Friday, 2 October 2026

More than 4,000 Southern California households will pay a zero-dollar-per-kilowatt-hour generation rate between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. under a two-year pilot from Clean Power Alliance (CPA).

The Time-Of-Use-SMART Pilot (TOU-SMART), a research project with UCLA, is designed to measure whether a zero-cost daytime rate shifts when households use electricity, with lower bills as a potential outcome drawn from daytime solar supply.

Participants will not pay more than under their earlier TOU-D-PRIME rate. Where TOU-SMART would have cost a household more, CPA will credit the difference at the end of each 12-month period.

Tariffs or export surcharges on Canadian electricity would reduce the volume of imported power, raise prices, increase carbon emissions and leave the power system more exposed to extreme weather, according to a Cornell study.

The study found that under historical market conditions, a tariff of roughly 55% or more would nearly price Ontario electricity imports out of the market.

At that cost level, New York would be forced to lean more heavily on in-state generation and to buy additional electricity from other U.S. regions that depend more on fossil fuels, pushing carbon emissions higher, according to Cornell.

The study tied the same measures to broader system risks, finding that the surcharges would cut imports, raise prices and weaken the grid's resilience to extreme weather conditions.

An independent technical assessment by BBA identified potential benefits from Triple Point Resources Ltd.'s proposed Fischells Salt Dome Power Generation Project on Newfoundland's west coast.

The assessment found the project could increase operational flexibility across the provincial electricity system and improve utilization of existing transmission and generation infrastructure, according to BBA. BBA also found the project could reduce dependence on thermal generation and improve transmission system efficiency.

BBA concluded the project has the potential to strengthen electrical system performance in western Newfoundland and support the continued integration of clean and renewable energy resources.

Antora Energy announced a 5.8 GWh multiday thermal energy storage project in Pratt, Kansas, on Oct. 1.

Upon completion, the project will rank as one of the world's largest battery storage systems.

Pratt Energy will receive competitively priced, around-the-clock energy through a long-term heat offtake agreement.

The project is expected to create more than 100 construction and operations jobs in Pratt.

Northland Power secured about PLN 500 million from Canadian and Polish institutions to finance two battery storage projects under construction in Poland, according to Warsaw Business Journal.

The two battery energy storage system projects total 300 MW and 1.2 GWh, according to Clifford Chance, which advised Northland Power on the financing.

The projects also received PLN 280 million in grants from Poland's National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, according to Warsaw Business Journal.

New factories in and around Port Talbot could connect to the electricity network sooner under a trial of grid-controlled batteries, according to National Grid. The region includes a £1.25bn electric arc furnace still waiting for its connection.

The first project will test whether batteries controlled by the network operator, rather than by their owners, can smooth out the peaks and troughs of supply and demand and free up capacity on the network, according to National Grid.

Smaller and device-integrated batteries are emerging as a route around the same connection bottlenecks elsewhere. In New York City, a notoriously tough tangle of regulations has made it difficult to get large energy storage projects on the grid, a constraint that has pushed some startups to deploy relatively small batteries in unexpected places, from induction stovetops to food carts.

Because those batteries are small or integrated into another device, they generally do not require grid upgrades or extensive permitting processes.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will bar projects with weak business certainty from reserving grid connections, clearing room for stronger projects to link up faster, ESS News reported.

The rule came out of METI's Next-Generation Grid Working Group.

The change responds to a pileup in grid-scale battery storage. Ministry figures cited by ESS News put 172 GW of such capacity at the connection-study stage at the end of December 2025, with another 30 GW at the contract-application stage. Only 0.64 GW had actually connected.

Hebei Juhang Energy Technology Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kohinoor Energy Limited for a joint venture battery facility in Pakistan, with an initial capacity of 50 MWh to 100 MWh, according to ESS News.

The plant could expand to 1 GWh subject to market demand, ESS News reported.

