Energy Storage

Six large-scale solar plants colocated with battery energy storage systems should be delivered by mid 2028.

Powerchina has switched on a 100 MW solar tower in South Africa. The concentrated solar power (CSP) project will supply 480 GWh of clean energy to the country’s power grid each year. The system’s molten salt storage enables 12 hours of full-load operation.

The Italian manufacturer said the its new polyvalent reversible heat pump has a seasonal coefficient of performance of 4.44 to 4.59 and a seasonal energy efficiency ratio of 7.72 to 7.53. It can reportedly achieve a flow temperature of up to 55 C.

Scientists in Spain have created a semi-online technique to predict solar irradiance at different locations inside a photovoltaic plant. The proposed training approach is described as suitable for highly variable time series forecasting.

China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) has launched a new 376 kW/752 kWh product expanding its TENER energy storage series in response to logistics and geospatial challenges facing energy storage products in Europe. The new solution integrates with both string and central inverters, meeting the needs of both large-scale commericial and industrial as well as distributed generation applications.

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) is developing “easy-to-use and reproducible” propane heat pumps to replace fossil fuel systems in multi-family homes, while exploring modernization options for various residential building types.

An international research term investigated the feasibility of converting solar energy into chemical energy with the design of a hybrid device featuring a solar energy storage and cooling layer integrated with a silicon-based solar cell. Under testing, the device recorded a record energy storage efficiency and decreased the cell’s surface temperature by approximately 8 C under standard solar irradiation conditions.

NHPC Ltd. has launched a tender to select developers for 1.2 GW of grid-connected solar projects with energy storage systems (ESS). It also includes an option for up to 1.2 GW of additional PV capacity with ESS.

The all-vanadium liquid flow industrial park project is taking shape in the Baotou city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China, backed by a CNY 11.5 billion ($1.63 billion) investment. Meanwhile, China’s largest vanadium flow electrolyte base is planned in the city of Panzhihua, in the Sichuan province.

China’s Trina Solar has submitted plans to build 660 MW/2,640 battery storage facility at Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth, Western Australia.