The signing took place during the University Ecosystem of Lazio Region: Knowledge as a Heritage Forum, held in Dubai at the Expo Italy Pavilion. The MoU was signed by IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera and Prof. Stefano Ubertini, president of CRUL.

The Lazio Region Universities Coordination Committee (CRUL) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) establishing a new partnership aimed at developing joint research on how to boost renewable energy as a key element in energy transition.

The research will focus, among others on bioenergy, geothermal, hydroelectric, ocean, solar and wind energy in pursuit of sustainable development, access to energy, energy security, economic growth and low-carbon prosperity. With nearly 210.000 students and programs in all fields of knowledge, the CRUL, made up of 13 universities, hosts 13% of the entire student population in Italy, being the second largest in Italy.

“Through the signing of this protocol, CRUL will be able to become part of the agency’s network to exchange good practices, teaching, training, researchers, students and present joint projects on sustainable energy, renewable energy and data collection,” says Paolo Orneli, Lazio Region councilor for economic development, commerce and handicraft, research, startup and innovation. “An important opportunity towards the internationalization and attractiveness of our university system which already boasts world-class excellence.”

Within the framework of this MoU, IRENA and CRUL will work closely on a number of key areas, including studying the use of renewable energy sources in different territorial contexts and the research on hydrogen and multi-energy systems, and promoting higher education in the field of renewable energy. In addition, they will formulate common policy advice to accelerate the expansion of renewable energy and facilitate knowledge sharing and technology transfer to provide clean and sustainable energy to the growing world population. IRENA and CRUL will exchange academic knowledge, research results and experiences for the development of renewable energies as well as jointly organize advocacy activities to raise awareness on viable renewable energy solutions.

“A knowledge ecosystem that advances research and creates skilled human workforce is crucial to scale up renewable energy deployment swiftly and sustainably,” adds Francesco La Camera, IRENA’s director-general. “I am confident this partnership will bring valuable contribution to the energy transition discourse and the net zero pathway.”

“Energy represents a necessary opportunity to be seized, without further delay, towards which all institutions will have to converge simultaneously by investing on research and knowledge exchange,” states Stefano Ubertini, president of CRUL. “The memorandum represents the shared path undertaken towards energy transition, as the only goal to be achieved, favoring the transfer of technology for the well-being of the planet and the community.”

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Invinity Energy’s Systems vanadium redox flow battery at Energy Superhub Oxford. Image: Invinity Energy Systems.

A major new vanadium processing facility is set to open in Finland in late 2024 after the formation of a joint venture (JV) to deliver the project.

Australian project development companies Critical Metals and Neometals have formed the JV with support from EIT RawMaterials, part of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), an EU agency.

The Vanadium Recovery Project (VRP), located in Pori on the southwest coast, will produce the vanadium to be used in grid-scale vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB), specialty steel applications and next generation lithium-vanadium cells, the announcement said.

It will use ‘slag’ from local steel producers to recover the metal. Today, around 70% of the metal comes from this method with three primary producers of the chemical sharing another 20% of the market: Largo Resources, Bushveld Minerals and Glencore.

VRP will rely on a novel proprietary hydrometallurgical process that results in no waste and its by-products will be used in the production of co2-free cement.

The European Commission classifies vanadium as a critical raw material and wants to diversify the source of the chemical, which is currently 75% supplied by China (almost entirely as by-products of steel and other industries). There is minimal vanadium processing or production capacity in Europe outside of Russia.

Darren Townsend, Chief Development Officer at Neometals, said: “We believe that in the next 10years vanadium will be the ‘new lithium’. We see a lot of parallels on where the vanadium industryis now versus where the lithium industry was 10 years ago. We are happy that EIT RawMaterialsagrees with this assessment and continues to support us in driving this project rapidly forward.”

Vanadium is increasingly being seen as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries in light of its longer duration, lower fire risk and lower reliance on lithium which has gone through big price spikes recently – and for which electric vehicles (EVs) will likely always be prioritised. However, not all are so convinced long-duration storage technologies like it are likely to take off in the way some are hoping or predicting.

