While the performance of lithium batteries has increased tremendously, there’s still room for improvement to lower cost, increase sustainability and maximise their impact on decarbonisation, says Marcos Ierides, consultant and materials expert at innovation consultancy Bax & Company.

Sungrow is to partner with Huanghe Hydropower, providing PV inverter and energy storage systems for a major solar-plus-storage project in Qinghai Province, China.

The cost of battery energy storage has continued on its trajectory downwards and now stands at US$150 per megawatt-hour for battery storage with four hours’ discharge duration, making it more and more competitive with fossil fuels. Andy Colthorpe spoke to Tifenn Brandily, lead author of BloombergNEF’s latest LCOE report.

Solar Media’s Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe discuss the continuing effects of COVID-19 on worldwide power markets, reflecting on IEA forecasts for historic energy demand lows and what they mean for renewables.

The levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) that can be achieved today for battery energy storage means that “new-build batteries can be competitive on cost with gas peaker plants,” according to BloombergNEF.

The International Flow Battery Forum is taking place this week and long-time organiser, Anthony Price of consultancy Swanbarton, wrote to Energy-Storage.news with some of his views on the market and a snapshot of where development currently lies.

Standalone energy storage can challenge new gas peaker plants as a “mainstream” option in the US right now, Fluence has said.

While the relationship between renewable energy and energy storage is a close one, combining storage with natural gas is also an important stepping stone measure in the transition to 100% renewables, Energy-Storage.news has heard.

Advisory and certification house DNV GL is supporting Turkish plans to source 30% of total electricity generated in the country from renewable sources, carrying out a feasibility study for combinations of solar PV and energy storage.

Voltstorage, a German company founded in Munich in 2016, is launching a vanadium-redox-flow (VRF) energy storage system aimed at the residential market.