A New York-based project proving the ability of solar paired with storage to provide power in the event of natural disasters and other causes of grid outages is now underway at City University of New York (CUNY).

Makers of flow batteries have redoubled their efforts to make the technology the leading choice for utility-scale storage applications, with one installing the largest such system to date in Europe and North America just a few days ago.

So-called ‘second life’ batteries taken from Nissan’s Leaf electric vehicle (EV) will be deployed in commercial-scale energy storage systems in regions including the US, following a deal involving Green Charge Networks.

The vice-president for marketing and product strategy at one of only two inverter suppliers to Tesla says it has promised customers that it can “get the battery within six months”.

Making safe lithium-ion based home energy storage systems is not really a challenging prospect, but standards need to be adopted across the whole industry, German research and education institution Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has said.

There is a greatly expanded amount of energy storage on offer at the European edition of the Intersolar trade exhibition and conferences this year, including the Electrical Energy Storage (EES) Europe show hosting its own conference for the first time. Andy Colthorpe took the opportunity to canvas opinions on the big trends and topics from a number of industry figures.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has done the rest of the storage industry a big favour by putting a price point on lithium-ion batteries, according to the CEO of Sonnenbatterie’s North American operations.

A new solar-plus-storage division is to be launched by DNV GL, the expert advisory group and certification body announced at Intersolar Europe on Wednesday.

Renewables-powered energy systems that work independently of the grid at warehouse locations in India will be provided with flow battery-based energy storage solutions by US company Imergy.

Last week the US Energy Storage Association (ESA) hosted its annual conference and exhibition in Dallas, Texas. Andy Colthorpe spoke to Jim McDowall of battery and energy storage system provider Saft, which won the show’s Outstanding Acheivement Award.