smart charging

Almost every weekend since Easter, European generators have been paid to power down plants but some Northern European nations are experiencing record electricity prices. An energy system set up for fossil fuels is in urgent need of reform, according to Gerard Reid, co-founder and partner of Alexa Capital.

A report published today states the British grid needs to become more flexible at a faster pace to stay on track for a net-zero 2050 and called for time-of-use electricity tariffs and for the government to stop dragging its heels on issues such as EV charging.

The NewMotion electric vehicle (EV) charging business owned by Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell has become the first such entity to obtain a licence to provide grid balancing services in the Netherlands. Dutch grid company Tennet has licensed NewMotion to provide megawatt-scale balancing services to maintain grid frequency at 50 Hz by varying the rate at […]

A study into the clean energy tech innovation rate required to keep global heating under control may suggest concepts such as lithium-air could yet keep us to the mid-century ambition, but it is also starting to contemplate the temperature rise to be expected if we only achieve net-zero by 2070.

The EU appears poised to roll out battery storage capacity to provide flexibility to systems with more variable renewables. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy has also noted policies that must be addressed to establish a level playing field for storage.

Britain’s renewable energy trade body has published a report examining the state of flexibility market readiness in nine European markets. The result makes for sobering reading for Germany, France and the U.K.

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

Vehicle-to-grid functions could soon become increasingly important. While policymakers discuss the necessary regulations in other nations, the Netherlands government is motoring ahead with the technology.

With EV sales continuing their climb, and overall carbon emissions targets getting more ambitious, stakeholders in the energy system will need to consider flexibility options from, among other points, EV charging. A large distribution system operator in the U.K. is now examining the options to remunerate customers for adapting their EV charging patterns to load profiles of the grid. If successful, the exercise may help mitigate grid infrastructure expansion costs.

The Japanese government has issued a policy to reduce 80% of vehicle-related emissions, but high-power charging facilities for e-buses should also be aligned with distributed PV generation. Kyocera is now optimizing its virtual power plant technologies for this use case.