That the two companies involved in the joint venture are Australian is noteworthy as the country is making a big push to set up a domestic supply chain, as Energy-storage.news has reported. It has no production or processing facilities despite having the third-largest natural reserves in the world. The primary producers’ vanadium production facilities are in South Africa and Brazil.

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Bill Gross

Heliogen Inc., a provider of AI-enabled concentrated solar energy, and Woodside Energy (USA) Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian energy producer Woodside Petroleum Ltd. are deploying a commercial-scale demonstration of Heliogen’s AI-enabled concentrated solar energy technology proposed to be built in Mojave, Calif.

The project agreement follows the previously announced limited notice to proceed (LNTP) granted by Woodside to Heliogen to begin procurement of key equipment for the deployment of a commercial scale, single-module 5 MWe facility. Heliogen will complete the engineering, procurement and construction of the facility, with construction expected to begin once permits are approved.

The two companies have agreed to include the scope and associated funding from Heliogen’s previously announced $39 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy Heliogen’s renewable energy technology in California. This means that in addition to commercial-scale demonstration of Heliogen’s 5 MWe module, the project will also include the deployment and testing of an innovative approach to converting the thermal energy produced by Heliogen’s facility into power, which has the potential to deliver higher efficiencies with a smaller footprint than traditional steam turbines.

In addition to the project agreement, Heliogen and Woodside Energy Technologies Pty. Ltd have also signed a collaboration agreement to jointly market Heliogen’s technology in Australia. The companies expect to define product offerings that use Heliogen’s modular technology for potential customers (including Woodside) in Australia. The Australian collaboration agreement includes an objective to deploy further commercial-scale modules of Heliogen’s heat and power offerings which may be combined with a hydrogen offering. The companies are also in similar discussions in relation to Heliogen’s technology in the U.S.

“We are thrilled to be working with leading Australian energy producer, Woodside,” says Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Heliogen. “Our agreements represent a pivotal next step in the commercialization of Heliogen’s breakthrough concentrated solar technology and the decarbonization of heavy industry. We are also pleased to share that, along with these agreements, our strategic alliance with Woodside includes Woodside taking an equity participation in Heliogen.”

“The proposed Mojave facility will further advance our discussions with Woodside for additional opportunities aiming to produce carbon-free heat, power and hydrogen to help them achieve their sustainability goals,” continues Gross.

“Woodside has set a US$5 billion investment target by 2030 for new energy products and lower-carbon services1,” comments Meg O’Neill, CEO of Woodside. “Our collaboration with Heliogen on this innovative technology supports our commitment to building a low cost, lower-carbon, profitable, resilient and diversified portfolio.”

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Different lithium battery cell types. ‘Runaway’ raw materials costs have hit the industry, Adam Walters of Stoel Rives said. Image: PI Berlin.

The US battery storage market is struggling to adapt to rising raw materials costs and has reached a “crisis point”, Energy-Storage.news has heard. 

The steep rise in the cost of lithium carbonate in particular means that it’s likely the industry will see a slowdown in new projects in 2022 and possibly next year, Adam Walters, a specialist lawyer with Stoel Rives, said.

“We’re at the point where batteries are going to be uneconomical in the short term for a lot of projects. The economics are not going to stack because those raw materials prices being so much extremely higher, translates to 20% to 30% higher battery prices overall,” Walters said in an interview. 

Walters provides legal counsel as a transactional, commercial and project lawyer to clients in the renewable energy and battery storage space, among others, with previous experience in-house at Tesla and First Solar.

Cobalt and other raw materials important for lithium-ion battery production have also gone up in price, but it is lithium carbonate prices, which have “quintupled since last August,” that present a massive issue, he said.

From about RMB100,000 (US$15,000) per metric tonne in China in the first half of 2022, prices are at about RMB500 (US$78,000). Prices doubled in the last two months and double two months before that. Walters said the situation is going to be a “massive break on the industry”.

“I think it’ll be a temporary break but it’s significant enough. These are runaway prices for raw materials,” the lawyer said. 

