The economic benefits of adding energy storage to solar in California at affordable multi-family dwellings could far outweigh the costs, even doubling savings on energy bills, a new report claims.

French energy storage system maker Electro Power Systems has reported “outstanding results” for the first quarter of this year as well as a €2.4 million backlog of orders in East Africa, Asia-Pacific and Italy.

Enphase has confirmed that its AC battery, now available for installers to order in Australia and New Zealand, is priced in the region of AU$1,150/kWh (US$838/kWh), as originally announced last October.

German lithium-ion based energy storage system maker Sonnen says it achieved an undisclosed “seven-figure sales number” in the US in the first quarter of this year.

Silicon Valley’s Green Charge Networks, which mainly delivers energy storage systems for commercial customers and is involved in a deal to re-purpose ‘second life’ EV batteries, has been acquired by Engie.

Germany, until recently the leading European nation for installed PV capacity, extended a scheme to support purchases of lithium-ion energy storage systems for solar at the beginning of this year.

It would be unfair to put the burden of paying for the rollout of smart meters onto German households with PV-plus-storage when the devices would primarily benefit grid operators, trade association BSW Solar has said.

Microinverter maker and energy management specialist Enphase has started taking orders from installers for its AC battery for home PV systems in Australia and New Zealand, with shipments to start arriving in August 2016.

Oil and gas company Total has proposed to buy battery company Saft, which produces devices for the stationary storage industry as well as for transport and other applications.

Global maker of construction and mining equipment Caterpillar has launched an integrated micro-grid solution which combines solar PV and energy storage with the company’s power generation equipment.