Saturday, 11 July 2026

Malawi is building a 20 MW/30 MWh battery energy storage system in Lilongwe with support from the Global Energy Alliance (GEA), under the Mission 300 initiative, according to Climate Home News.

The project aims to stabilise the country's grid, smooth its intermittent power supply and reduce reliance on diesel generators, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported it would avert about 10,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

More than 80% of Malawi's electricity comes from renewables, according to Climate Home News, and the country has been adding solar power while decommissioning 78 MW of diesel generation.

The grid's exposure to weather shocks is recent. When Tropical Storm Ana made landfall in 2022, it destroyed a third of the country's hydropower capacity and caused nationwide system shutdowns, according to Climate Home News.

Mission 300 is led by development banks and their partners, with the aim of connecting 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, according to Climate Home News. About 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity, the outlet reported.

Damola Omole, director of the 'Grids of the Future, Africa' programme at the GEA, said battery storage offers the "flexibility needed to smoothly integrate high levels of variable renewables" into the power grid, according to Climate Home News.

Amarenco has broken ground on a lithium-ion battery storage plant rated at 100 MW in the south of France, according to ESS News.

The Osmo installation lies between Os-Marsillon and Mourenx, within the Lacq industrial basin in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, ESS News reported. Amarenco is siting it on a former industrial plot with existing infrastructure and a grid connection already in place.

Storage duration runs to two hours, according to ESS News. Financing closed with Société Générale.

Amarenco said the plant will feed several services to RTE, among them capacity market participation for peak winter demand and both primary and secondary reserves.

The work comes after Amarenco commissioned and repowered its 105 MW Claudia battery project, ESS News reported.

BW ESS has started construction on a 1 GW/5.7 GWh battery energy storage project at Klostermansfeld in central Germany, its first German asset to enter construction, according to ESS News.

The developer broke ground after taking full ownership of the project earlier in 2026, ESS News reported. A BW ESS spokesperson told ESS News the battery is expected to enter commercial operations in 2028.

The project sits in the Mansfeld-Sudharz region of Saxony-Anhalt and was initially developed by Zelos Energy Developments, according to ESS News. It is thought to be the largest battery energy storage project to enter construction in Germany and would provide more than four hours of deployment capacity.

BW ESS told ESS News it had taken Klostermansfeld into construction without external finance to date, and that its revenue strategy for the project is under review.

"Klostermansfeld BESS will be our first German asset to enter construction," said BW ESS executive director Roberto Jimenez, adding the company would continue an active approach to knowledge transfer across its portfolio, drawing on its experience in global markets.

The developer has more than 540 MWh of operating battery storage capacity, with around 11 GWh of assets under construction, according to ESS News.

Australia's total generation and storage capacity would climb from 99 GW in 2026 to 308 GW by 2050 under AEMO's 2026 Integrated System Plan, according to ESS News. Dispatchable storage carries much of that build.

Storage from batteries, virtual power plants and pumped hydro would need an 11-fold increase, rising from 6 GW to 64 GW, according to ESS News. That path averages 2.6 GW of new storage per year to 2050.

Grid-scale wind and solar would grow fivefold over the same period, from 23 GW in 2026 to 117 GW in 2050, according to ESS News. Reaching that level requires 3.9 GW of added capacity each year.

The expanded renewable fleet replaces retiring coal. Australia's coal fleet capacity is projected to reach 0 GW by 2049, when all plants are scheduled to close, according to ESS News.

The build responds to rising consumption. The ISP forecasts electricity demand will nearly double from 205 TWh in 2026 to 390 TWh in 2050, according to ESS News.

Even under a tougher scenario, around 45 GW of renewables and 31 GW of storage would need to connect by 2030, said AEMO Group System Planning Manager Eli Pack, according to ESS News. Pack tied that requirement to the importance of transmission across the NEM.

Transmission also shapes costs. Without a continued, rapid rollout of new transmission, grid-scale investment costs would balloon by AUD 17 billion and system operating costs would rise by AUD 12 billion, said Smart Energy Council CEO David McElrea, according to ESS News.

