 100,000 and 200,000 tonnes per year by 2025, while India and Japan have agreed to expand the scope of their energy collaboration to cover solar power, clean hydrogen, electric vehicles, and battery storage. Furthermore, French gas giant Air Liquide said it want to increase research investments in hydrogen mobility and heavy-duty mobility and German electrolyzer manufacturer Sunfire raised a total of €86 million to expand its manufacturing capacity.

Wood Mackenzie estimates that the US energy storage market broke records in Q4 2021, installing 1,613MW / 4727 MWh.