Australian energy firm Genex Power has received first-round board approval from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) for potential debt funding of its 270MW solar PV and 250MW pumped hydro projects, that are part of the Kidston Renewable Energy Hub, in Northern Queensland.

Tesla’s senior director of battery technology since 2006 has quit the company seeking pastures new, a company spokeswoman confirmed this morning.

Australia’s defence minister has welcomed the start of work on a solar-plus-energy storage microgrid at a military base in Perth by developer Carnegie Clean Energy.

What is claimed to be the UK’s largest stand-alone battery storage facility has been successfully commissioned by Hazel Capital as the investor continues to build its energy storage project portfolio.

Interest in energy storage in the Middle East is ‘ramping up significantly’, as we reported last week in an extract from this interview with IHS Markit analyst Julian Jansen. His firm is forecasting 1.8GW of energy storage for the region by 2025 – from an installed base of next-to-nothing today. Jansen talked us through some of the drivers, market dynamics and the general picture of what we might see developing.

There is increasing high-level interest in the potential for energy storage in the Middle East, with grid-connected systems forecast to reach 1.8GW in the region by 2025, according to I.H.S Markit.

Swiss battery maker Leclanché could apply for listing on a US stock exchange and is targeting the acquisition of an “energy management storage software company”, despite emerging from a recent period of “technical insolvency”.

The UK government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has incurred the wrath of battery storage asset owners by proposing significant changes to how their generation classes are derated within the Capacity Market (CM).

Earlier this week the UK government and energy regulator Ofgem published a strategy for a modernised, smart and flexible power system, the result of an eagerly anticipated response to last year’s Smart Power Call for Evidence. Liam Stoker takes a deep dive to examine the implications for solar and energy storage of this major undertaking.

The amount of energy storage investment that came from VC (venture capital) funding more than doubled in the first half of 2017 compared to last year, a new report has found.