Energy Storage

Construction is set to commence immediately on the first stage of a 1.2GW hybrid wind, solar and battery energy storage project in Central Queensland following Australian iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest’s announcement that he has invested $3 billion in the ‘shovel ready’ development.

The potential early retirement of Eraring has been the talk of the market the past week. Many of our customers have been asking what the impacts of the retirement might be on the acceleration or development of new renewable capacity in NSW and potential storage projects. In this Chart of the week, we look at the effect of the lost generation from Eraring and how that capacity might be filled.

The deployment of standalone power systems in the National Electricity Market is expected to accelerate after the Australian Energy Market Commission this week published new rules allowing distributors to install the renewables-based technology in the five market jurisdictions.

British start-up Gravitricity secured funds from the UK Department of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to build its second gravity-based storage project. The feasibility study is expected to be finalised by the end of this year.

Australian technology company Lavo’s innovative energy storage system – based on storing green hydrogen in a patented metal hydride – has attracted the attention of the UK government which has provided financial backing to allow for a demonstration facility to be installed in England’s northwest.

The 40MW/60MWh Alaminos Energy Storage system is now connected to the 120MW Alaminos solar park. Both facilities were built by renewable energy developer AC Energy.

The latest home battery system from Q Cells, owned by South Korea’s Hanwha Solutions, will the “first to market” to provide a standard 15 year product warranty. The Q.HOME CORE will be available in Australia from March.

Australian company Natural Solar has seen a 400% increase in battery installs across Australia within two years. The company’s CEO Chris Williams told pv magazine Australia that Victoria has led demand, growing 350% in the second half of 2021 alone. Williams believes the surge has been driven by several compounding factors.

Australian concentrated solar thermal power company Vast Solar has been shortlisted as a finalist for BNEF’s Pioneers 2022 program.

Conceived by scientists in China, the battery was built with a special hydrogel electrolyte made of polyacrylamide (PAM), zinc sulfate (ZnSO4), glycerol (GL), and acetonitrile (AN). The device showed high cycling stability of over 3,000 cycles, a high reversibility thanks to a Coulombic efficiency of up to 99.5%, and electrochemical performance of 185 mAh·g over 10,000 cycles.