Energy Storage

The California Independent System Operator has warned state regulators that there could be a 4.7 GW capacity shortfall in 2022, in the early evening hours of the annual peak demand events of September. The grid operator has suggested the alteration of water cooling laws, as well as increased procurement of resources.

Ireland appears ready to embrace PV after years of failed announcements. Globaldata predicts the EU member state will deploy around 1.3 GW of solar by 2030, with renewables potentially meeting 65% of electricity demand. Furthermore, Irish Water has announced it wants to deploy solar at its water treatment plants.

MIT scientists have developed a class of liquid electrolyte with properties they say could open up new possibilities for improving the performance and stability of lithium batteries and supercapacitors.

A report produced by an AI and automation market research company says an anticipated boom in the European storage market – driven by a desire to reduce carbon emissions – will attract producers as demand outside China tails away.

The energy company will build a 38 MW solar, 22 MW wind and 12 MW battery project on one site. The first fully renewable hybrid power plant could be a blueprint for post-subsidy Germany. Vattenfall has an eye on German coalfields in particular.

The Rural Areas Electricity Company wants to build hybrid plants in 11 non-interconnected areas of the sultanate. The projects will have a total of 48 MW of solar power generation capacity and 70 MW of diesel and the storage component will have total installed power of 28 MW and a storage capacity of 14 MWh.

A new report from analysts at Wood Mackenzie forecasts 6.6 GWh of residential energy storage to be installed across Europe by 2024. The economics of the technology are at a tipping point, increasingly reaching grid parity in European markets. With rising electricity demand and falling battery system costs, the trend will further spread across the continent and fuel an uptick in demand.

Energy analysts from the United Kingdom have found that many of the world’s largest car manufacturers that are launching EVs, or looking to launch EVs, are engaged in an “unprecedented” level of collaboration in order to share the costs and risks inherent in EV development. Cornwall Insight found that the collaboration could see a major boom in supply from the early 2020s.

According to a new report by BNP Paribas Asset Management, renewables offer more advantages than simply mitigating climate change. Electricity is easier to transport than oil, and wind and solar electricity prices are much more stable than volatile oil prices. An analyst from the French bank argues that major producers will need to reduce oil prices below $20 to compete with clean energy in the transport sector.

Scientists at the U.K.’s Faraday Institution have been able to observe degradation mechanisms at the lithium metal anode in a solid state battery, and made several discoveries which could improve the performance and design of future solid-state lithium-ion batteries.