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Green Globe: GE expands energy storage footprint with UK partnership

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Green Globe: GE expands energy storage footprint with UK partnership

General Electric Co. said it will supply its 41-MW battery storage system to British energy storage operator Arenko, underscoring the conglomerate's desire to expand its renewables segment in the face of changing power markets. The battery storage facility will be located somewhere in the United Kingdom's Midlands region and will be operational in 2018, according to a Feb. 5 announcement. Once completed, the project will be GE's 19th energy storage project and its largest grid-scale commercial storage solution to date.

The battery sector in the U.K. could rocket from 60 MW in 2016 to 12,000 MW by the end of 2021, according to a December 2017 paper from U.K. Renewable Energy Association and a group of British politicians. GE and Arenko's plan for large-scale deployment will address "the ever-changing needs of a modern energy system," Mirko Molinari, global commercial and marketing executive for GE Power's energy storage division, said in a statement.

GE has been expanding its renewable energy division while the company looks for ways to mitigate declining traditional power markets' effects. GE Power's operating profits fell 88% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2017 to $260 million. Meanwhile, GE Renewable Energy reported $203 million in profits in that same period, a 25% year-over-year increase, but the division is nowhere near big enough to compensate for GE Power's financial performance.

SNL Image

Miners finish their shift at a coal mine in China's Shanxi province. Though demand for coal has been declining, it will still supply 55% of China's energy demand in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.
Source: Associated Press

In China, six state-owned energy companies are forming a coal and electricity trading joint venture that will also invest in improving transmission connections between two provinces.

Datong Coal Mine Group Co. Ltd. and Shanxi Shentou Power Corp. are among the companies that will invest a combined 6 billion yuan, or $956.1 million, to form the joint venture, Reuters reported. The joint venture will also focus on building an electricity transmission system between Shanxi and Jiangsu provinces, the second-biggest coal mining province and the second-biggest electricity consumer.

The joint venture comes as the country grapples with government plans to reduce its carbon footprint while consolidating the state-owned coal industry and providing enough electricity to the grid. Toward the end of 2017, residents in China's rural provinces suffered from a heating crisis, leading to the government halting its ban on coal burning.

Tesla Inc. will install 5-kW rooftop solar systems and 13.5-kWh Tesla batteries in 50,000 homes in South Australia with the potential to deliver up to 250 MW of solar energy and 650 MWh in energy storage. According to Utility Dive, the plan is part of the government's program to create a virtual power plant to stabilize the region's grid. Virtual power plants aggregate and coordinate disparate solar and storage installations to operate as a single resource and put cheaper electricity back onto the grid, lowering power prices.

The virtual plant is designed to help Tesla prove to the regional government that it could solve its energy crisis. In November 2017, the company finished a 100-MW/129-MWh lithium-ion battery system at Neoen SAS' Hornsdale Wind Farm as part of its efforts to help meet peak summer demand.

Elsewhere

* The Democratic Republic of the Congo is considering dramatically increasing royalties on cobalt, a key metal in lithium-ion batteries, and placing a 50% tax on mining companies' profits.

* Taiwan Power Co. said it wants to restart the second reactor at a nuclear power plant that has been offline for nearly two years, according to Xinhua News Agency.

* Europe saw offshore wind grow 25% in installed capacity in 2017, but long-term market prospects remain unclear.

* Canada approved Kinder Morgan Inc.'s routing and construction plans as part of the hearings on the C$7.4 billion Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion.

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