Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Two regional courts in Germany have let stand sales bans on plug-in solar batteries that lack protection against electrical circuit overload, Berlin-based Indielux told ESS News.

The underlying rulings came in June from the regional courts in Bochum and Osnabrück, which blocked the sale of specific plug-in solar battery systems. The judges concluded the products fell short of applicable VDE standards, meaning they could not be sold as plug-and-play kits or advertised as installable without an electrician.

After an oral hearing, the Osnabrück court kept its ban intact in full, Indielux said. The Bochum decision was largely sustained and now carries legal force, per the company.

One of the two bans is legally binding, and breaching it can trigger penalties of up to EUR 250,000, according to Indielux.

Two battery projects are advancing in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, the coal-generation heartland of the state, RenewEconomy reported. One entered commissioning last week, and a separate developer used the moment to float a much larger follow-on stage.

At a community day held at Churchill Public Hall, Flow Power told attendees it wants to build a second battery next to its existing Bennetts Creek site, according to RenewEconomy. The follow-on facility, dubbed Bennetts Creek Stage 2, would reach up to 300 MW and 1,200 MWh, giving it four hours of storage duration.

RenewEconomy reported the Stage 2 proposal sits in an early planning phase, with environmental, noise, and cultural heritage studies underway and a development approval application being drawn up for Victoria's state government.

The commissioning milestone belongs to a different asset: the 350 MW, 1,400 MWh Wooreen battery, built with Banpu Energy Australia at Hazelwood North next to EnergyAustralia's Jeeralang gas plant.

China's electric grid is the largest single source of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) emissions globally, even as the country leads the world in renewable energy expansion, according to Inside Climate News.

SF6 is 24,300 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide on a pound-for-pound basis, and once released it lingers in the atmosphere for 1,000 years, Inside Climate News reported.

China released 5,100 metric tons of SF6 in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, according to Inside Climate News.

The outlet also flagged a gap between official and estimated recycling performance. China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment has stated that domestic electric utilities recycle, or have the ability to recycle, 90 percent of their waste SF6. Inside Climate News estimated the actual recycling rate is substantially lower, at around 30 percent.

Pakistan is leaning on Chinese battery manufacturers to underpin a national target of 90% clean energy in its electricity mix by 2035, according to Daily Times.

Muhammad Imran, Pakistan's Trade and Investment Counsellor in Guangzhou, told an audience in Shenzhen that battery storage is not optional for the country. "It is a core component of our energy security," he said, according to Daily Times.

Commercial links between the two sides are already forming around lithium-ion cells, storage systems and EV charging. Daily Times reported that Pakistan's Saigol Group and China's Hebei Juhang Energy Technology Group signed a memorandum of understanding in June covering advanced lithium-ion batteries, energy storage systems and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

A separate technical exchange meeting in Karachi brought together representatives from I.A Energy Solution, Huizhou Baimingcheng Electronics Co., Ltd. and Ewatte Energy to discuss developments in lithium battery technology and energy-storage systems, according to a Medium post carried through Event Registry.

Rural electrification projects in Kenya are extending power lines into villages across Kericho, Nandi, Busia and Kwale, connecting households, schools, health facilities and markets, according to Business Today.

The outlet reports that the arrival of grid power is displacing kerosene lamps, candles and other costly energy sources that rural households had long relied on.

Business Today attributes several social effects to the new connections: children can study for longer hours, small businesses can extend operating hours, and communities gain improved access to essential services in areas that have lagged urban centres.

More than 140,000 home batteries dispatched power to California's statewide grid during extreme heat on September 9, 2026, matching the capacity of a large power plant.

Sunrun and Tesla coordinated 580 MW of residential battery capacity for the event, combining 517 MW from Tesla Powerwalls with 63 MW from additional batteries.

The California Energy Commission and utilities requested the discharge, and the two companies drew from customer batteries across a three-hour evening window to widen the grid's operating margin and push real-time energy prices lower.