The UK’s government department for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) and its regulator, Ofgem, have jointly launched a Call for Evidence on System Flexibility for the country’s power networks, putting storage at the forefront. Anthony Price, head of trade group the Electricity Storage Network spoke to Energy-Storage.News about the document, which gives stakeholders until January to respond.

As the long-awaited call for evidence (CfE) on the future of the UK’s smart power policy gets ever closer, David Pratt outlines the five key areas the UK government is seeking to address in the upcoming document.

Energy storage in the US is being propelled forward by falling costs and increasingly favourable markets and policy. But for the full value of storage to be realised, numerous regulatory and fiscal barriers must still be surmounted, writes Matt Roberts.

From the outside, the VPP looks like a single power production facility that publishes one schedule of operation and can be optimised from a single remote site. From the inside, the VPP can combine a rich diversity of independent resources into a network via the sophisticated planning, scheduling, and bidding of DER-based services. Peter Asmus examines the role energy storage can play within this architecture.

Seeking to delve beyond headlines, hype and overarching market forecasts, renewable energy veteran and executive recruitment specialist David Hunt spoke with some of the energy storage industry’s leading figures to understand how the various market segments are growing and how things could develop from here.

After some hesitation, India’s energy storage market looks to be propelling itself into the big leagues with tenders and private projects on the way, Harsh Thacker of the India Energy Storage Alliance writes.

Germany headquartered “intelligent battery storage” and energy services provider Sonnen has just obtained US$85 million in its fourth financing round, from a range of investors. The company said the funds would be used both home and abroad, with Sonnen operating in markets including Italy, Australia, the US and the UK. Andy Colthorpe spoke with the company’s CEO Christoph Ostermann to learn more.

With over 30 companies exhibiting battery products or espousing the technology to the thousands of visitors in attendance, storage was always going to play a major role at last week’s SEUK | Clean Energy Live exhibition. David Pratt summarises the view from the show floor with regards the UK’s burgeoning storage market.

Utility and network needs are rapidly changing and some are adopting both batteries and ultracapacitors to meet these needs. David Lentsch of Maxwell Technologies looks at some of the various approaches.

Preparations are now gathering pace as the UK’s solar and clean energy industries prepare to meet at this year’s Solar Energy UK | Clean Energy Live conference, held at the NEC in Birmingham.