Only five of 30 California battery storage assets beat their revenue benchmark over two years, according to Gridmatic's CAISO Storage Report 2024-2025, published in June 2026. The study reconstructed the performance of 30 battery energy storage systems representing 2.3 GW of capacity using public market inputs, regulatory filings, and a proprietary shadow-clearing engine.

The sample showed a median capture rate of 82.3% against the TBx benchmark, per the Gridmatic report. Revenues ranged from less than $1 per kW-month to more than $6 per kW-month, against a fleetwide median of $2.67 per kW-month.

Availability across the sample averaged 79.7%, according to Gridmatic, which attributed prolonged downtime to hardware failures and safety incidents. The Millikan Avenue asset experienced roughly 56% total downtime during the study period.

The top performer was the 100 MW / 400 MWh Caballero battery in Nipomo, California, owned by Alpha Omega Power and optimized by Gridmatic. The asset reached a 141% TBx capture rate and earned 2.45x the median asset's revenue per kW-month.

Gridmatic calculated that if all 30 batteries had matched Caballero's 141% capture rate, the fleet would have generated an additional $98 million in collective energy and ancillary services revenue over the two-year period.

The study pointed to static bidding as one driver of the gap. Gridmatic found that 20 of the 30 assets used a static Regulation Down bid curve in 75% or more of active months, and 12 of those held a completely static curve 100% of the time.

California's battery storage capacity has expanded to 17.4 GW over the past six years, according to ESS News.

Red Eléctrica is beginning work next week on a project to repower the double-circuit 400 kV Moraleja-Villaviciosa and Morata-Villaviciosa line, according to Red Eléctrica. The work includes modifying the route through the towns of Arroyomolinos, Móstoles and Moraleja de Enmedio in the Community of Madrid.

Red Eléctrica said the route modification involves dismantling the current line between transmission towers 115 and 135 once the new section is operational, across the municipal areas of Arroyomolinos, Móstoles and Moraleja de Enmedio.

The company said the initiative's inclusion in the current electricity planning cycle, approved by the Council of Ministers, allows it to invest EUR 5.5 million in the project.

According to Red Eléctrica, the new route was designed to avoid impact on the Natura 2000 Network and the Guadarrama Regional Park, working with other developers to keep the various infrastructure compatible.

Australia installed 221,000 residential battery systems in 2025, adding nearly 5 gigawatt-hours of storage, according to RenewEconomy.

SunWiz reports that the 221,000 systems installed in 2025 compared with 72,500 the previous year, delivering an additional 4,790 MWh of new storage capacity to the grid.

The total number of home battery systems installed through the federal rebate has surpassed 450,000 as the scheme enters its second year, according to RenewEconomy.

Greenvolt Power will use BYD Energy Storage's BYD Haohan battery system at its Siedlce storage site in Poland under a supply deal the two firms announced on July 1, according to ESS News.

The Siedlce installation is rated at 600 MW/2.4 GWh, which ESS News says would rank as Poland's largest battery storage project.

Groundwork is due to start in the third quarter of 2026, and the developer is aiming for commercial operations by end-2027, according to ESS News. Revenues for the site are already locked in through Poland's capacity market mechanism.

The two companies have partnered before. Back in March 2025 they closed supply contracts for the Turośń Kościelna and Nowa Wieś Ełcka projects, each sized at 200 MW/800 MWh, adding up to 1.6 GWh, ESS News reports.

In Poland, Greenvolt Power is developing 238 MW of wind, 657 MW of solar, and 2,595 MW of battery storage, part of a 12.8 GW portfolio worldwide, according to ESS News.

EnergyPathways secured a gas storage license for its MESH development in the East Irish Sea and opened the project's work program, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The next step is a site survey scheduled for the third quarter of 2026, gathering environmental, geological and seabed data, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

MESH, the Marram Energy Storage Hub, carries a project of national significance designation from the UK government, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The developer targets a 2031 operations start and describes it as aimed to be among the UK's largest integrated energy storage sites.

