Lithium batteries have definitely changed the game for the energy transition, but require smart technologies and strategies to optimise them — which can be equally important.

Energy storage is a key enabler of net zero emissions in the UK, but some unresolved challenges still make it a complex sector to navigate, as Antonia Silvestri and Gary Roscoe, partners at law firm TLT, explain.

GridBeyond is to optimise Greencoat Renewables’s first energy storage project. This 10.8MW front-of-the-meter battery is co-located with the Killala Community Wind Farm in Tawnaghmore Upper, Ireland and is expected to be online early next year.

generated by its portfolio soar to £22.4 million (US$30.53 million) in the first half of this year, jumping from £4.5 million in H1 2020

London Stock Exchange-listed solar PV investor NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) has signed a £100 million (US$136.8 million) Joint Venture Partnership (JVP) with battery storage specialist Eelpower.

A new 50MW battery storage site in the UK will be another example of how batteries are benefiting the grid and offering returns for investors, the company behind the project has said. 

As energy system modernisation and decarbonisation progresses, energy storage could represent between 10% and 25% of India’s total installed power capacity by 2050, while other countries in South Asia including Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan also have “significant opportunities” for energy storage.

There’s still a disconnect between what’s achievable and what is actually being achieved in the drive to decarbonise. Despite a boom in renewable energy generation, Australia’s government line is instead commitment to “a gas-fired recovery”. That commitment is a dangerous one, says Lillian Patterson of the Clean Energy Council.

Battery storage is flexible, remarkable — and investable — but you need to know what you’re doing and know where the market opportunities and limits lie. Renewable and clean energy financier Laurent Segalen from Megawatt-X explains some of the things he’s seen as batteries have become an infrastructure asset in their own right.

NTPC, an independent power producer (IPP) in India with over 65GW of power plants across the country wants to install 1,000MWh of energy storage at its existing generation facilities.