The site would produce lithium-ion battery packs, battery energy storage systems and associated electrical equipment, according to ESS News.

Kohinoor Energy said the MoU is non-binding and subject to further evaluation and due diligence.

Revolta AG secured funding from the German state of Hesse under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to develop a residential sodium-ion alternating current (AC) battery, according to ESS News and PV Magazine.

The Hesse register of ERDF beneficiaries lists eligible project costs of EUR 660,545, or USD 743,530, with a 40% EU co-financing rate equivalent to about EUR 264,200. The project is scheduled to run from Aug. 1, 2026, to Dec. 31, 2029.

Revolta said the system is designed to connect directly to the grid, charging when power prices and grid fees are low and feeding electricity back when prices are higher.

Denmark will replace its first-come, first-served rule for electricity grid connections with a priority-based model, according to pv magazine, citing details published by Denmark's Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities. The emergency plan lets state-owned transmission system operator Energinet and the country's other grid companies decide who gets access to limited grid capacity.

The plan is set to enter into force on October 12, according to pv magazine.

The new model sets out four priority categories, pv magazine reported. Connections for critical societal functions, new households and general electricity consumption sit in the highest category.

Energinet and local grid companies will be able to reject applications from projects in the third and fourth categories, according to pv magazine. That authority applies when sufficient capacity is not expected within the foreseeable future and a connection would displace higher-priority projects or place an inappropriate burden on the grid.

CBAK Energy plans to advance a 12 GWh cell production project in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in the second half of 2027, subject to securing financing, according to ESS News.

The agreement covers research, development and manufacturing of large cylindrical sodium-ion battery cells and integrated battery systems, ESS News reported.

CBAK Energy announced the deal as part of its sodium-ion strategy, but the planned manufacturing line will offer flexibility to produce either sodium-ion or lithium-ion cells, according to ESS News.

Schneider Electric and Networks for Humanity (NFH) have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore applications for India's emerging Digital Energy Grid (DEG).

The partnership will examine how open digital infrastructure can connect energy assets, consumers and other participants in India.

Planned pilots will assess technical and operational requirements while testing three capabilities: discoverability, trust and transactability between value creators and value takers.

The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) has released flexible demand guidance for commercial buildings and a report on how buildings can put flexible energy demand strategies into practice, according to The Fifth Estate.

The UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures wrote the guidance with Positive Zero and Buildings Alive, backed by the City of Sydney, The Fifth Estate reported. It describes how building managers can improve efficiency by shifting electricity use to match generation, network, or market conditions.

The guide walks through reviewing a building's energy profile and costs, finding where electricity use can be moved, weighing the risks and benefits, and building a business case for the change.

ISO New England has published two interactive maps on its website to show how resources move through the grid interconnection process in New England, according to the ISO New England Newswire.

One of the tools is a heatmap that highlights areas of the New England grid that might best support new capacity, the newswire said.

The second tool is a queue map showing the location and type of resources currently undergoing the ISO's interconnection process, according to ISO New England.

Battery storage accounts for the bulk of proposed new resources in the current interconnection queue, the newswire reported.

RWTH Aachen is developing scalable processes for multilayer battery electrodes under the ProMeBa research project, aiming to move the technology from the laboratory to pilot scale, according to electrive.

The project aims to demonstrate how multilayer electrodes can be produced stably and reproducibly on an industrial scale, according to electrive.

Researchers will examine two multilayer coating processes under industrially relevant roll-to-roll conditions: multilayer coating using a two-layer slot die and multilayer curtain coating, electrive reported.

The findings will then be transferred to pilot scale through a modular coating module designed to integrate into existing pilot plants, according to electrive.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced FORTRESS America, a programme intended to keep major domestic military bases operating if cyberattacks or sabotage disable the civilian power grid.

The initiative pushes major military installations toward independent power generation and seeks to return critical defence supply chains to the United States.

It will also expand strategic reserves and strengthen infrastructure used for military communications and navigation.