Energy Storage

The Dutch government has earmarked €100 million ($106.7 million) of subsidies for the deployment of battery storage alongside PV projects. The funds are part of a €416 million subsidy program announced last year to alleviate grid congestion.

AleaSoft and SolarPower Europe inform pv magazine that negative energy prices in Europe are related to the pandemic, low demand, insufficient storage solutions, and inadequate energy planning. They say this situation will likely continue into the summer.

ArcActive, a New Zealand-based battery tech specialist, plans to set up a factory in Australia within 18 months. It says the facility will be able to produce 30,000 lead acid-based residential energy storage systems per year.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Allye Energy have agreed to collaborate on a 270 kWh portable battery energy storage system (BESS) built with second-life Range Rover batteries. The system, which is set to become the first commercially available BESS with JLR battery packs, can fully charge up to nine Range Rover PHEV vehicles at once.

Nhoa Energy, an Italian developer, has commissioned a battery energy storage project for Taiwan Cement Group in Yilan county, Taiwan, with a capacity exceeding 120 MWh.

Renewables developer Vast Solar has signed a key engineering contract as it pushes toward construction of a 30 MW/288 MWh thermal concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with more than eight hours of energy storage capacity near Port Augusta, South Australia.

Researchers in India have simulated a 4 kW solar power-based hybrid electric vehicle (EV) charging station using a three-stage charging strategy and found that the station is capable of charging 10–12 EVs with 48 V 30 Ah lithium-ion batteries.

Vale and Central South University have launched a joint laboratory for low-carbon and hydrogen metallurgy in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province, while Nippon Steel has secured approval to acquire U.S. Steel.

Dismissed by many in the solar industry as an overly-complex, outdated technology, concentrated solar power (CSP) is set for a comeback thanks to a scaled-down, modular approach.

Researchers in Japan have developed a novel cathode material for rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) in the form of rocksalt oxide. This new material reportedly enables efficient charging and discharging even at low temperatures.