Grids & Integration

54% of respondents cited “energy availability and redundancy” as the single greatest obstacle to successful data center development between now and 2030.

Renewables and storage could reliably power data centers, but success requires active grids, coordinated planning, and the right mix of technologies. Hitachi Energy CTO, Gerhard Salge, tells pv magazine that holistic approaches ensure technical feasibility, economic viability, and energy system resilience.

Sungrow is introducing its large-scale energy storage system, PowerTitan 3.0, to Europe, featuring grid-forming capability, next-generation battery cells, DC coupling for co-located solar projects, and streamlined commissioning to accelerate deployment.

During testing at Estonia’s 100 MW Kiisa battery park, both EstLink 1 and EstLink 2 tripped, triggering the most severe disturbance to the regional power grid since desynchronization from the Russian electricity system. As a result, nearly 1 GW of capacity was lost within seconds. The park’s owner has since publicly pointed to the battery manufacturer.

The Dutch start-up, founded by former Tesla leaders, is taking a novel approach to sodium-ion battery technology, optimizing it for integration with solar power plants. Its technology is set to be deployed for the first time in a Dutch solar-plus-storage project later this year.

Envision Energy has launched a fully integrated energy storage solution combining hardware, software, and market-facing AI to optimize performance, safety, and trading. Its “Physical AI” platform embeds intelligence across cells, systems, and operations, enabling predictive maintenance and real-time market participation.

A report by energy think tank Ember finds India’s system operator regularly had to curtail solar generation as an emergency measure to maintain grid security, as other resources were already flexing to their maximum capabilities.

New documents reveal US government found only two cases of communications in Chinese inverters that differed from official documentation. The discrepancies were deemed “non-malicious” and “non-intentional” by investigators.

Researchers have studied the potential of combining photovoltaic systems with compressed air energy storage (CAES) to power a commercial building in South Africa. They found that a co-optimized system could lower total capital costs by 15–20% compared to traditional sequential sizing approaches.

A report from McKinsey and Company says the relative ease of building out solar projects means the U.S and Europe are likely to meet their end-of-decade deployment targets, despite current pipeline gaps of around 205 GW and 181 GW.