Energy Storage

The planned storage capacity will come from 20 projects selected by Italian grid operator Terna through the latest capacity market auction. Half of them will be located on the island of Sardinia.

Madagascar-based Filatex has invested €10 million in French flywheel storage system manufacturer Energiestro. The two companies are planning to deploy Energiestro’s flywheel storage solutions across Madagascar and Mauritius

The EU’s executive body will supply €10 million to the European Battery Academy program launched in Brussels yesterday which aims to train the 800,000 battery workforce it has been estimated will be required in three years’ time.

Australian technology company Lavo’s innovative energy storage system – based on storing green hydrogen in a patented metal hydride – has attracted the attention of the UK government which has provided financial backing to allow for a demonstration facility to be installed in England’s northwest.

British start-up Gravitricity secured funds from the UK Department of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to build its second gravity-based storage project. The feasibility study is expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

The geothermal field beneath California’s Salton Sea contains brine that may hold from one to six million metric tons of lithium, an essential element for producing batteries. A Berkeley Lab study aims to evaluate the resource.

The 40MW/60MWh Alaminos Energy Storage system is now connected to the 120MW Alaminos solar park. Both facilities were built by renewable energy developer AC Energy.

Conceived by scientists in China, the battery was built with a special hydrogel electrolyte made of polyacrylamide (PAM), zinc sulfate (ZnSO4), glycerol (GL), and acetonitrile (AN). The device showed high cycling stability of over 3,000 cycles, a high reversibility thanks to a Coulombic efficiency of up to 99.5%, and electrochemical performance of 185 mAh·g over 10,000 cycles.

The complex will combine a 50MW photovoltaic plant with 128MWh of long-term green hydrogen storage and batteries. The solar part is described by the company as an agrivoltaic plant that will host a herd of 1,830 sheep.

Production for the HyDeal project is planned to start in 2025; the total installed capacity is expected to reach 9.5 GW of solar power and 7.4 GW of electrolyzers by 2030. Elsewhere in the world, India and Brazil are preparing rules and laws to promote green hydrogen, while research activities continue to increase hydrogen fuel cell’s efficiency and hydrogen’s use in the aviation sector.