Top tier battery suppliers are now indexing their pricing to the spot market, with those prices being moved on to developers. That means firm pricing offers are very, very short-term and if vendors’ terms aren’t agreed to and deals signed off with five to 10 days, buyers lose that pricing and have to renegotiate. 

“What we’re going to see is fewer battery projects getting installed this year, and maybe even into 2023 on this basis. And you may be seeing some developers waiting out pricing to go down to a level that is more consistent with what we have seen up until six, seven months ago.”

According to the lawyer, three months ago, the situation was starting to get a little worrying, but now a “crisis point” has been reached.

The industry has become used to seeing consistent declines in the cost of battery storage, which has been seen to fall even faster than the costs of solar PV or wind before 2021. In early 2021, McKinsey associate partner Bram Smeets told Energy-Storage.news the importance of continuously falling battery storage prices in enabling rapid global decarbonisation.

It is not just that the prices have stopped falling for the first time in years, but also the introduction of uncertainty to financing that could hurt or slow down the industry.

Pricing volatility ‘making it difficult to convince banks’

Last August, Walters said in an article contributed to our quarterly journal PV Tech Power Vol.27 that energy storage equipment procurement in the US remains a chaotic endeavour, reminiscent of a ‘Wild West’.

Ensuring supply chain robustness, making sure customers understand their warranty terms and navigating the different regional markets for energy storage were among the challenges the sector already faced at that stage, he said at the time. 

Since then, the raw material pricing issue, driven largely by the huge demand for lithium batteries from the electric vehicle (EV) industry, has come to dominate the agenda. Increases in shipping and other costs stemming largely from the pandemic are having an impact too, although these are being felt in a broad number of other industries too. 

It’s too early to say what the impact will be, with prices having gone up so quickly and so dramatically, while a lot of the larger battery energy storage system (BESS) developers will have tried to lock in their battery order volumes 12 months to 18 months in advance.

Walters said this means that with batteries already purchased, projects scheduled for completion this year might not be affected. But with suppliers “substantially raising their prices,” it’s likely we will see impacts “very soon for projects with 2023 and 2024 completion dates”. 

His colleague at Stoel Rives, Morten Lund, works further downstream in the industry, engaging with developers. Lund said that the unprecedented volatility of pricing is making it “difficult for developers to try [and] convince a bank not to worry”.

“A little bit of variability is okay, but the more variability we have, the more difficult it is for us to convince banks,” Lund said. 

That said, the impact is likely to be strongest on the solar-plus-storage market, according to Morten Lund. Standalone energy storage projects are mostly financed from the balance sheet and not through project financing, making it a risk that the developer can take on. 

On the other hand many solar-plus-storage projects are project financed. In those cases, a big increase in the volatility of the energy storage costs — which present a significant portion of the total project costs — could affect ability to get financing, Lund said. 

At the Energy Storage Summit 2022, hosted in London by our publisher Solar Media in February, Giuseppe Artizzu, CEO for energy storage at storage and emobility solutions provider NHOA said the rise in lithium carbonate pricing has even closed the price differential between lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells. 

However, Artizzu said that while supply chain challenges were perhaps added to by energy storage markets around the world taking off faster than expected, the situation “represents an opportunity to grow”.

“The supply chain will come out stronger because of it,” Artizzu said.

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The coal power plant in Pego, Abrantes, which stopped producing electricity in November 2021. Image: Endesa.

Endesa Generación Portugal, part of Enel Group, has been award the connection rights to develop a renewable energy project combining solar, wind, green hydrogen and a 168.6MW battery energy storage system (BESS) to replace the country’s last coal power station.

Endesa has been awarded connection rights of 224 MVA to install 365MWp of solar energy, 264MW of wind energy, with integrated BESS of 168.6MW. The project in the Abrantes region will also include a 500kW electrolyser which will produce green hydrogen.

The project, the winning applicant in a tender to convert a coal power plant in the parish of Pego, will require a total investment of €600 million (US$600 million). The investment is not subject to external financial aid as it is economically sustainable, the press release said.

