Energy Storage

New Zealand’s transition to a renewable energy future has taken a significant step forward with the nation’s first grid-scale battery energy storage project now offering injectable reserves to the electricity market for the first time.

A new report published by the Clean Energy Investor Group calls for federal and state governments to financially back long-duration energy storage assets to ensure Australia’s clean energy transition 2030 targets are met.

Energizer Solar, the licensee for US battery giant Energizer, has selected Australia as the first market to launch its renewable home ‘ecosystem.’ Including new hybrid inverters, a hybrid battery, solar panels, and soon an EV charger, the product suite has been certified and is landing on Australian shores “as we speak,” Gavin Owen, Energizer Solar’s Head of APAC Sales, told pv magazine Australia.

Investigators from Fire and Rescue New South Wales have determined a compromised lithium-ion battery was the cause of a housefire north of Sydney last week where two people died.

The Northern Territory government has announced plans to deploy a second large-scale battery energy storage system to allow more renewable power into the Darwin-Katherine electricity system and boost the reliability of the grid.

Origin Energy has issued a notice to proceed to EPC contractor Fluence for its 300 MW / 650 MWh battery energy storage project planned for Mortlake in southwest Victoria, progressing the company’s goal to build its renewables and storage portfolio to 4 GW by 2030.

Australian minerals company Vecco Group will team with Japanese manufacturer Sumitomo Electric and Idemitsu Australia to build an ‘end-to-end’ manufacturing supply chain for vanadium flow batteries in north Queensland.

With the COP28 climate summit in Dubai resulting in a pledge of at least 11 TW of renewables generation capacity by 2030, Bruce Douglas, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Global Renewables Alliance (GRA), examines the outcomes of the conference and their likely impact on the solar industry.

Decades of mismanagement have eroded trust in South Africa’s state-owned energy utility, Eskom. Last year, households and businesses suffered daily blackouts of up to 10 hours, or even longer. Solar and battery energy storage are booming but a domestic PV manufacturing industry has yet to materialize.

Following strong global solar installation figures in 2023, Alexa Capital co-founder and partner Gerard Reid sees enormous potential for a renewables revolution.