The UK should become a world-class centre for battery R&D and production, the country’s newly-installed prime minister Boris Johnson has told legislators.
Johnson said the development of battery technology is among key national priorities as his administration prepares to leave the European Union on 31 October.
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.
Chinese lithium giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) has revealed it is set to pour a total of up to €1.8 billion (US$2.1bn) of cash into its planned electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Germany.
CATL said the proposed investment included €240 million already pledged for the project at Erfurt, in the east-central state of Thüringen.
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.
Proposed tariffs on Chinese lithium-ion batteries and related equipment would have “an immediate and adverse effect on grid energy storage deployments”, US leaders have been warned.
President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on a further $300 billion worth of Chinese exports to the US if Chinese president Xi Jinping does not meet him at the G20 summit of world leaders in Japan later this month.
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.
An international “technology-neutral” partnership to expand the use of energy storage systems in developing countries has been launched by 30 organisations led by the World Bank.
The Energy Storage Partnership (ESP) aims to “catalyse a new market for batteries”, beyond the current focus on the market to supply electric vehicles, the bank 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.
India’s government is planning a policy shake-up to “incentivise” battery manufacturing in the country, the country’s minister of state for power and new & renewable energy has told industry leaders.
Raj Kumar Singh (pictured) told a meeting of Indian electric vehicle and battery manufacturing chiefs he could introduce “Make in India” legislation— to ensure only batteries produced in the country are used for government contracts related to the expanding EVs and energy storage market.
Despite President Trump’s coal, oil and gas-friendly agenda, his impact in the US energy landscape is likely to be “minimal”, according to a new study.
A report (pictured) released last week by US-based Lux Research says: “Renewables and energy storage will continue to see strong growth. Although renewables and energy storage have been largely ignored in Trump’s energy vision, the president’s ability to impact their deployment is minimal, as deployment has been driven primarily by state-level policies."
