Utility Scale Storage

Fortescue Metals Group Chairman Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest returned to Western Australia last week after a four-month worldwide search for green energy projects and resources. One of the deals secured on the trip was a circular green hydrogen partnership with South Korean steelmaker Posco.

The battery will serve the industrial precinct of Newcastle in the Australian state of New South Wales. It will not be directly linked to solar or wind generation but will be intended to charge and discharge directly from the grid in response to disturbances or market signals.

State-owned utility ESB is working with energy storage solution company Fluence and EPC service providers Powercomm Group and Kirby Group on its first battery projects in Ireland.

Researchers have just under four weeks to apply for backing for their projects, in areas including battery reuse and recycling, circular manufacturing and supercapacitors.

A proposed 400 MW pumped-hydro storage project is on track to become the first of its kind in more than three decades in Queensland, Australia. GE Renewable Energy is backing the plan.

A European research team has investigated the implications of renewable energy intermittency on capital utilization across a future electricity-hydrogen system, including transmission and storage infrastructure. According to its findings, idle capacity substantially increases the system costs and limits wind and solar development.

Redflow CEO, Tim Harris, is confident the company’s Gen3 flow battery will go into production in the first half of this year, once the results from its customer trial are evaluated.

In an interview with pv magazine, Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, explains how international hydrogen strategies may play out in the upcoming decades. Plans and roadmaps will not be enough to turn a hydrogen economy into reality and its success will depend on becoming cost-competitive vis-à-vis other solutions in several areas, he says.

Australian researchers have identified more than 600,000 sites suitable for closed-loop pumped-hydro energy storage projects across the globe. “Off-river” pumped-hydro is not only able to overcome the typical topographical issues of conventional pumped-hydro but is also cheaper.

Scientists in the United States claim that further research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of kinetic stabilization strategies to increase cell voltage in redox flow batteries and bring them closer to commercial viability.