Shifting solar power for several hours using flow batteries will quickly become economically viable if the energy storage systems are also allowed to provide other services, such as grid-balancing, one maker of the devices has claimed.
Midway across southern Ghana, near the historic port fishing town of Winneba, lies East and West Africa’s largest solar PV plant. Ghana suffers a severe energy deficit with only around 70% of the population having access to electricity, so it was welcome news that the project was connected to the grid at the end of last week. PV Tech visited the new project, built by China-based power firm BXC Ghana, just ahead of the Solar and Off-grid Renewables West Africa 2016 conference in Accra, Ghana.
The impact of distributed solar-plus-storage, including aggregated systems, will be included in an assessment of electricity storage’s participation in wholesale electricity markets by the US’ national regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
GCL System Integration has bought a 51% stake in One Stop Warehouse, an Australian wholesale distributor of solar products, claiming it has been partly pushed by anti-dumping rules affecting its module supply business in Europe and the US.
Solar Impulse 2, the “zero fuel airplane” which began a round-the-world attempt last year, is set to resume flying from the Hawaii base where it has been grounded since last July.
A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.
Chinese rechargeable battery, electric transport and clean energy company BYD has been signed up as a “preferred partner” to Abu Dhabi-headquartered Masdar.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems) claims the company’s experience with structuring solar, wind and transmission finance deals has made successful financing of large-scale battery projects possible.
Unsubsidised, commercial solar-plus-storage projects of the type being executed in Puerto Rico could demonstrate how to overcome many of the challenges imminent for the world’s PV markets, according to one company with experience in the field.
The output of a 16MW solar farm in Puerto Rico will be tied to an Aquion ‘saltwater’ battery, in one of the few current trials of moving solar power produced in the daytime to be used at night.
