Energy Storage

The New Zealand government will investigate the viability of establishing a pumped hydroelectric facility on the South Island. The project could provide up to 8.5 TWh of annual generation and storage capacity to support the nation’s transition to 100% renewable electricity generation.

Swiss researchers have looked at whether storage could be cheaper than curtailment in medium-voltage distribution networks with significant amounts of PV capacity. They considered storage costs, operational costs, grid constraints, electricity costs, PV generation models, and loads.

Bureau Veritas tells pv magazine that there is a great deal of interest in hydrogen certification schemes in Europe, Australia, the United States, and the Middle East.

Relectrify, an Australian battery technology startup, has secured approval from the International Electrotechnical Commission for its ReVolve energy storage product, which opens the way for it to globally scale up its cell-level control tech.

Australian materials tech developer Kinaltek has unveiled a one-step production process that it says can convert common silica powders into battery-grade nanosilicon for less than 5% of the cost of existing technologies. The innovation paves the way for the use of silicon nanoparticles in high-performance lithium-ion batteries.

Germany’s AEG is selling two versions of its new high-voltage residential batteries, with nominal capacities of 10 kWh and 15 kWh. They come with a 10-year warranty and reportedly have a lifecycle of more than 6,000 cycles.

Synergy, a utility owned by the Western Australian government, has revealed plans to build a new 200 MW/800 MWh battery energy storage system in the city of Kwinana, in order to support the state’s main grid and enable the uptake of more renewables.

Zendure’s SolarFlow batteries have capacities of 960 Wh and can be stacked up to 3,849 Wh. The US manufacturer wants to begin selling the plug-and-play systems in April.

A flat year for solar installation numbers in Japan could be seen as positive in a nation switching to new PV business models, writes Izumi Kaizuka, director of research for Japanese solar consultancy RTS Corp.

Italy hit 959 MW/1,826 MWh of distributed storage capacity at the end of 2022. The segment continues to grow in the country, led by the regions of Lombardy and Veneto.