Friday, 16 October 2026

Home batteries run by Sunrun and Tesla pushed 745 MW of peak power onto California's grid on October 6, 2026, a record output that helped cover elevated demand during a prolonged heat wave, according to Interesting Engineering.

The two companies drew down batteries sited in homes across multi-hour evening peaks after the California Energy Commission and utilities called for the discharge.

That total beat the 669 MW sent a day earlier, which Sunrun described in an October 14 announcement as a new record for residential distributed power plants in the United States.

Tesla accounted for most of the combined 745 MW, with the remainder coming from batteries managed by Sunrun, according to Electrek.

Switching too many connected home energy devices at once could knock the electricity grid off balance, the Netherlands' digital infrastructure inspectorate, the Rijksinspectie Digitale Infrastructuur, warned in a report covered by ESS News. The regulator says a flawed software update, or a cyberattack reaching manufacturer and aggregator platforms, could flip enough inverters, home batteries, heat pumps and EV chargers simultaneously to cause that disruption.

A sudden gap between supply and demand of 3 GW or more is enough to disrupt the grid, the inspectorate says, pointing to research by SolarPower Europe.

The inspectorate proposes placing any firm that can remotely control enough capacity to endanger grid stability under NIS2, no matter its size or where it is based. It also wants to curb reliance on companies outside the European Union that can influence large fleets of devices.

EU cybersecurity rules should apply to a company by how much power it can switch remotely, not by headcount or revenue, the regulator argues. It also calls for home energy devices to be certified independently under the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).

A new process for calculating cross-border electricity trading capacity in Europe went live on Oct. 14, 2026, according to European transmission system operators (TSOs) cited by ESS News.

Eighteen grid operators from the European Core region are taking part in the new intraday calculation procedure, known as Intraday Capacity Calculation, or IDCC(e), ESS News reported. The participants include the four German TSOs 50Hertz, Amprion, TenneT, and TransnetBW.

Under the procedure, cross-border trading capacities in the European Core region, which includes Germany and other continental European countries, are now recalculated in the afternoon using updated grid data, according to ESS News.

The procedure aims to use available transmission capacity more efficiently and facilitate the short-term marketing of wind and solar power, ESS News reported.

Metlen and Karatzis Group inaugurated a 330 MW / 790 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Larissa, Thessaly, Greece, according to ESS News.

The project was officially inaugurated on October 14, 2026. The project partners describe the Thessaly facility as Greece's largest standalone battery storage project, ESS News reported.

ESS News confirmed that the project uses Jinko ESS's SunTera G2 energy storage system.

Several local governments have moved to restrict or slow data-centre and battery energy storage system (BESS) development within their jurisdictions. According to energy-storage.news, the City Council of Independence, Missouri approved new zoning requirements for data centres and BESS inside the city limits.

Custer County, Kansas took a split approach, approving data-centre zoning regulations while establishing a 12-month moratorium on BESS, energy-storage.news reported.

The Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously to begin the state-required process for a 90-day data-centre moratorium and set up an advisory group to help shape new rules, according to KERA.

The local actions follow a directive from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who on Aug. 3 ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to audit every data centre in the grid connection queue before approving more.

The U.S. Department of Energy said it intends to use Defense Production Act (DPA) funding to speed up transmission capacity expansion in Virginia and West Virginia, according to a department announcement.

Virginia Energy's Grid Enhancing Technologies for Virginia and West Virginia Large Load Growth project will receive up to USD 50 million in DPA funding to deploy advanced transmission technologies across existing power lines, the department said. The funding targets increased electricity delivery capacity, reduced congestion, and growing energy demand across the region.

The project is expected to add an estimated 290 MW of transmission capacity across Appalachian Power's Virginia system, according to the department.

Under the plan, the project will deploy advanced reconductoring and Dynamic Line Rating technologies along existing transmission corridors.

Power outages lasting more than a week in parts of Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory have disrupted economic activity, spoiled perishable goods and raised household expenses, according to Signal Nigeria and Daily Trust.

The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) attributed the outage across parts of the FCT and neighbouring areas to a technical fault on the 330 kV Shiroro-Katampe transmission line.

Small businesses that rely on electricity to preserve goods and run equipment were hit hardest, forcing many operators to fall back on generators and inverters despite rising fuel costs, according to the two outlets.

Frozen-food dealer Fatima Muhammed, at Dutse Market, said she lost fish and chicken worth more than N100,000 because of the blackout.