The Japanese city in which the manufacturing bases of lithium-ion battery makers including Panasonic, Hitachi Maxcell and GS Yuasa are located will play host to the world’s biggest energy storage battery and system testing facility to date.

In the simplest terms, if 2014 was the year of test deployments and proving storage can work, 2015 was a year of getting things done. But what are the big trends likely to drive the space on in 2016? Lux Research closely tracks the energy storage industry, in combination with solar, in terms of its synergy with EVs and in its own right. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lux analyst Cosmin Laslau to get his views and predictions on what we can expect to see this year.

Roundup: EV registrations leaped 68% in 2015, EDF goes to PJM and SolarCity launches solar, storage and heat in integrated offering in Hawaii.

UK manufacturers and distributors are offering many different forms of training in energy storage installation for residential and small commercial level all over the country, in expectation that solar installers will want to add energy storage to their product ranges and skillsets.

Lichtblick, a retailer of ‘green electricity and green gas’ headquartered in Germany, is looking to take its concept for integrating multiple distributed generation sources into a single network into international markets.

Germany’s support programme for solar-plus-storage systems, which offers a rebate on the devices, has been officially re-launched as expected by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy.

Efforts to modernise New York’s grid would be best served by adding 2GW of multi-hour energy storage by 2025 and 4GW by 2030, and enable the achievement of renewable energy targets, according to NY BEST.

Holland’s national grid operator has said that batteries will be an “excellent alternative” to conventional power plants in providing balancing services, especially as a complement to increased solar and wind deployment.

SolarCity has chosen Tesla to supply a 52MWh utility-scale energy storage system, which will make the output of a solar farm in Hawaii dispatchable.

The UK looks set for the arrival of energy storage in a big way this year. While these companies and their battery chemistries are fighting it out for both market share and brand awareness, several energy storage systems have been deployed already on a commercial basis using a more novel storage technology – the saltwater battery.