Utility Scale Storage

Pairing solar plants with battery energy storage systems (BESS) will be the main strategic focus for the country’s upcoming renewable energy auction. Each project must have a minimum storage duration of four hours to ensure sufficient grid support and energy reliability.

Norway’s Scatec Asa has signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Egypt Aluminium for a 1.1 GW solar plant with 100 MW/200 MWh of battery energy storage. The agreement has been billed as Egypt’s first utility-scale PPA with an industrial offtaker.

The administrative provisions regulating the integration of EES into the National Electric System are in effect as of Monday. The incorporation of 8,412 MW of EES is planned for the 2024-2038 fiscal year.

Out of 6.9 GW of prequalified battery energy storage systems (BESS), equal to 1.9 GW derated capacity, about 1.8 GW of derated BESS secured 15-year contracts in the UK’s T-4 auction – nearly double last year’s volume. Just a week earlier, the T-1 auction also set a record for BESS procurement.

Most studies of European 100% renewable energy overlook pumped-hydro energy storage (PHES), for the following, incorrect, reasons: there are few PHES sites; more dams on rivers are required; large areas of land are flooded; large amounts of water are required; there is a heavy environmental cost; and the capital cost of PHES is high. All these perceptions are wrong.

Scientists in China have simulated a system that combines liquid-based direct air capture with diabatic compressed air energy storage, for the benefit of both processes. Exploring its economic feasibility, they found the system could achieve a levelized cost of energy of $0.53/kWh and a levelized cost of CO2 captured from air of $259/tCO2.

Beita Pharmatech and Northwest Normal University have develop a carbon-14 nuclear battery encased in silicon carbide, offering unprecedented longevity and application potential.

Long duration energy storage (LDES) support scheme will have eight-hour minimum. First application round opens to well-established technologies, such as lithium-ion battery technology, with at least 100 MW capacity in April 2025. Flow batteries, compressed air, and liquid air likely to progress in second round, says regulator.

Hyundai Motor says it plans to build its first hydrogen fuel cell systems plant in South Korea by 2028, pending union consultations, expanding beyond its existing facility in China.

Electricity generated by water moving across a surface can be 10 times more powerful than previously thought, according to Australian researchers who say their finding could boost energy storage and charging rates and improve safety in fuel-holding systems.