The BESS will inject the stored renewable energy into the Public Service Electricity Grid (RESP) in, it added, a “dynamic and optimised way, reducing energy losses and optimising its use.”

The green hydrogen electrolyser will manage the surpluses that exceed the BESS’ storage capabilities. Portugal’s deputy minister and secretary of state for energy João Galamba, a regular speaker at events produced by Energy-storage.news‘ parent company Solar Media, has made the case for green hydrogen in the past.

However, the 500kW electrolyser appears relatively small in comparison with other renewables generation-plus-storage developments like the Horizeo project in France which will have a 10MW electrolyser. Though it should be said that that project, launched by Multinational utility Engie and renewables developer Neoen, has a much smaller BESS at 40MW.

The 628MW Pego coal power plant was the last in the country and stopped producing electricity with coal in November last year, marking the end of Portugal’s era of coal use. Endesa says it has formulated a training plan which can accommodate more than 2,000 people. The plant was managed by a joint venture between Endesa and Trustenergy (itself a joint venture between another energy giant Engie and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni).

Enel Green Power is Enel’s main renewable energy subsidiary – the largest renewable energy group in the world, it claims – and has been busy in Spain recently, ordering both vanadium redox flow and iron flow batteries for customer sites.

Portugal is meanwhile also one of the few countries in Europe with large pumped hydro projects coming online soon, too, with a 880MW plant in the north set to be fully operational in the middle of 2022.

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Northvolt might be best known as a cell manufacturer for the automotive industry, but it’s also a producer of whole battery systems for two distinct market segments: Industrial and Grid. Image: Northvolt.

By now, everyone’s heard of Northvolt, the Sweden-headquartered startup founded by former Tesla exec Peter Carlsson, building 150GWh of lithium-ion battery factories in Europe.

But while investments and off-take deals from the automotive industry have rightly been a major focus of attention, its stationary energy storage division Northvolt Systems has a story to tell too.

By Emad Zand, president of Northvolt Systems.

This is an extract of an article which appeared in Vol.30 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes ‘Storage & Smart Power,’ a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news.

At Northvolt Systems we’re working for a clean energy future by contributing to the establishing of a new industrial base for lithium-ion battery solutions in Europe.

Just as we’ve seen with developing a renewable energy industry, fostering a domestic battery energy storage industry not only represents a significant economic opportunity for Europe, but security of supply for a technology that is a linchpin in the transition towards clean energy.

Establishing this new industry isn’t straightforward and there are certainly challenges in developing the necessary components for a world-leading, sustainable supply chain, but we’re further along than people might think.

From our perspective, Europe holds all the right ingredients to become a global leader in battery energy storage solutions and it has every reason to embrace this opportunity.

The evolving European landscape for ESS

It’s fair to begin with acknowledging that while battery energy storage remains a young industry within Europe, it is one full of promise and potential.

The potential stems from the idea that Europe holds all the right competences to support a complete, globally competitive battery storage supply chain. By embracing the opportunities of this new industry and driving them to their full economic potential, Europe could very well become the leading global supplier of battery energy storage to a global market forecasted to attract some US$262 billion in investment out to 2030.

Many in the energy industry recall how 15 years ago Europe was tipped for leading the solar PV industry. But for reasons including lack of engagement from industry, as well as from governments and the EU to create favourable conditions, the opportunity was lost. It is precisely this which we must avoid with the battery industry.

To the promise, we need look no further than case studies of deployed energy storage systems (ESSs) for evidence of what the technology can do to quicken the adoption of clean energy and enable the transition away from fossil fuels. And indeed, there are even pioneering European ESS companies operating within this landscape – albeit with cells and batteries sourced from Asia, the long-standing home of the lithium-ion battery industry.

The relative immaturity of the ESS industry can be understood for two core reasons. First, since the region has historically lacked upstream cell production, it has not been in an ideal position to foster either battery competence or synergies in battery solutions.

Second, while theoretical need for energy storage has been recognised for some time, the realisable market demand has lagged behind. Clear market structures and reliable revenue streams for the operation of ESS are a prerequisite for business-case viable projects, but they also serve to encourage investment in components of industry itself, including components suppliers and developers.

