Thursday, 10 September 2026

India's state-owned power utility NTPC has invited expressions of interest for grid-connected battery energy storage systems built on sodium-ion technology, to be installed at its existing thermal power plants and office buildings, according to pv magazine.

The pilot program is designed to test how the chemistry behaves in service. Per pv magazine, NTPC will assess technical performance, safety, reliability, degradation, operational characteristics and techno-commercial viability of sodium-ion batteries under Indian grid and climatic conditions.

One pilot configuration specifies a BESS with 100 kWh of usable energy capacity, a size chosen to give NTPC a common basis for comparing the technologies that bidders put forward, pv magazine reported.

Cost-sharing turns on how far a bidder's technology has advanced. Applicants offering technologies at Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4) or TRL 5 must fund at least 50% of total project cost, according to pv magazine. At TRL 6 and above, no minimum financial contribution is required from the applicant.

NTPC will supply land inside its own premises for installation and commissioning of the storage system, and will provide support for operation and maintenance of the pilot, pv magazine reported.

Current and pending Puerto Rico government contracts would add more than 5,200 MW of generation capacity, according to IEEFA. The island's electrical system peaked at less than 3,200 MW in 2024, IEEFA said.

The largest single piece is an outstanding procurement for 3,000 MW of new generation, which IEEFA describes as likely gas-fired and as including as much as 600 MW to replace the Costa Sur power plant.

That procurement has drawn scrutiny from the Financial Oversight and Management Board, which has raised questions about the process and says its concerns are being ignored, per IEEFA.

The FOMB has already unwound one deal. IEEFA reported that Enchanted Rock alleged Power Expectations had fraudulently signed a 400 MW emergency generation contract on its behalf; once notified that Enchanted Rock was not participating, the board canceled the contract.

Beyond the pending procurement, approved contracts cover more than 1,000 MW of utility-scale battery storage, the 528 MW Energiza gas plant, 244 MW of new fossil-fueled peaker units, and more than 1,500 MW of utility-scale solar, according to IEEFA.

Distributed generation is expanding alongside those contracts. As of June 2026, more than 1,600 MW of rooftop solar had been installed on the island, IEEFA said, a 28% year-over-year increase.

Researchers at Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) have tied the distribution of two lithium isotopes inside battery cells to degradation processes, describing the pattern as a fingerprint, electrive reported.

Fresh cells carry the isotopes in their natural ratio: 2.4% lithium-6 against 97.6% lithium-7, according to electrive.

That balance breaks with use. In a test cell built with an NMC cathode and a graphite anode, lithium-6 started collecting at the anode after only the first few charge cycles, electrive reported. A further 280 cycles sharpened the separation, and the cathode showed a raised lithium-7 content.

The isotope split therefore offers a read on how far a cell has aged, rather than an inferred estimate from voltage or capacity alone.

Fidra Energy has divided its Thorpe Marsh battery storage project in the UK into five 290 MW units, each with its own offtake arrangement, according to ESS News. The site totals 1.45 GW/2.9 GWh.

One unit runs on a tolling agreement with Octopus, three carry floor contracts, two with EDF and one with Statkraft, and the fifth is uncontracted, ESS News reported.

The project secured GBP 445 million at financial close in September 2025, with the UK government's National Wealth Fund among the major backers, according to ESS News. Commissioning is scheduled for 2027, and Thorpe Marsh is on course to be Great Britain's biggest battery at that point, per the same report.

Beyond Thorpe Marsh, Fidra Energy's pipeline covers the 500 MW/1 GWh West Burton C BESS and the 1,025 MW Enderby BESS, which the developer bought from UK developer Innova, ESS News reported.

Chief executive Chris Elder said two acquisitions in progress would take the total pipeline to between 4 GW and 4.5 GW in power terms, according to ESS News. The company's stated ambition is 5 GW of deployed UK battery storage by 2030.

Swedish battery storage startup Rebaba has raised just under EUR 4 million in a seed funding round, according to electrive. The round totalled SEK 44.1 million, was oversubscribed, and was led by Sistafund and EIT Urban Mobility, with existing shareholders and new European investors taking part.

The company was founded in Stockholm in 2023 and builds its business on second life, taking decommissioned EV batteries and reusing them in stationary energy storage systems, electrive reported.

