Energy storage is to be included in India’s state-run solar energy tenders for the first time under plans to help smoother integration of renewables into the grid.
AGL Energy has invested US$20 million in energy storage manufacturer Sunverge, as Australia’s biggest utility set up a fund worth ten times that to help meet its climate change commitments.
Hawaii’s electricity regulator and main utility have recognised that customer-sited distributed energy resources (DERs), including rooftop PV and energy storage, can provide essential grid services and better visbility for network operators, the VP of Stem Inc’s Hawaii operations has told Energy Storage News.
The organisation responsible for overseeing California’s bulk electric power system has approved proposals to accommodate more distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar, energy storage, advanced inverters and demand response, onto the state’s grid.
The UK solar industry is moving towards a market led by power purchase agreements (PPAs) and wider use of storage technology in the wake of subsidy cuts.
A spokesman for Solar Frontier has said that a retrofit market for up to half a million home energy storage systems could open up in Japan from the year 2019, as agreements made under a subsidy scheme for solar in existence before the current feed-in tariff begin to reach the end of their terms.
Volker Wachenfeld of SMA explores some technical and policy factors driving growing use cases for refurbishing home PV systems to add energy storage, and the markets where this is already gaining traction as an idea.
A new project could make power-to-gas “commercially viable” by exploiting links with the automotive industry, according to Germany’s Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).
Swiss-headquartered power and automation specialist ABB has been awarded a contract by Baltimore-based utility Constellation, to manufacture seven ENVILINE energy storage systems that store train braking energy using lithium-ion batteries from battery manufacturer Saft America.
Secure financing for energy storage is likely to be the main driver for its deployment, the chief of the UK’s biggest solar developer has said, echoing views given to Energy Storage News by analysis firm Lux Research.
