Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic has partnered with Tesla Motors to construct batteries in the United States at the electric vehicle company’s new battery manufacturing plant, the Gigafactory.

One of the largest investor-owned utilities in the USA is looking to use a series of measures that are likely to include customer-side energy storage in order to stave off the need for US$1 billion worth of infrastructure investment.

The UK division of Chinese PV manufacturer ReneSola has sold forty domestic energy storage units to an installation company in Essex, England.

India looks to be the latest country to examine installing energy storage at the top level, with the Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) actively seeking demonstration projects and the country’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) inviting comments from stakeholders ahead of similar plans.

French battery manufacturer, Saft, has been awarded a contract to supply a lithium-ion battery system for use in a 12MW solar plant being built in Hawaii.

The first grid-connected energy storage facility in Canada, in the country’s leading solar province, Ontario, is now operational.

An antenna tower in Australia serving a broadcaster will be the site of a solar-plus-storage project funded by the German government and designed to deliver power 24 hours a day.

A boom in the use of electric vehicles will help push the energy storage market to US$50 billion by 2020, a study by Lux Research has concluded.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has inaugurated a test centre at its northern campus that will pair a 1MW solar array to 100kWh of lithium-ion battery-based energy storage.

AU Optronics (AUO) is to launch its residential and commercial energy storage system, Powerlegato, into the European, Japanese and Australian markets on the back of receiving the necessary certification.