Distributed renewables and energy storage are now the cheapest form of baseload power and if Western Australia’s remote areas can benefit from that, we can all benefit, argues David Martin, founder of energy trading platform provider Power Ledger.

California’s success in embracing renewable energy technologies, particularly solar, has brought with it challenges around reliability of supply to consumers. Janice Lin and Jack Chang of Strategen explore how the Golden State is pioneering the deployment of energy storage as it pursues its goal of complete energy decarbonisation by 2045.

Gone are Europe’s weekly FCR auctions, replaced by daily auctions in a move designed to create greater flexibility and improve international co-operation in these markets in Europe, writes Jean-Paul Harreman of EnAppSys.

As battery owners and operators seek to maximise the returns from their assets, they simultaneously face the Herculean challenge of managing degradation.

Enabling batteries to be repaired, upgraded and reused when no longer suitable for their first life will have social as well as environmental benefits, Amrit Chandan, CEO of Aceleron, argues.

Australia may be one of the leading major economies in terms of renewable deployments, but it’s woefully underprepared at a network level to actually make the transition…

The pipeline of projects currently stands at 11GW, and although it is unlikely that this will all be built, we currently see nearly 800MW of projects at the ‘under construction/ready to build’ stage.

While energy storage, like the electrification of transport, is often discussed as the ‘Next Big Thing’ for first world economies, this emerging technology is starting to play an important role in developing nations too.

Unlike the solar PV sector where there’s often an attitude of “let’s sell the project first and worry about O&M later,” storage projects must have services built in to the thinking and financial process from the beginning. With storage, a strong O&M plan and team become part and parcel of making and closing a strong productive deal, NEXTracker’s Marty Rogers argues.

With Brexit day less than a month away and still no certainty around what the final deal will look like, the time is now for the energy storage sector to prepare for every eventuality so it can play to its increasing strengths, writes Stephen Irish, co-founder of Hyperdrive Innovation.