Portugal has selected 43 winning BESS projects for a share of €100 million (US$105 million) in EU grants while, on the other side of Europe, Moldova has launched a 75MW BESS procurement with funding from USAID.

A flurry of grid-scale energy storage news from Europe, with large-scale projects progressed in Kosovo, Switzerland and Croatia involving Millenium Challenge Corporation, Intilion and NGEN respectively.

A consortium of development finance institutions led by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and IPP Gulf Energy have signed a US$820 million loan agreement for a solar and storage portfolio in Thailand.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) multilateral finance institution has approved a loan to upgrade Sri Lanka’s grid infrastructure.

The Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan has signed an Implementation Agreement (IA) with ACWA Power for battery energy storage system (BESS) projects.

India Grid Trust (IndiGrid) and development finance institutions from Great Britain and Norway have launched a transmission and battery storage development platform.

ACWA Power has agreed to deploy wind energy and battery capacity to help power what is claimed will be the Middle East and Africa region’s ‘first battery gigafactory.’

Recurrent Energy is seeking a loan from financial institution North American Development Bank (NADBank) to fund the construction of a 100MW/200MWh standalone battery storage facility located in Maverick County, Texas.

World Bank Group has approved plans to develop Botswana’s first utility-scale battery energy storage system with a capacity of 50MW/200MWh.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide up to US$229.4 million to ACWA Power to develop a 200MW/500MWh solar-plus-storage project in Uzbekistan.