Description

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive summary (5)
1. New regulations and initiatives discussed this month (6)
1.1. Europe (6)
1.2. Africa (8)
2. Project updates and announcements (9)
Overview of the 2023 and 2024 markets for utility-scale energy storage projects (9)
2.1. Projects announced or contracted this month (9)
2.2. Projects commissioned this month (11)
3. Tenders this month (13)
4. Focus of the month: Grid forming, black start and new opportunities for energy storage (16)
4.1. Concept overview: descriptive definition bringing out specificities (16)
4.2. Concept overview: services, functionalities, and capabilities (20)
4.3. Black start and grid-forming capabilities’ impact on BESS design (21)
4.4. Inverter-based assets dedicated to providing black start service with grid forming capabilities (21)
4.5. Grid-forming resources increasingly deployed as essential steppingstones to renewable uptake (22)
4.6. Black start services: A new opportunity for energy storage (28)

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Utility-scale energy storage projects announced/contracted and commissioned in 2023 and 2024 (ongoing) (9)
Figure 2: Results of the second Greek BESS Auction (10)
Figure 3: Black start ad grid-forming ability is required whenever there is not any rotating generation involved (16)
Figure 4: (a) GFMI as a voltage source, (b) GFLI as a current source and (c) GFMI operation in islanding mode (17)
Figure 5: Services a GFM-based resource can provide (18)
Figure 6: Energy storage system with grid-following inverter does not provide synthetic inertia as it does not impact the inertial
response (19)
Figure 7: the difference between low and high inertia through the inertia response to a frequency drop (19)
Figure 8: Features impacting BESS design for the black start service and GFM capability (21)
Figure 9: Breakdown of the tender participants (33)
Figure 10: Breakdown of current system restoration providers (33)
Figure 11: Restoration costs from 2021 to 2023 (38)
Figure 12: Acceptable voltage deviation after instantly accepting an offtake of at least 10 MW (40)