Grids & Integration

New Zealand will connect 3,000 home battery systems to the national grid to provide demand response services. The government has also set up a US$69 million finance company to accelerate investment in distributed energy generation and electric vehicles as part of its 2050 carbon neutral goals.

The funds, provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will help utility NEPCO repay short-term debt, as well as financing expansion of the grid’s capability to increase the share of solar and other renewable energy.

The UK energy technology company said the new contract will provide 120 MW of solar generation through its Limejump Virtual Power Platform. The energy bought from NextEnergy Solar Fund will then be traded on the national grid.

Curtailment issues will prompt Chinese government to focus on new project development in the urban east, to reduce power losses. The central authorities also want to ramp up the electricity trading market and peak shaving technology.

With a new decree, the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has enabled the owners of residential, commercial and industrial rooftop PV systems to sell excess power to the grid. The government hopes the new provisions will result in around 1 GW of deployed PV capacity over the next three years. Doubts, however, have been raised about the attractiveness of the scheme.

Solar PV, battery storage and artificial intelligence systems are at the core of a new utility model presented yesterday in London. pv magazine attended the launch event.

The storage system company, in which Solaredge recently acquired a majority share, has said it will commission two large storage systems in South Korea before the end of the year. The market looks somewhat promising according to recent government initiatives, like the ‘Renewable Energy 3020’ plan and a 3 GW solar park on reclaimed land.

Power market regulator favors a flat rate fee for electricity consumers to fund the cost of making the U.K. grid fit for the energy transition. Solar lobbyists say that will unfairly penalize households and businesses who have invested in on-site generation.

A new report from U.S. based Rocky Mountain Institute outlines the potential for minigrid deployment to provide electricity to underserved communities around the world, to the benefit of utility companies, minigrid developers and communities. The report takes examples from Nigeria to illustrate this potential, but states that many of its findings could be applied to communities with limited or no access to electricity around the world.

Having closed a green electricity supply deal, changing its stadium lighting to LED and recycling 80% of matchday waste to power its turf, the football club has now unveiled the first 2 MW stage of a 3 MW storage system to slash peak load at the Emirates Stadium.