Unique Distributed Energy Storage (DES) solution enables Elisa to optimise the energy procurement of its base stations and offer electricity grid balancing services to the local Transmission Service Operator. It is achieved by the smart management of backup power from batteries to provide flexibility in electricity supply in thousands of base stations in the radio […]
Tesla quietly develops virtual power plant in Japan – EQ Mag Pro
Tesla is quietly developing a virtual power plant in Japan as it has revealed that since 2021, it has been quietly installing its Powerwall batteries at residences on the Japanese island of Miyako-jima. Till now, the company said it has installed over 300 units of Powerwall batteries and expects to install 100 more by year-end. […]
How to Run a Virtual Power Plant From Your Luxury Apartment
Soleil Lofts, a new luxury apartment complex outside of Salt Lake City, offers the usual upscale amenities—gourmet kitchens, a yoga studio, a pet playground—along with one unique perk. In each of the 600 apartments stands a gleaming 7-foot-tall white monolith that stores electricity generated by a 5.2-megawatt rooftop solar array. That’s because Soleil Lofts was […]
Sunrun Deploys Record Solar Capacity in Q4 as Battery Interest Increases
More than a third of Sunrun’s California sales included batteries, and more than half of all Bay Area solar installations were storage-paired. The nation’s top rooftop solar installer finished the year with a burst of home solar-plus-storage deals. Sunrun installed a record 117 megawatts of solar in Q4, within its most recent guidance for the […]
Hawaii Will Power Its Clean Grid With 6,000 Home Batteries Installed by Swell Energy
Swell’s largest contract yet comes after lining up $450 million to aggregate residential solar-battery systems to help the grid. Hawaii’s largest utility enlisted a new tool in its quest for a carbon-free electricity system: thousands of batteries installed in people’s homes. Hawaiian Electric won regulator approval for a $25 million plan to harness solar and […]
Energy Storage Stories of 2020
An attempted shortlist of the major breakthroughs in the energy storage industry’s biggest year ever. The coronavirus pandemic brought the broader economy to a halt, but the energy storage industry didn’t get the memo. Instead, developers made this year the biggest ever for battery installations in the U.S. More capacity is going into homes than […]
Sonnen Brings Virtual Power Plants to California Apartment Complexes
The German battery system vendor and its real-estate partner Wasatch Group see grid services as key to multifamily solar-storage. Multifamily housing is a hard nut to crack for solar and battery developers. Sonnen and Wasatch Group say that bundling the value of solar and storage for tenants, property owners, outside investors, utilities and grid […]
Portland General Electric Jumps Into Virtual Power Plant Business
Oregon’s largest electric utility wants a better understanding of the value of home batteries in grid operation and planning. Portland General Electric, the largest utility in Oregon, is jumping into the cutting-edge business of turning home batteries into grid resources. The company announced this week that it has received approval from regulators to link up […]
What a Year! 10 Stories That Propelled Energy Storage in 2019
More batteries installed. More markets opening up. And grid storage making itself indispensable in unanticipated ways. For too long, the rhetoric around what storage can do for the grid vastly outweighed the actual doing. This year, the industry closed that gap more than ever before. Exceedingly few batteries actually live up to the vision of […]
‘Transformative’: Sonnen to Deliver Community Battery Network With Grid Services Contract
“This is what we’ve been working on for years,” says Blake Richetta, CEO of the U.S. business at Shell-owned sonnen. German home energy storage company sonnen fulfilled a long-time dream for its U.S. operation: It will supply battery systems to an entire new residential community, with a contract in place to deliver grid services to […]