Rebaba plans to raise the capacity of its CircularHub production facility in Stockholm to 40 MWh per year, which according to electrive could avoid approximately 4,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.

Its product line includes Companion, a compact cabinet-based 40-kWh system aimed at private and small commercial applications.

Flower has begun construction on a 100 MW / 400 MWh utility-scale battery energy storage system in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, according to ESS News.

The system is expected to come online by the end of 2028, ESS News reported.

Flower says the installation is the largest of its kind within a major German city, and its largest self-developed project to date.

Commercial operation of the asset has been contracted ahead of grid connection. A Flexibility Purchase Agreement structured as a virtual tolling agreement puts Engie in charge of market trading and dispatch of the battery once it connects to the grid, per ESS News.

Flower's development pipeline in Germany exceeds 300 MW of battery storage projects, according to ESS News.

Deputy Ministers David Mahlobo and Jack Bloom called an urgent stakeholder meeting on Tuesday evening, acting on a request from Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina, and the meeting settled on a new joint working committee. South Africa's Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) will chair that committee, which is to work out fixes for the electricity supply problems hitting Rand Water's water systems and causing disruptions in parts of Gauteng and the North West, according to SAnews.

Rand Water's Eikenhof system drew particular attention at the meeting, where stakeholders raised concern about repeated electricity supply failures there, SAnews reported.

Municipal water supply in Emfuleni, the City of Johannesburg and the West Rand has been affected by the power interruptions, as have parts of Madibeng and Rustenburg in the North West.

SAnews said the committee pairs the water utilities with the electricity suppliers they depend on: Eskom and City Power sit alongside Rand Water and Johannesburg Water, with DWS and the Gauteng Provincial Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) representing government.

A Trump administration executive order on grid cybersecurity could slow growth in the U.S. energy storage market, according to Canary Media.

The order invokes a national security emergency, pointing to the possibility that equipment made abroad is used to break into and disrupt power grid operations in the United States, Canary Media reported.

Canary Media called the order "vaguely worded" and described the storage market it now covers as booming.

Tesla said Thursday that its Cybertruck Powershare feature can back up a home at the same time as a Powerwall 3, according to Electrek.

Running the truck and the home battery together adds more than three days of backup power, which Tesla puts at the equivalent of nine extra Powerwalls, Electrek reported.

The arithmetic lines up with the hardware. Electrek reports the Cybertruck carries a 123 kWh pack, while a single Powerwall holds 13.5 kWh, so nine of them land close to the truck's battery size. Powershare pushes up to 11.5 kW into the home and requires a Universal Wall Connector and a Powershare Gateway.

The integration is late. Tesla first promised the Powerwall feature for 2025, and it is arriving nearly two years after Cybertruck deliveries began, per Electrek.

Tesla has been pushing the truck into grid-facing roles over the same period. It launched a Cybertruck vehicle-to-grid program in Texas in February, and in April the truck became the first AC vehicle-to-grid asset in California through PG&E, Electrek reported.

Battery storage firm NeoVolta received an initial USD 20 million funded at closing to support its continued growth, according to Power Magazine.

The credit facility can rise to USD 30 million upon mutual agreement, Power Magazine reported.

The capital came from RoHo Capital Opportunity Fund LLC, a joint venture formed by Horizon Technology Finance Corp. and CR Financial Holdings, Inc., the holding company for Roth Capital Partners, LLC.

Zhero has signed a framework agreement with Tesla Energy covering roughly 3 GWh of battery energy storage capacity in Italy, with H1 Holdings collaborating on the deal, according to ESS News.

The first tranche under the agreement is 200 MW of shovel-ready plants, ESS News reported. Tesla Energy is to supply Megapack batteries for the projects.

Zhero's wider utility-scale storage development pipeline exceeds 1.5 GW, according to ESS News.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) hold a clear edge in two data center applications, contest four more, and lose two outright to rival technologies, according to a Volta Foundation report published in July 2026 and covered by ESS News.

The report, titled "Where Batteries Can Win in Data Center Applications," identifies speed-to-power and cheaper power as the strongest arguments for BESS, Volta Foundation said. The two categories where batteries lose are long-duration storage and continuous power.

Backup duty beyond four hours goes to diesel, according to the report, while continuous prime power remains primarily the domain of gas turbines and fuel cells.

Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, Meta, Google, and Microsoft have all been putting money into BESS, per ESS News.