With the rise of solar-plus-storage applications round the world, Frank Qiao, sales director at Growatt New Energy, talks to PV Tech about some of the key inverter trends and new products.

While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Nancy Pfund is managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm which specialises in investing in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns, and positive social impacts. There have been some serious clean tech companies in DBL’s portfolio, including a pre-IPO investment in Tesla. With this in mind, we spoke to Nancy about how to invest in energy storage wisely and heard her views on the waves of the future. Part 2 to be published tomorrow.

Energy storage is the next obvious addition to solar plants in the UK. Elizabeth Reid of law firm Bird & Bird takes a look at some of the drivers, opportunities – and regulatory obstacles.

Dr Matthias Vetter, head of department for electrical energy storage at the testing institute Fraunhofer ISE on educating investors, the prospects for 2nd life batteries and the impact of thermal management on project lifetimes.

With the UK’s Renewables Obligation now closed for large solar projects, energy storage takes the position of the most active sector in the UK energy market. As with any new technology, we have seen a lot of build up over the past few years, with much speculation about when the utility-scale market will take off, and how big it will be. Analyst Lauren Cook takes a deep dive.

Sami Khoreibi, CEO of renewable energy project developer Enviromena, discusses storage in the Middle East and Africa’s energy market in the next decade.

With Intersolar Europe and the accompaying ees Europe events taking place this week for PV systems and energy storage respectively in Munich, we thought it timely to speak with Philipp Schröder, managing director for sales and marketing at Germany’s leading storage provider, Sonnen.

Florian Mayr, partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory, reflects on knowledge gained in energy storage’s rapidly growing markets and offers his five key ingredients for success.