US utility Florida Light & Power (FPL) has followed up the US’ first DC-coupled grid-scale battery system with the announcement of a solar-plus-storage project pairing 10MW / 40MWh of energy storage with an existing 74.5MW PV plant.

Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow has leaned on its joint venture with Samsung SDI to supply both inverters and lithium batteries to a large-scale energy storage project in Japan.

While research published this week demonstrates that the US as a whole is embracing energy storage technology, with regulator FERC’s recent wholesale market ruling likely to have a “significant impact”, the picture varies greatly when looking from state-to-state, an analyst has said.

Utility Enel has been offering the reward of collaboration and testing agreements to “new technologies, architectures and control strategies” that maximise the value and effectiveness of energy storage.

Consultancy and engineering firm Pöyry has been chosen to operate energy storage systems as part of a ‘cleantech showcase’ project, creating smart energy systems upon a cluster of Finnish islands.

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.

News in brief from around the world of energy storage.

ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.

A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.

The “devil is in the detail” when it comes to making regulatory changes in the US to open up wholesale markets for energy storage to participate in, a regional chief of regulator FERC has said.