Monday, 20 July 2026

Peak Energy, a Burlingame, California-based battery designer, has chosen Sacramento for the first sodium-ion grid storage manufacturing plant in the United States, according to Solar Builder.

The 183,000 square foot plant carries a corporate investment of about USD 71 million, Solar Builder reported, with output reaching up to 4 GWh of energy storage per year.

Over the next 18 months, the factory will add 239 jobs in California, according to Solar Builder. Counting both Sacramento and Burlingame, Peak Energy expects the new site to generate 348 net new jobs.

Demand is already lined up: Peak Energy says it holds more than 6 GWh of commitments from customers around the country. The company says its sodium-ion technology targets an energy cost reduction of up to 20% for those customers, and it says the batteries will hold a consistent uptime of 99% across their lifespan.

Supporting the construction is a USD 10.5 million CalCompetes tax credit, which Peak Energy received in May 2026, according to Solar Builder.

Sacramento serves as the state capital, and the company describes the Sacramento plant as the country's first facility built for sodium-ion cells at grid scale, per Solar Builder. The commitments already booked exceed the plant's planned annual output of up to 4 GWh.

Panama plans two capacity and energy tenders in 2027 that will admit battery storage systems, the first entry for storage in the country's tender program, according to ESS News.

National Energy Secretary Rodrigo Rodriguez Jaramillo set out the plan at the opening of Energyear Centroamerica 2026 in Panama City, ESS News reported, citing a National Energy Secretariat statement.

The framework is still under review. ESS News reported that required capacities and eligible technologies should be settled by November or December 2026.

Rodriguez pointed to an earlier long-term tender built to support the contracts market, which pulled in more than 70 bids and handed out nearly all the capacity and energy on offer.

That award carried a line item to switch liquid-fuel thermal plants over to natural gas, with operation targeted for July 2029, according to ESS News.

Transgrid will drop two synchronous condensers from its system strength plan and hand grid-forming batteries a larger share of the work as coal-fired generators leave the New South Wales network, according to pv magazine.

The earlier plan sought contracts for as much as 5 GW of grid-forming batteries paired with 10 synchronous condensers, meant to stand in for the stabilizing services long supplied by coal, gas and hydro, pv magazine reported.

The revised portfolio keeps synchronous condensers in the mix but trims them to eight units, according to pv magazine.

On top of the 5 GW named in the first plan, Transgrid now wants 900 MW of grid-forming batteries, preferably sited in the Sydney West region, to deliver minimum-level system strength, pv magazine reported.

Nine battery projects totaling 2 GW have already made Transgrid's shortlist to cover system strength, according to pv magazine.

Jason Krstanoski, Transgrid Executive General Manager of Network, tied the technology switch to "rapidly changing market conditions," citing the rising cost and slower availability of synchronous condensers and revised timelines for NSW coal retirements, pv magazine reported.

Krstanoski said the plan keeps hydro and gas as fallback support so minimum system strength holds if the batteries arrive late or fall short, pv magazine reported.

Natural Resources Canada announced over CAD 4.5 million in funding for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Regional Electricity Cooperative's Electricity Distribution System Modernization Project, drawn from its Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program (SREPs).

The project will support the deployment of up to 7,500 digital metering technologies, such as smart meters, to help cooperative members manage their energy use, according to Natural Resources Canada.

The Coopérative d'électricité de Saint-Jean-Baptiste serves 7,000 customers and 16 municipalities in the Montérégie and Estrie regions, according to Natural Resources Canada. It operates 437 kilometres of distribution lines across a service area of 469 square kilometres.

The SREPs program totals CAD 4.5 billion and is designed to reduce emissions and enable a more modern, reliable electricity grid system, according to Natural Resources Canada.

The federal government aims to double Canada's electricity grid by 2050 under Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy.

Wildfire smoke drifting into New England from the northern United States and Canada is complicating electricity demand forecasts, though it has not affected regional power system reliability, according to ISO New England.

The smoke has cut behind-the-meter solar production by up to 40% at times, ISO New England estimates. The haze has also lowered temperatures across the region, which the grid operator estimates were as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than they would have been without the smoky conditions. Both effects change how much power consumers draw and how much rooftop solar feeds into the system, making load harder to predict.

ISO New England said it continues to manage the regional grid under normal operating conditions and does not anticipate this changing.

The region saw comparable smoky conditions in 2023, but the smoke concentration this week has so far exceeded that event, according to ISO New England.

EnBW has dropped its hunt for an investor in residential battery storage maker Senec, unable to line up new backing, according to ESS News. The utility had opened the process in February to draw fresh capital into the Leipzig business.

No suitable buyer emerged, EnBW said, pointing to tougher market conditions.

Senec will keep taking orders for its SENEC.Home E4 and SENEC.Home P4 units until the end of August, with installations set to finish by Dec. 31, 2026, ESS News reported.

Beyond that, the company plans to halt development of new products and pull back from marketing what it already sells. It will also run a replacement program for older batteries hit by repeated fires.

Narrowing the operation to serve only current customers will mean job cuts, EnBW said, without giving a number.

Red Eléctrica will move seven high-voltage transformers from the Port of Bilbao to the Gatika converter station between July and October, running the operation mainly at night, according to Red Eléctrica REE. Each unit weighs 315 tonnes and stands 5 metres high, 4.7 metres wide and 10 metres long.

