Utility Scale Storage

The carbon market is finally a reality in China. After 10 years of delays, regional pilot schemes and general uncertainty, China’s national carbon market became a reality on Feb. 1, 2021. Over time, the scheme is expected to support China’s gradual shift away from coal toward more solar and wind in power generation.

Australia’s transition to renewable energy continues with developer ARP Australian Solar pushing ahead with plans to establish a 70 MW solar PV and battery energy storage project on the outskirts of Morwell in the heart of Victoria’s coal country.

Construction is set to commence on the 250 MW Kidston Pumped Hydro Storage Project later this month after developer Genex Power announced it had secured all the financing required to progress the $775 million project.

Annual battery storage installations will exceed 10 GW/28 GWh in 2021, following a particularly strong year in 2020, despite the challenges created by the global pandemic, writes IHS Markit analyst Mike Longson. Combined solar and storage will be a core focus for new deployment in 2021, as the front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter energy storage markets are both expected to grow significantly in the months ahead.

Greater dispatchability will be required from solar as it becomes increasingly mainstream worldwide, or investors could experience diminishing returns as a victim of the technology’s success at bearing down on electricity prices.

In a strange synchronicity, two of Australia’s major aspiring vanadium producers have today come out with announcements. TNG Limited has solidified a deal to commercialise vanadium redox flow batteries using output from its Mount Peake project, while competitor Australian Vanadium has filed a patent application for its vanadium processing route.

The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines … battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice says the hard evidence exposed in a new paper by the Clean Energy Council.

Queensland-based community group Solar Citizens has described as long overdue reports the State Government is considering a new pumped hydro facility near Gympie which would generate renewable energy to service the burgeoning Sunshine Coast region.

Vattenfall, SSAB and LKAB are building a rock cavern storage facility in a coastal city in northern Sweden. The 100-cubic-meter facility will be built 30 meters below ground and will begin storing green hydrogen next year.

The latest set of clean energy statistics compiled by the International Renewable Energy Agency signal a changing of the guard when it comes to clean power, with legacy hydropower facilities overtaken by new intermittent renewables.