Utility company RWE has begun marketing a tech solution through which data centres, which already integrate batteries for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, can use their UPS to “help stabilise the grid”.
In this article, experts at consultancy Apricum examine with some simple “reverse engineering” how recent low solar-plus-storage PPAs in the USA were achieved, yet another example of the competitiveness of energy storage and new market opportunities emerging via storage-plus-renewables projects.
ZAF Energy Systems, a maker of nickel-zinc (NiZn) batteries which in 2019 claimed a “breakthrough in cycle life” has netted a contract to outfit a data centre in the Southern US for integrator Capitol Power Group (CPG).
Grid-connected energy storage deployments have enjoyed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 74% worldwide in the years 2013 to 2018, with a “boom” in deployment figures expected over the next five years, analysis firm Wood Mackenzie has said.
Microgrids are about more than novel off-grid systems. They could be the building blocks of the future, flexible, intelligent electricity network. S&C Electric discusses how one early project is helping prove the point.
Misconceptions over the true value of energy storage are developing because of a “narrow focus” on the initial costs of the technology, a report has concluded.
