Solar Energy Storage and Battery News

A team of scientists led by the University of Glasgow has discovered a more efficient method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity which it says could almost double the amount of hydrogen produced per millivolt.

Enphase’s current growth is based around its core solar microinverter business. But in discussing the company's Q3 earnings Tuesday, CEO Badri Kothandaraman focused on how Enphase's soon-to-launch integrated energy storage system could aid Californians facing the state’s unfolding wildfire and grid blackout emergency.

The Balkan nation is planning a tender for 50 MW of utility scale solar capacity on a public-private partnership basis with help from the International Finance Corporation. The World Bank’s private finance arm is procuring a technical, environmental and social consulting firm to advise on the project.

The government of the Philippines will spend $500 million on solar-powered water supply and desalination in remote areas of Mindanao, the second-largest island in the archipelago. Elsewhere, a Finnish study has suggested drought-hit Iran could benefit from renewable-powered desalination.

To take Australian solar battery storage installation company Solar SG into its next growth phase, a new chairman and chief executive officer have been appointed.

Canadian business Caledonia Mining Corporation plc wants to build a power plant at its Blanket mine near Gwanda, in southern Zimbabwe.

Singapore has targeted 2GW of solar by 2030 and 200MW of energy storage beyond 2025, but will continue to rely on natural gas for the next 50 years, according to a government official.

The uptake of solar power around the world is certainly a good thing for the planet, but that doesn’t mean it is without environmental consequence either. Some solar panel components are more easily recycled than others, and scientists in Australia may have just figured out how to repurpose one of the trickiest and most valuable: the silicon that serves as its semiconductor.

Tesla is offering a discount on solar panels and batteries to people who are affected by wildfire power outages, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted today. More than 2 million people across California have been affected by power outages since October 25th as utility companies try to prevent their power lines from sparking new blazes. A fire just north of San Francisco has already consumed more than 66,000 acres and is only 5 percent under control.

The South African utility has issued a 20-strong tender for 50 kW solar inverters and mounting structures, to be used in four power plants. Although it is unclear whether the tender marks the energy company’s first step into solar energy, the procurement follows the recent publication of South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan. Eskom is reportedly developing a renewables-linked large scale storage project which may explain the need for inverters.

According to new research from Wood Mackenzie, non-residential storage system costs will fall by 27% in the United States over the next five years. The fall in system costs will help drive a more-than-tenfold growth in the U.S. non-residential storage market by 2024. Commercial and industrial customers with predictable, peaky loads are increasingly turning to storage to help manage demand charges.

8minute Solar Energy has partnered with Doosan GridTech to develop an advanced energy software control solution for dispatching energy from advanced photovoltaic solar-plus-storage centers (PVS).

The Netherlands-administered Caribbean island last year saw almost half its power demand provided by a 4.1 MW solar-plus-storage plant, commissioned in late 2017. The facility generated 6.5 million kWh of the 14.3 million kWh of electricity consumed in the territory in 2018.

A standalone Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for energy storage in the US holds the potential to be more immediate and impactful than any other policy, the head of the US national Energy Storage Association has said.

Tesla reported a bounce back in solar installations in the third quarter of 2019, while energy storage installs reached a new record high. The company is also launching a third-generation residential roof system ahead of a volume production ramp.