Ben Hill is widely known in the solar and energy storage industries as the former Trina Solar executive who drove the Chinese company towards a leading position in the European market in the days of the large-scale boom before leaving to become Tesla’s VP for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. UK start-up Solo Energy is among a number of companies he is now working with closely as an advisor.

CATL, a major Chinese manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, has just opened its first sales and service centre in North America.

Hornsdale Power Reserve (HPR), the 129MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) deployed by Tesla and developer Neoen in South Australia in just 100 days, has been found to have had a positive impact on the local network.

A trucking terminal in Ohio, US, will play host to a microgrid that incorporates around half a megawatt of wind and solar generation combined with battery energy storage from distributed energy technology company EnSync.

Residential PV system owners who signed up to Japan’s feed-in tariff policy for 10-year contracts, that will soon expire, may be able to find new ways to benefit from their solar using battery storage.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that it will provide assistance to “techno-economic” studies for two pumped storage hydropower plants, with a combined generation capacity close to 2GW.

Renewable energy supplier and project developer Neoen has begun construction on the largest grid-connected energy storage system in mainland France, a 6MW / 6MWh system which will provide frequency regulation services.

BIRD Energy, a foundation jointly created by the US Department of Energy (DoE) and Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE) will invest around half the amount required to fund US$12 million of solar, storage, energy efficiency and microgrid projects in Israel.

Finland-headquartered clean energy solutions provider Fortum is to deploy the largest battery so far in the Nordic region, a 6.2MWh system at a hydropower plant in Sweden.

Steven Marshall, the Premier of South Australia, has welcomed the start of assembly-line work at Sonnen’s new factory in Adelaide, while rival Tesla’s virtual power plant (VPP) in the state is beginning its second phase of development.