While the effectiveness of flow batteries in islanded situations is quickly being recognised, on the grid, the cost of providing that storage is still seen as something of an inhibitor to uptake. Andy Colthorpe spoke with the RedT CEO, Scott McGregor, to get his views on how flow batteries can thrive – and why lithium-ion is not the enemy.

In our latest video feature, we discussed the policy and regulatory space for energy storage in the UK with two leading members of the Solar Media Energy Storage Alliance.

Sonnen, Germany’s market leader in residential energy storage, recently launched its operations in Britain. We met up with Martin Allman, the company’s UK country director, to hear about key aspects of the company’s strategy.

Energy Storage News visited the offices and production facilities of Sunamp, a maker of heat batteries, in East Lothian, Scotland to hear how the systems are made and how they were developed.

In the simplest terms, if 2014 was the year of test deployments and proving storage can work, 2015 was a year of getting things done. But what are the big trends likely to drive the space on in 2016? Lux Research closely tracks the energy storage industry, in combination with solar, in terms of its synergy with EVs and in its own right. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lux analyst Cosmin Laslau to get his views and predictions on what we can expect to see this year.

Nigel Morris, chief executive at solar firm RoofJuice Australia, who has been in the solar game for more than two decades, explains what stands in the way of Australia’s significant energy storage potential.

Hawaii has been namechecked as a ‘test bed’ for how grids can migrate to higher levels of PV penetration so often it has become something of a cliché. Stem’s VP for Hawaii operations, Tad Glauthier tells ESN about the projects that are going on, which lessons might be transferable to other regions – and which might not.

Energy Storage News spoke to UK veteran PV installer Martin Cotterell about selling energy storage systems responsibly, and making customers at commercial and industrial (C&I) and domestic level aware of the options available to them.

Research firm IHS recently reported that as of the end of 2015, there was a global pipeline of 1.6GW of battery or flywheel-based grid storage projects in place. Andy Colthorpe spoke to principal analyst Marianne Boust, who explained why last year truly saw a “change in stakeholder mentality” in favour of energy storage and why 2016 will be another record-breaking year.