Monday, 7 September 2026

Mexico's Secretariat of Energy (Sener) has moved the registration deadline for storage projects to Oct. 30 under the Call for Strategic Electricity Generation and Storage Projects associated with CFE, according to ESS News.

The change applies to storage only. ESS News reported that the extension does not reopen registration for renewable generation projects, whose window closed Sept. 2.

Generation developers had a three-month window to file expressions of interest and interconnection study requests, running from June 2 through Sept. 2, per ESS News. Storage applicants now have close to two additional months beyond that cutoff.

The call itself is not new, and the deadline shift is not the first change to it. ESS News reported that Sener published the original call May 15 and that it has already been amended since.

Interconnection study requests were bundled with expressions of interest for generation projects in the same June 2 to Sept. 2 window, tying grid access screening directly to the registration step rather than treating it as a later stage.

With the generation track closed and the storage track held open to Oct. 30, the process now runs on two separate clocks under a single call associated with CFE.

Australia's most powerful battery is poised to reach full capacity after a replacement transformer was energised, RenewEconomy reported.

The asset is the Waratah Super Battery, according to RenewEconomy.

The transformer replacement had held the project short of its rated output, and its energisation clears the way for the battery to operate at full capacity, per RenewEconomy.

IBU-tec has obtained the approval required to start operations at its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) production plant in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, granted by the State Administration Office of Saxony-Anhalt, electrive reported.

The site under construction is designed for 15,000 tonnes of capacity and is scheduled to begin operations in 2028, according to electrive.

Offtake is already locked in. PowerCo SE has secured the entire plant's production capacity for 10 years at pre-defined prices, electrive reported. IBU-tec is a supplier to the battery subsidiary PowerCo.

The contract is expected to generate annual revenue in the mid- to high double-digit millions for IBU-tec starting in 2028, in the profitable segment, per electrive.

Supply to PowerCo does not wait for the new plant. IBU-tec will begin producing LFP cathode material for the customer this year at its existing facilities in Weimar, and that arrangement runs until 2028, according to electrive.

On the Bitterfeld-Wolfen site, the company has erected the steel structure for a logistics hall with storage capacity of roughly 2,000 pallets, electrive reported. Trial operation of the spray tower is scheduled for the end of Q4.

IBU-tec states that once the plant is running, it will be the only provider in Europe capable of producing LFP cathode material on an industrial scale.

European battery storage installations are expected to reach 57 GWh in 2026, according to EUPD Research's latest Electrical Energy Storage report. That would mark a 78% increase over the prior year.

EUPD Research put last year's European installations at 32 GWh. The forecast published by ESS News tracks a market the researcher describes as gaining momentum.

The residential segment accounts for a smaller share of the projected total. EUPD Research expects installed residential capacity to rise from 11 GWh to 15 GWh, growth of around 36%.

That gap between headline growth and residential growth is the substance of the forecast. The 78% expansion EUPD Research projects for the wider European market runs well ahead of the roughly 36% it expects from home batteries, leaving the balance of new capacity to non-residential installations.