Hitachi ABB Power Grids will supply battery energy storage and smart controls to Singapore’s first virtual power plant (VPP), on a project aimed at validating methods for integrating more renewable energy onto the city-state’s electricity networks.
CEP. Energy, a specialist renewable energy fund company in Australia, has just announced the largest proposed grid-scale battery project in the world so far, with up to 1,200MW rated output.
New ways to increase the numbers of people that can benefit from battery storage are being tried out in Melbourne, Australia, by one of the city’s electricity distribution network owners, in partnership with an energy non-profit.
Key to the rapid success and growth of the energy storage industry in the US, China and other maturing markets has been the presence of a small number of system integrators. IHS Markit association director Julian Jansen examines what it is that system integrators do that makes them so vital to the industry and why the future ahead looks to be one characterised by growth, competition and consolidation.
Despite the fall in unit prices for energy storage, a total of US$3.6 billion of investment was committed to energy storage projects in 2020, around the same amount as in 2019.
Renewable energy uptake and the falling costs of battery energy storage are “inexorably linked” as the global economy faces a crucial decade ahead in its urgent need to decarbonise, according to work by McKinsey & Company.
The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the world’s leading centre of lithium-ion cell manufacturing for the next decade, but it won’t just be price reductions in batteries that will drive a 30% drop in front-of-meter battery storage in key markets China, Australia and South Korea.
