Distributed Storage

A trio of Victorian electricity distributors are turning to new, smarter technologies including more battery energy storage systems and demand management programs as they seek to meet changing customer needs and improve grid reliability in areas where the low-voltage distribution network is constrained.

An estimated 13,000 rooftop solar PV customers in Australia’s far north face having their feed-in tariff for solar power exported to the grid slashed by more than half with the Northern Territory government revealing plans to usher in changes to the existing scheme from 1 July.

Lift Energy Storage Technology is a proposed long-term storage solution that relies on elevators to bring solid masses to the tops of buildings in charging mode. It then lowers the same mass to produce electricity in discharge mode.

Renac Power’s new plug-and-play battery has a storage capacity of 3.74 kWh, but it can be enhanced in series with up to five batteries to 18.7 kWh. It has a nominal voltage of 96 V and a voltage range of 81 V to 108 V.

Enphase expects the volume of business generated to rise again for the April-June period, accompanied by another bump in battery shipments.

Business magnate Elon Musk has avoided what would have been the largest judgment in US history on an individual executive.

The device is described as a heat engine with no moving parts that is able to produce power from a heat source of between 1,900 to 2,400 C. This concept is known as thermal energy grid storage (TEGS) and consists of a low-cost, grid-scale storage technology that uses thermophotovoltaic cells to convert heat to electricity above 2,000 C.

Bromine-based flow batteries have the potential for high energy density in renewable energy storage. Their commercial adoption, however, remains challenging due to the cathode materials used for their construction. New research from China seeks to shed light on how to overcome these hurdles.

Global solar supply chain issues and the Chinese energy crisis which hit in the second half of last year have, ironically, led to a “massive” oversupply of solar panels in Australia, according to major distributors. The tension between increased global panel costs and the glut of them within Australia has led to some messy pricing and strange market dynamics on the ground.

Developed by Dutch start-up AquaBattery, the storage technology is claimed to independently amend power and energy capacity. The battery system utilises three storage tanks, one with fresh water, one with concentrated salt water and one with diluted salt water, and also relies on membrane stacks.