To both points – the location of cell manufacturing and the viability of ESS – we see change that leaves Europe not only well-positioned and motivated to mature its ESS supply chain, but to lead it.

Europe is well underway in scaling up its cell production capacity: long-time champion of the European battery chain, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, has stated that by 2025 Europe will be the second largest producer of batteries in the world and supplying almost 90% of its domestic battery production needs.

In parallel, markets have become more favourable for energy storage deployments. To be sure, some markets are further ahead than others, certainly the UK and Germany can be highlighted in this respect; but broadly we have the right foundations which are strengthened by EU commitments to decarbonisation.

There are of course still challenges for the European supply chain, but above all there is opportunity. It is telling that in acknowledging the need for its own proactivity towards batteries, the US government has recognised the approach of Europe towards fostering a domestic battery supply chain.

The acknowledgement is well-earned. The EU has a proven track-record for nurturing its battery industry – focussing on cell manufacturing, upstream materials preparation and recycling.

Embedded within the EU’s approach is a particular focus on calls for sustainability within the battery industry. This is prudent – positioning the new industry to leverage what can become a differentiating factor for European products. On this front, new legislation currently under development in Brussels, namely the Battery Directive, is key.

Notable highlights include mandating of carbon footprint labelling, new procedures to ensure ethical sourcing of raw materials and ambitions for battery recycling. Stakeholders to the emerging European battery landscape should embrace sustainability from the outset.

BloombergNEF forecasts installations in the order of 1TWh of energy storage by 2030, with much allocated for Europe. Beyond the value of directly enabling these European deployments, the real opportunity is for Europe to become home to leading ESS developers supplying the global market, much as we see with wind power and energy efficiency technology.

With the right approach, in time what we could come to see in the European battery energy storage industry is a textbook example of the environmental, societal and economic gains to be secured in repositioning industrial might in manner aligned with demands of a world facing a climate emergency.

Northvolt’s first grid-connected battery system, Västerås, Sweden. Image: Northvolt

Build to cost, build to scale

For the European ESS industry to scale towards global leadership, it’s critical to design both manufacturing and product technologies to enable competitive pricing.

For this, one insight we’ve had is the importance of modularity. That is to say, designing a base module for integration into packs and systems that can easily be scaled with minimal additional design requirements or components.

The aim to design products for scalability extends to how we deliver new manufacturing capacity. Here too, we can be smart in how we establish factories. A balance must be found between CAPEX and OPEX. There is an unavoidable sizeable upfront cost to deliver assembly lines, but we can be smart in selecting machinery and tools, which when paired with well-designed products, is future-proofed for future battery systems products.

Especially on the mechanical and assembly sides, leveraging large-scale manufacturing techniques and methods – which Europe has considerable experience of from other sectors – is invariable rewarded with lower unit costs.

Reflecting what the European battery systems industry can and should become, we can highlight Northvolt Systems Dwa – the battery systems assembly facility under development in Gdansk, Poland. The facility will feature highly automated assembly lines for high-volume production of modules and module-to-pack integration. A port city with excellent road access to the continent, the facility is well-positioned for both inbound volumes of cells from Northvolt Ett and components and for outbound product flows.

Northvolt will invest US$200 million to build this new battery systems factory and it will become the largest of its kind in Europe. Development is already underway and production is scheduled to begin in 2022 with an initial annual capacity of 5GWh and a potential future capacity of 12GWh.

Batteries are rapidly becoming a cornerstone technology of energy, mobility and societal functioning at large. For Europe to transition effectively to net-zero, it requires battery systems of its own. But the opportunity is much greater. We missed our chance with solar PV, let’s not make the same mistake with batteries.

This is an extract of an article from Volume 30 of PV Tech Power, our quarterly journal. You can buy individual issues digitally or in print, as well as subscribe to get every volume as soon as it comes out. PV Tech Power subscriptions are also included in some packages for our new PV Tech Premium service.

