Emphasis has been placed once again on the importance of developing domestic battery supply chains for electric vehicles and energy storage by the administration of US President Joe Biden, with the country currently highly dependent on imports.
The first pilot deployment of a large-scale electrochemical energy storage system (ESS) has been completed in the Ukraine, less than a year after system supply contracts were signed.
Large-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) systems which can store and discharge energy for up to six hours are being planned in Spain by technology provider Highview Power.
Germany’s second ‘Innovation Tender’ for clean energy projects combining different technologies has awarded 258MW of capacity to solar-plus-storage across 18 bids.
Europe’s cumulative electrochemical energy storage installation capacity has gone past the 5GWh mark and this year is likely to see installations almost double from 2020’s figures.
Europe is on course to become the world’s second-largest lithium-ion battery cell producing region by 2025, although some key challenges need to be addressed, a European Commission vice-president has said.
The success of an auction for fast reserve grid services held by Italy’s transmission system operator (TSO) indicates a strong appetite for battery storage, but market rules and regulations need some revision to capture that opportunity.
The European Union (EU) looks set to introduce the “most extensive product legislation in the world for batteries,” but its potential shortcomings include the risk that battery prices could go up and that established manufacturers from Asia might be better positioned to benefit from the rules than the new European value chain.
A €105 million (US$127.6 million) push to develop low-cost, environmentally-friendly lithium-ion battery technology by Sunlight, a designer and manufacturer of batteries headquartered in Greece, will receive €49.9 million in grant funding.
