A 50MW / 75MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Western Sydney, Australia, will receive AU$21.5 million (US$15.35 million) in assistance from the federal and state governments towards its total cost of AU$61.9 million.

The first phase of a 1,000MW behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP) is expected to begin deployment in Australia as soon as the state of Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown is over.

The locations for three ‘community battery’ projects have been announced by Australian electricity distribution company Ausgrid, set to be deployed next year.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage: this edition rounds up some recent big solar-plus-storage stories from sister site PV Tech.

Pumped hydro project, Oven Mountain, has been declared to be Critical State Significant Infrastructure by the NSW Government.

Energy Renaissance’s AU$28 million lithium-ion battery factory is to be located in Tomago in the Hunter region of Australia.

Mobile energy solutions provider Aggreko has completed one of the largest renewable energy microgrids in the world, at the Granny Smith gold mine in Western Australia.

North America is currently leading the world for utility-scale energy storage deployments, but could be overtaken by the second-largest market, the Asia-Pacific region, as early as 2023, according to forecasting and analysis by Guidehouse Insights.

The government of Western Australia has issued a Request for Information (ROI) for parties interested in working on a 100MW / 200MWh battery energy storage project at the site of a decommissioned power station.

The past few days have seen various announcements across the lithium-ion battery production value chain in Europe, Australia and the US.