Power electronics giant Hitachi has acquired ABB’s power grids business in an US$11 billion (£8.7 billion) deal which cements its position in the energy solutions sector.
Residential PV system owners who signed up to Japan’s feed-in tariff policy for 10-year contracts, that will soon expire, may be able to find new ways to benefit from their solar using battery storage.
Kokam has been awarded contracts to deliver 40MWh of battery energy storage at solar power plants in South Korea, including its newest High Energy Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (HE NMC) batteries.
Energy Vault, a Swiss maker of energy storage systems based around gravity, has made its technology commercially available, with India’s Tata Power expected to be the first customer.
A ceremony was held yesterday in Niedersachsen, Germany, to welcome the start of operations at a ‘hybrid’ energy storage plant that will use a combination of sodium-sulfur and lithium-ion batteries to stabilise the grid.
Vanadium redox flow battery maker VRB Energy has begun commissioning a 3MW / 12MWh energy storage system project in Hubei, China, which is expected to help serve as a demonstrator for much larger projects to come.
South Korea’s government is planning for 100MW of battery storage as part of a nearly 3GW hub of solar PV and wind on reclaimed land in Saemangeum, which is an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
As well as Elon Musk remarking that the company may have had its “best ever quarter” for solar since the SolarCity takeover, Tesla’s energy storage deployments have enjoyed a ramp up, while a fellow exec hinted the stationary battery business is constrained by cell supply.
As Japan’s heavily regulated energy markets continue a process of liberalisation and supposedly increasing consumer choices, utility TEPCO has launched a smart electricity tariff enabled by the capabilities of residential battery storage.