About the Author

Emad Zand is the President of the Systems division at Northvolt. He joined the company in 2017 as partof the early team.

Prior to joining Northvolt, Emad was active as an angel investor and board professional after leaving his role as CEO of a medical device company, where he completed a successful turnaround and sale. Emad has a Master’s degree in Economics from Stockholm School of Economics and started his career at McKinsey & Co.

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Thermal energy storage solution provider Viking Energy Solutions has had its tech validated by a two-year evaluation. Image: Viking Cold Solutions.

It’s been a positive week for thermal energy storage technology, with utility Edison International validating a cold storage solution, a collaboration between two groups to achieve 100% round trip efficiency, and an acquisition involving several intellectual property rights patents.

Edison validates Viking Cold Solution’s cooling thermal energy storage tech

Viking Cold Solutions has had its thermal energy storage (TES) technology validated after a two-year evaluation study by environmental consulting firm D+R International on behalf of utility Southern California Edison (SCE), part of Edison International.

Its solution, pictured above, stores cold energy with up to 25% more efficiency than conventional cold storage, the company said. The evaluation study recommends adopting Viking Cold Solutions’s TES into SCE’s portfolio of programs to promote greater energy efficiency and demand response in cold storage facilities, the company said.

Viking said the study, carried out at a foodservice distributor in Southern California, validates the commercial benefits of TES to improve grid stability and decrease electricity use. Refrigeration is the third-highest category of energy use in California.

The evaluation study determined that “phase change materials combined with intelligent controls significantly improved energy efficiency and demand management capabilities for cold storage facilities”. Specifically, Viking’s TES technology increased energy efficiency by 25% within the refrigeration system and substantially reduced peak load demand, while better maintaining required product temperatures.

The Houston-based company is hoping this will now kickstart the adoption of its technology by food manufacturers, distributors and food retailers across the US. Adoption into existing incentive programs for operators of temperature-controlled facilities to lower energy use would go a long way towards this, and Viking says the evaluation’s success promotes its TES technology into those programs. You can read the whole evaluation study’s results here.

Israeli-based thermal energy storage group seeks to achieve 100% round-trip efficiency

Meanwhile, Israel-based thermal energy storage cell producer Nostromo Energy (TASE:NOST) has announced a technology collaboration with commercial cooling systems manufacturer Smardt Chiller Group.

The partnership will seek to “introduce an energy storage system with the highest Round Trip Efficiency (RTE) ever,” of 100%, the company said.

In the context of energy storage, round-trip efficiency means the fraction of energy put into storage that can be retrieved.

Nostromo’s core product is its IceBrick, a modular, encapsulated ice cold behind-the-meter energy storage system which enables rapid freezing at high temperature. Its primary use case is to replace building cooling. It cools water into stored ice during off-peak electricity demand periods, and uses it to cool a building’s circulated water at peak hours.

It claims 86-92% thermal round-trip efficiency, 85% full cycle round-trip efficiency, 94% depth of discharge with a four-hour cycle, and less than 1% degradation over a 20 years. Energy-storage.news interviewed its founder and CTO Yaron Ben Nun last year shortly after a stock market listing.

The partnership between the two companies involves the establishment of a lab to develop operating protocols for both companies’ systems to optimise each other’s performance.

Norway-based molten salt battery group expands into Spain

Meanwhile, Norway-based thermal battery producer Kyoto Group AS has acquired Mercury Energy, a company based in Spain holding a number of intellectual property rights (IPRs) related to the development of thermal energy storage. Mercury will be renamed Kyoto Technology Spain.

The announcement provides little additional information about Mercury Energy. It says the seller is Andres Barros Borrero, who also owns international energy consultancy company RPOW Consulting with whom Kyoto Group has an existing relationship related to the development of its Heatcube product.

He will be paid an initial cash consideration and additional compensation upon achieving milestones linked to future commercialisation of Heatcubes in Spain up until 1 January 2026, paid as shares in Kyoto Group AS.

The Heatcube is a molten salt-based battery which can be configured with capacities from 4 MWh to over 100 MWh, and with discharge load up to 25 MW. It started a pilot battery in February 2020 which is now dimensioned for loads up to 1MW.