EnergyPathways plans to enter the compressed air energy storage part of MESH in Ofgem's second application window for the Long Duration Energy Storage cap-and-floor scheme, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Energy Dome will build a 23 MW/200 MWh long-duration carbon battery in Ireland after signing a commercial contract with Google, according to ESS News. The system runs on Energy Dome's carbon storage technology.

Eirgrid, the transmission system operator, has awarded the project a 10-year capacity contract, and Energy Dome expects it to start operating in 2028. The developer says it has already secured land, planning consent and a grid connection.

The battery will rise on a former peat-fired thermal plant site in County Offaly, close to the Rhode Green Energy Park. That location sits near high-voltage lines feeding the Greater Dublin area.

Energy Dome will own and run the plant, with plans to add a second 200 MWh unit on the same site at a later stage.

Energy Dome chief executive Claudio Spadacini called the Irish project the first commercial bilateral deployment under the company's partnership with Google, a tie-up he said targets CO2 battery projects internationally.

The deal follows a June announcement in which the two companies set plans for a 19 MW/200 MWh carbon battery in Arizona. That system will sit at Salt River Project's Colorado Generating Station under a cost-sharing agreement with Google focused on long-duration storage.

Google first teamed up with Energy Dome, based in Milan, in July 2025.

Battery storage companies in France have set up Stockage Énergie France, a trade body focused solely on stationary battery energy storage, according to ESS News.

Corsica Sole and Eclipse founded the group, ESS News reported, with a membership that includes Neoen, Amarenco, TagEnergy, Acacia, Kallista Energy and Q Energy.

Its founding companies put France's requirement at more than 6 GW of grid-connected battery storage by 2030, a build-out they value at roughly EUR 4 billion (USD 4.6 billion) in private investment, according to ESS News.

The founders say batteries have stabilised island electricity systems in France, and they argue that wider deployment is needed as electrification raises demand on the mainland grid, ESS News reported.

The group set three priorities: a stable, transparent regulatory framework, better recognition of storage value in the electricity system, and market mechanisms and grid services matched to the flexibility batteries provide, according to ESS News.

Sunrun, Renew Home and Tesla have partnered to form the largest virtual power plant (VPP) service in the United States, according to Solar Builder. The coalition brings together a home storage and solar firm, an energy management platform, and an electric vehicle maker.

The VPP promises to deliver more than 16 GW of solar and storage-based home energy resources to utility companies and data center hyperscalers across the country, according to Solar Builder.

In Virginia, the companies expect VPP capacity to grow to at least 500 MW by the end of the decade, a figure that rivals some of the largest direct generation facilities in the area, according to Solar Builder.

"The grid of the 1800s cannot power the innovation of 2026," said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell.

Renew Home convened the coalition because it believes hyperscalers are motivated to drive down costs through the transition, and that residential-focused energy companies can help them reach that goal, said Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home.

A 58 V modular sodium-ion battery for home use has reached the market from Biwatt, built on sodium iron pyrophosphate (NFPP) chemistry, according to pv magazine.

Each module puts out 3 kW of continuous power and carries a peak current of 55 A, according to pv magazine. Users can chain up to four modules within a single stack and run four stacks in parallel, which pushes the stack current to a maximum of 220 A.

The unit charges between -20 C and 55 C and discharges between -30 C and 55 C, according to pv magazine.

Biwatt already holds CE and RCM compliance and is now seeking UL1973 certification along with UL9540A fire safety testing, according to pv magazine. UL1973 sets the safety requirements for the battery, and UL9540A tests how the system behaves under thermal runaway and fire propagation.

The sodium iron pyrophosphate route is one of several sodium-ion cathode approaches now moving toward commercial residential product lines, according to pv magazine. The stacking design gives installers a single building block that can be sized to different household loads, from one module up to the four-stack, 220 A configuration. The charge and discharge temperature limits Biwatt cites cover conditions well below freezing, according to pv magazine.