Battery storage

Irish energy-management specialist Eaton and Enico, a Finnish provider of modular storage systems, have agreed to jointly launch xStorage Container, an easily deployable storage solution that minimizes the internal footprint of buildings. The new offering was specifically designed for commercial and industrial self-consumption power projects.

The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development will support half a dozen megawatt scale projects featuring solar in the Caribbean and Africa. In addition to around 42.5 MW of new solar capacity, the fund will also back the development of energy storage, waste-to-energy and biogas facilities.

Storage has long been expected to be the handmaiden of a renewable energy world and its long awaited advances started to finally emerge in the third quarter as researchers posited R&D achievements ranging from potentially potent tungsten disulfide nanotubes to the business case for 10-year solar panels.

With almost a decade having passed since electric vehicles hit public roads, the price of battery packs has dropped 87% since 2010, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. With rising efficiency and evolving supply chains, the market research group suggests cumulative demand will bring prices down to parity with internal combustion engine vehicles by 2024.

Ofgem passed its long-awaited, controversial plan for network charges last week, despite earlier warnings against the move. The UK electricity market regulator’s Targeted Charging Review has provoked a backlash in the renewables sector, as many believe that the plan will damage the economics of distributed energy resources and unsubsidized onshore wind and solar development.

The U.K. government was the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050. But to achieve this ambition is going to take some major changes – not least of which to the U.K.’s power network.

The investment manager is now Europe’s largest renewable energy fund. The €1.3 billion group already has a 1.8 GW generation portfolio.

The French energy giant has acquired U.K. start-up Pivot Power, which has a 2 GW pipeline of storage projects in Britain.

Although PV trails wind and nuclear in terms of its anticipated future footprint, the opposition party’s attempt to outflank left of center rivals on climate change has resulted in one of the world’s most ambitious national roadmaps towards a zero-carbon future.

New company NGEN appears to have introduced the Powerpack battery to central Europe in a €15 million, 12.6 MW/22.6 MWh project in the northwest of the country which is the first of two planned utility scale systems due for completion by July.