In short, energy storage technology is set to revolutionise our society, EVs and beyond, with power companies among the most affected – whether they like it or not. The sector needs to wake up to this and decide what it is going to do about it. Education could provide the wake-up call that power professionals need, says Bo Normark of InnoEnergy.
In much the same way that the industrial revolution changed society all those years ago, electrification is now the driving force behind the industrialisation of multiple sectors. Energy storage has an obvious role, but Olivier Chabilan of Skeleton Technologies looks at something you might not have considered – ultracapacitors.
There is a perception that “batteries cannot be long life assets”, but it depends very much on how they are designed and used, Dr Marek Kubik of Fluence has said, in a video interview with Energy-Storage.News.
It’s been predicted for some time that the redox flow energy storage space will, after some turmoil and rapid consolidation, find success in providing energy storage at durations of more than four hours. This past couple of weeks have been a tale of both turmoil and success.
Energy storage can be an extensive value enabler for existing customers of UPS systems, while attracting new commercial and industrial (C&I) users into the space, a spokesman for Vertiv has said.
Already this year we’ve been able to learn directly about the energy storage market in Europe from the Energy Storage Summit in London at the end of February and Energy Storage Europe in Dusseldorf, which just took place last week. Andy Colthorpe summarises what he’s seen and heard.
Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.
ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.
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.
