Energy Storage

A Spanish consortium is equipping one of Madrid’s largest metro and bus stations with a hybrid system that combines PV, geothermal pumps, and vanadium redox flow batteries to provide cooling and heating.

The US battery manufacturer Our Next Energy (ONE) has said it will use the funding led by BMW to accelerate its R&D and build a US manufacturing facility.

Construction of an innovative solar to green hydrogen microgrid in the Daintree Rainforest is set to commence with the Federal Government signing off on a multi-million-dollar deal to bring renewable power to communities in the World Heritage-listed region in Far North Queensland.

With the global demand for lithium accelerating, Australian miner Core Lithium has inked a deal to supply United States-based electric vehicle and battery maker Tesla with up to 110,000 tonnes of lithium spodumene concentrate.

Developed by Germany-based hydrogen specialist Enapter, the EL 4.0 electrolyser is based on a patented anion exchange membrane (AEM) technology. Commercial production is currently being prepared at the company’s Italian plant and the first shipments should be made in the summer.

The realisation of biodegradable batteries is a step closer thanks to research from South Australia’s Flinders University, which has developed a 2.8V organic polymer battery. While this battery was made from synthetic polymers, research lead Dr Zhongfan Jia told pv magazine Australia the team’s future iterations will source “materials directly from nature” saying this promises to reduce waste and reliance on mined materials and could have novel applications in fields like biotech.

Underwriters Laboratories, a US non-profit standards development organisation, will carry out research into the operating and safety profile of Queensland company Redflow’s redox flow batteries under nominal and off-nominal conditions.

China’s largest state-owned grid operator and power utility plans to deploy the world’s biggest battery fleet and almost quadruple its pumped hydro storage by 2030, thus supporting the nation’s switch to renewable energy sources.

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.