Islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters such as hurricanes. John Merritt of Ideal Power looks at some of the emerging solutions to building more resilient energy systems through the deployment of microgrids that combine multiple energy generation and storage technologies.

Kicking off with an unprecedented wave of policy commitments, 2018 promises to be an exciting year for energy storage in New York State. William Acker at NY-BEST explains what’s going on – and what should happen next.

Microgrids ensure energy security for mission-critical loads at military bases, and reduce reliance on fuel during grid outages. While they have much in common with many of the technologies used in ‘other’ microgrids, the stringent technical requirements involved add a new layer of complexity, explain Lisa Laughner and Tony Soverns from provider Go Electric.

The European electricity storage market has seen an impressive growth over the past two years. Whereas in 2015 some 300MWh of battery storage capacity was newly installed, just two years later in 2017, more than 700MWh was added. Delta-ee’s Valts Grintals gives you some highlights and pinpoints some recent trends across the continent.

Northern Ireland’s Queens University Belfast (QUB) has found that battery-based energy storage can provide inertial response for system reliability much more efficiently, at a lower cost and with substantially reduced emissions than thermal generation. Dr Marek Kubic at Fluence, which is working with QUB, explains.

With the release of the most recent Capacity Market pre-qualification register, the UK’s utility-scale battery storage pipeline has now reached nearly 8GW. Solar Media market research analyst Lauren Cook takes a deep dive into the projects that made it through pre-qualification, and what these results mean for the projects likely to get built in 2018.

Since the launch of the site almost four years ago, Energy-Storage.News (and PV Tech Storage as it was previously known), has consistently brought you high-quality blogs from both guest contributors and our team of journalists and experts here at Solar Media. Here’s just a selection of some of the best guest blogs we ran from January to June, 2017:

We often hear about California’s leading position in solar and latterly in energy storage. Perhaps lesser known than direct policy support for energy storage and renewable technologies is the way California’s network operator (CAISO) is starting to reconfigure how it procures demand response, with a positive impact for energy storage – and particularly behind-the-meter assets, as Ted Ko, policy director of Stem, explains.

The UK’s large-scale battery storage installations have reached 100MW of capacity, made up of around 50 individual sites larger than 250kW. Lauren Cook of Solar Media’s Market Research team discusses how this point has been arrived at and what we might expect to see coming next.

Having been subject to discussion for years within the academic sphere, energy storage projects have become a topic of high interest to energy sector focused investors in recent years. Philipp Lobnig of E-nable+, an online platform connecting energy projects with investors, offers his views on the key questions these investors should be asking.