Acquisition feeds into the inverter and smart energy company’s overall ‘masterplan’ to involve itself in the full gamut of distributed and clean energy market segments.

In today’s third and final instalment of our series to welcome in 2019, we look at what our respondents are expecting to see this year, what they would like to see happen and some of the ways they will be trying to fulfil those expectations.

In the previous instalment of this blog, we looked at how our respondents from across the energy storage industry had viewed 2018’s biggest challenges. This time out we look at what some of 2018’s biggest successes were.

After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GWh of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In this first part, we look at the challenges faced by the industry in 2018.

In another eventful and exciting year, Energy-Storage.news has been able to capture conversations and interviews with leading industry figures.

Britain’s feed-in tariff scheme will close in full to new applicants from 31 March 2019 and the end of the present scheme without an explicit next step laid out is troubling for many in the renewable energy industries and those that care about energy security and climate change.

It’s likely a strong indication of the way the world is adopting renewable energy rapidly that just under a month ago, one of the best-established trade shows for solar in the US featured what seemed like almost as much space dedicated to national and international energy storage companies and technologies, as it did for solar.

Solar & Storage Live 2018, the trade exhibition organised by Energy-Storage.news’ & PV Tech’s publisher Solar Media, opens its doors in a week’s time, with around 4,000 pre-registered visitors expected to flock to the NEC, Birmingham, England. Here’s why this year’s event is not to be missed.

Cloud-aggregated virtual power plants using residential or C&I battery storage as part of a smart energy management system can benefit the grid, integrate renewables and EVs and hopefully add a powerful long-term value proposition for home storage. Andy Colthorpe and David Pratt report on how some of the UK’s first VPP projects are proving the concept.

First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the second of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe dives deeper into questions of bankability, market segmentation and manufacturing strategies with four very different providers of flow energy storage technology.