It claims an energy efficiency with a thermal energy only discharge of 90%, while 65% thermal and 25% electric power can be extracted from the battery in a combined heat and power configuration (CHP).

The company listed on the Euronext stock exchange in March last year.

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Chuck Leitner

CBRE Investment Management (CBRE IM), a real assets investment management firm, and Altus Power Inc. are building and operating a portfolio of rooftop community solar projects to provide renewable energy to residential customers and CBRE IM logistics tenants in Maryland.

Rooftop-based solar systems of up to approximately 20 MW will be located on the logistics facilities that are owned by CBRE IM’s funds. Power generated from these solar systems will be provided to both commercial tenants and residential customers. Thirty percent or more of the generated electricity will be allocated to low- and moderate-income residential customers in the state. Energy storage and electric vehicle charging may be added to these facilities in the future.

“Our collaboration with Altus Power will greatly advance our sustainability goals and support the transition to clean energy,” says Chuck Leitner, CEO of CBRE IM. “This initiative is an excellent example of how we use scale to make our portfolio more resilient, profitable and sustainable.”

“Altus Power has been serving public and private customers in Maryland with solar-generated electricity since 2011,” adds Lars Norell, co-CEO of Altus Power. “We are excited to expand our community solar portfolio in the state and to advance our relationship with our strategic partner, CBRE.”

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The Kosovo A Power Station in Obilic. The country gets the bulk of its power from coal. Image: Flickr.

The government of Kosovo this week announced it will build a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a capacity of 200MWh-plus to deal with the country’s energy crisis.

The country’s economy minister Artane Rizvanolli tweeted that the government has approved a program that will make use of a US$234 million grant to build the BESS and increase women’s inclusion in the energy sector.

The grant is being provided by the United States through the Millennium Challenge Corp, a foreign aid agency established in 2004.

The money was initially going to be used to build a new gas pipeline from Kosovo to neighbouring North Macedonia but recent high gas prices have made that uneconomical, the government said. Reports say some of it will go to smaller energy projects too.

Rizvanolli has been quoted by local media as saying the BESS power would be at least 150MW with an energy capacity of 200MWh. Reports add that it will help stabilise the fluctuating frequency of electricity, shift load and help the integration of renewable generation assets in the grid like solar and wind.

Kosovo faced an energy crisis in the most recent winter due to low domestic production and high import and had to shed load. Some 85% of its energy is produced from coal but it has recently added some renewable generation sources.

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NHOA Energy was spun out of French utility ENGIE last year. Image: NHOA Energy.

Global energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) technology group NHOA, formerly Engie EPS, doubled its energy storage revenues in 2021 and says it has a €764 million pipeline for the segment.

Overall, revenues across its storage and electric vehicle (EV) segments tripled to €32.9 million (US$36.2 million). Energy storage sales doubled to €16 million while E-Mobility segment quintupled to €17m, making it the majority of sales, up from 27% in 2020.

Although the raw results might suggest a switch in focus to the EV segment, NHOA’s energy storage pipeline and other metrics shows it still has big ambitions there. It has over 1GWh of energy storage in development and expects 280MWh online by the end of 2022.

Within storage it has a backlog of €193m in orders, €56m in secured contracts and a total pipeline of €764m. Its 136-strong storage team is also larger than the EV department’s 90 employees.

Within its storage revenues for the year, 46% came from Europe, 26% from America, 24% from Australia and the remaining 5% from Asia and Africa.

However, within its backlog and secured contracts total of €249m, the Europe and Asia proportions are inversed with Asia accounting for 40% and Europe just 2% (with Australia and America remaining similar proportions). A big part of that will be down to a huge 420MWh order from its new parent company in Taiwan.

A majority stake in NHOA was sold by French utility ENGIE to the Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) for around US$150 million in the middle of last year but it remains listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange.

And for its long-term storage pipeline of €764 million, the geographic mix changes completely with 56% expected to come from Australia, Europe 23%, Asias 20% and America just 2%.

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