policy

New York State has announced a $55 million investment plan to deploy battery energy storage systems on Long Island, including commercial and residential projects.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured) said the programme would be launched with an initial rollout of nearly $15m in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

A new batteries research and innovation forum— the Batteries Europe Platform— has been launched by European Union energy chief Maroš Šefčovič.

Šefčovič (pictured) said the initiative would be a forum setting out Europe’s strategic research and innovation needs and linking existing EU-backed funding programmes to support the European Batteries Alliance.

Global energy storage deployment reached a record 8GWh in 2018— nearly double that of the previous year, according to a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report.

Behind-the-meter storage “matched grid-scale storage investments” for the second consecutive year, and deployment in both categories reached record levels in 2018 with significant growth in South Korea, Australia, Japan, Germany and the US, the report said.

The US is tightening transportation regulations with new measures for carrying lithium-ion cells and batteries on cargo planes “to address an immediate safety hazard”.

The federal government said airlines would be barred from carrying “potentially hazardous lithium-ion cells and batteries as cargo on passenger aircraft”.

And lithium-ion cells and batteries will have to be generally shipped with a state of charge of no more than 30% on cargo aircraft.