HITACHI Energy is handling transport as Red Eléctrica's contractor, first carrying the transformers by ship to the right bank of the Bilbao estuary, then completing the journey to the Gatika substation by road. Red Eléctrica said it will coordinate the relocation with the relevant authorities to keep traffic disruption to a minimum.

The transformers feed the Bay of Biscay interconnection, which will connect the electricity systems of the Iberian Peninsula and France through two 400 kV links. Those links run from Gatika to Cubnezais, near Bordeaux, on a route Red Eléctrica describes as entirely underground and submarine.

Once in service, the interconnection raises cross-border exchange capacity to 5,000 MW from 2,800 MW, according to Red Eléctrica.

Inelfe, jointly owned by Red Eléctrica and RTE, is developing the project. The European Commission has designated it a Project of Common Interest, with backing from CINEA and the European Investment Bank.

Chilean regulators are reviewing a 450 MW/3.6 GWh pumped hydro storage plant in the Atacama region after developer Central de Bombeo Atacama lodged its environmental impact assessment, according to ESS News. The developer pairs Chile's Susterra with France's Hyvity.

The design routes renewable power into a reversible pumped hydro system that can run at full output for eight hours, ESS News reported. Two artificial reservoirs, each holding about 4.8 million m³, sit at either end of pressure pipelines linked through a powerhouse.

Water comes from a closed loop fed by desalination rather than natural sources, according to ESS News. The developer expects to top up roughly 1,953 m³ each day to cover evaporation.

Discharge cycles put the plant's annual output at up to 1,314 GWh, per the environmental filing cited by ESS News.

A step-up substation and a 220 kV double-circuit line carry the power out over 151.3 meters, tying into an existing line that serves the Cerro Negro Norte mine and the Punta Totoralillo desalination plant, according to ESS News.

The developer set a 45-year operating life, with generation running through 2072 and decommissioning slated for April 2072 to June 2073, ESS News reported.

China's utility-scale batteries could have shifted an additional 23 TWh of clean electricity in 2025 if used to their full potential, according to analysis from Ember.

China now operates the world's largest battery energy storage fleet, according to CleanTechnica. The Ember analysis points to remaining headroom to extract more value from that fleet.

PJM Interconnection is poised to adopt a new process for securing power after concluding its latest capacity auction, according to Canary Media. The operator runs the country's biggest energy market, per Canary Media.

Canary Media reported that PJM's existing process for securing new energy cannot keep pace with electricity demand from data centers. The outlet framed the conclusion of the latest auction as fresh evidence of that gap.

The shift to a new process signals PJM's response to the strain, according to Canary Media.

New South Wales has cleared Gloucester Coal, a subsidiary of Yancoal Australia, to build the AUD 1.8 billion Stratford Pumped Hydro and Solar Project, ESS News reported.

The scheme pairs a 300 MW pumped hydro storage system rated for 12 hours of long-duration output with a 320 MW solar farm that charges it, according to ESS News. The site lies 100 km northwest of Newcastle, on land that once operated as a coal mine.

When network capacity allows, the plant can deliver 400 MW across a nine-hour window, Yancoal Australia said.

Coal extraction at the site ended in 2024 once its 65 million metric tons of reserves ran dry, ESS News reported, and crews have begun rehabilitating the ground for the new use.

Planning and Public Spaces Minister Paul Scully described the approval as the first for a pumped hydro project in New South Wales in six years.

The state is running a parallel long-duration storage tender that opened in May 2026 under the New South Wales Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap, seeking 12 GWh of capacity, ESS News reported. Policy targets set storage at 16 GWh by 2030 and 28 GWh by 2034.

Sonnedix has acquired a 260 MW battery energy storage system (BESS) portfolio in Tuscania, Italy, from developer Sphera Energy, according to ESS News. The purchase raises Sonnedix's total BESS portfolio to about 2.8 GW, the company said.

The portfolio comprises two adjacent standalone BESS projects, one rated 160 MW and the other 100 MW, both with four-hour duration, according to Sonnedix.

Axel Thiemann, chief executive of Sonnedix, said batteries allow the company to store power it is already generating and deploy it when needed most.

The deal builds on an Italian footprint that passed 1 GW of operating capacity following a March 2026 acquisition of six photovoltaic (PV) plants in Lazio backed by long-term power purchase agreements, according to ESS News. Sonnedix has also used project financing for its Italian pipeline, securing a EUR 260 million (USD 297.4 million) green loan in 2023.

Sonnedix operates in nine countries with a total portfolio of 11 GW spanning solar, wind and storage assets, according to ESS News.

Sphera Energy, launched in 2023, has separately secured authorization for two 100 MW BESS projects in Tuscany, part of a broader wave of Italian battery storage approvals in 2026, according to ESS News.

Spain's government published 36 renewable energy project announcements in June covering solar, wind, hybrid and battery storage at various stages of the permitting process, according to ESS News. The notices represent about 1.76 GW of photovoltaic (PV) capacity and roughly 1 GW of battery storage power.

Battery storage was one of the largest categories, with 14 projects totaling about 1 GW of power, ESS News reported. The largest battery proposal was RIC Energy's 176.4 MW Tagus 2 hybrid battery project in Toledo.

Enel Green Power applied to add three 38.5 MW battery storage systems to existing solar plants at Navalvillar, Castilblanco and Valdecaballero in Badajoz, according to ESS News.

Most of the June battery projects are designed to hybridize existing solar arrays or wind farms, using existing grid connection rights and evacuation infrastructure, ESS News reported.