Utility Scale Storage

The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has determined that Antora Energy’s solar-plus-storage system meets the US military’s stringent standards, as it significantly outperforms emergency diesel generators in survivability probabilities.

South Korea researchers have developed a cell by merging green algae with carbon nanofibers, in order to generate 9.5 W per cell and achieve a peak efficiency of 0.9%. They claim this is enough to power a micro-generation system for hydrogen production.

The latest edition of China’s SNEC Energy Storage & H2 event showed an impressive range of new products and technology. pv magazine was there to check out the most interesting solutions.

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have developed a quasi-solid-state magnesium-ion battery with a voltage plateau at 2.4 V and an energy density of 264 Wh/kg. It surpasses the performance of current magnesium-ion batteries and almost matches the performance of lithium-ion batteries.

Province Resources, which is developing an 8 GW green hydrogen project in Western Australia, has secured additional state licences for more than 600,000 hectares of land, as well as over 864 hectares of the seabed near Carnarvon.

Air Products has announced plans for Europe’s largest blue hydrogen production plant, while RAG Austria says it has commissioned “the world’s first 100% hydrogen storage facility in a porous underground reservoir.”

Plans to connect around 10 GW of battery energy storage projects in England and Wales are now in the fast lane. This comes on top of 10 GW of capacity unlocked at distribution level, including shovel-ready solar farms, onshore wind, and battery storage projects.

NTPC, an Indian state-run power producer, recently tendered 3 GW of renewable storage and an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package for 630 MW of solar projects.

Portuguese police today raided the residence of the country’s Prime Minister, António Costa, as part of a corruption probe involving lithium and hydrogen. Ministers of Climate Action and Infrastructure, Duarte Cordeiro and João Pedro Matos Fernández, have also been declared formal suspects.

As the cost of generating clean energy continues to fall, producing green hydrogen in Europe, rather than importing it from Africa – with all the transport costs and raised carbon footprint that would entail – is beginning to look like an increasingly viable option.