Monday, 31 August 2026

Australia approved more than 111,000 small-scale battery systems and installed 3.6 GWh of capacity in the second quarter of 2026, its strongest three-month stretch on record for household storage, according to ESS News.

The utility-scale pipeline moved in parallel. ESS News reported that 4.2 GWh of large-scale battery capacity either reached final investment decision or began operating during the quarter.

Rooftop solar passed a threshold at the same time. Installations exceeded 1 GW for the first time in the April to June quarter, surpassing the previous quarterly record of 942 MW set in the final quarter of 2023, per ESS News. Large-scale solar also set a quarterly mark, with 1.8 GW reaching final investment decision in the June quarter.

Those additions showed up in the generation mix. Renewables supplied about 42% of National Electricity Market (NEM) generation in the quarter, up from 37% a year earlier, according to ESS News.

The rebate scheme behind much of the household activity has now completed a full year. Storage capacity approved under the Cheaper Home Batteries programme reached 12.4 GWh across more than 438,000 installations, with more than 500,000 applications received by mid-August, ESS News reported.

Households appear to have pulled purchases forward. More than 80% of small-scale solar installations in April were paired with a battery, according to the CER, which said this suggests households accelerated combined solar and battery installations ahead of the May 1 changes.

System sizing shifted after that date. Average residential battery capacity fell from 36 kWh in April to about 23 kWh in May and June.

Portugal has put its National Energy Storage Strategy (ENAE) out for public consultation, with a target of 6.9 GW of installed storage capacity by 2030, according to ESS News. Submissions close on September 16, 2026.

The strategy sets a second horizon of 9.76 GW of installed capacity by 2040, ESS News reported. The stated aim of the ENAE is to accelerate the integration of storage into the National Electricity System.

Those capacity figures are not battery-only. The ENAE targets cover pumped-hydro storage alongside batteries and other large-scale storage technologies, according to ESS News.

The technical analysis underpinning the strategy ties the buildout to renewable penetration. Storage will need to contribute to achieving 82% to 85% renewable integration in electricity generation by 2030, per that analysis as reported by ESS News.

Measures in the document are grouped under four pillars: economic value and participation in system services, regulatory frameworks, streamlined grid connections, and technological innovation. The first pillar addresses how storage assets earn revenue from system services; the third addresses connection processes, a recurring constraint on large-scale storage deployment.

Asahi Kasei has developed a pre-lithiation technology for lithium-ion batteries built with silicon-based anodes, according to electrive.

In internal testing, the Japanese company says the method raised the energy density of an NMC cell by 10 per cent, electrive reported.

The test cell used an anode composed of 90 per cent graphite and 10 per cent silicon monoxide, according to electrive. Silicon content raises the theoretical capacity of an anode, but lithium is consumed irreversibly during the first charge cycles. Pre-lithiation, or pre-doping, addresses that loss by loading additional lithium into the cell before it enters service.

Asahi Kasei's route relies on lithium carbonate as the supplementary lithium source, a material the company describes as relatively inexpensive, per electrive. Cost is the constraint that has kept most pre-lithiation approaches out of volume manufacturing, since the specialist lithium metal powders and foils typically used are expensive and difficult to handle on production lines.

The company intends to run proof-of-concept projects with customers worldwide before commercialising the process through licensing agreements, according to electrive. That structure would put the technology into third-party cell plants rather than into production capacity owned by Asahi Kasei itself.

The 10 per cent figure is a company claim from internal tests and has not been verified by an outside party. Proof-of-concept work with cell makers would be the first point at which the result is measured on someone else's equipment.