Despite the growing interest and deployment figures for lithium-ion batteries for stationary energy storage, its ‘predecessor’ lead acid still has a strong role to play in enabling more and more people to go solar, a representative of Trojan Battery has argued.

BYD has just opened a gigawatt-scale lithium battery factory in Qinghai Province, a few days after a senior company representative told Energy-Storage.news that, like electric vehicles (EVs), it is only a matter of time before lithium batteries for stationary storage reach mainstream acceptance.

‘Batwind’, a much-talked about battery storage project due to being the first grid storage system connected to an offshore floating wind farm 25km off the Scottish coast, is now online.

The Internet of Energy is set to provide flexible, sustainable and affordable power for all. But we must not get complacent. Gianluca Mauro, Co-founder and CEO at AI Academy, argues that for this future to be realised, energy leaders need to develop a digital mindset.

Leclanché and VRB Energy, two providers in very different areas of energy storage, have struck up joint ventures (JVs) intended to assist them in scaling up and hitting new markets, while Ice Energy has netted fresh funding.

Home storage systems have been considered an ‘early adopter’ market in many parts of the world, perhaps more important as a way that individuals can control their own green energy use and save energy than as a means of generating big money returns.

Hawaii’s KIUC, the top-ranked US utility in 2017 for energy storage deployment per customer by SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance), will pay less than US$0.11 per kWh for power from a new solar-plus-storage facility.

Softbank Energy and Kyocera, two major names in Japan’s solar energy industry, are partnering with utilities, grid operators and other stakeholders to execute virtual power plant (VPP) projects backed by the government.

Jardelund, Germany, is now host to what is currently Europe’s largest battery energy storage system, a 50MWh project completed and announced just a few days ago by NEC Energy Solutions.

Even among high level stakeholders, there are real gaps in education, knowledge and understanding of what energy storage is, and what it can do. We were privileged at last week’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe shows in Munich, Germany, to be joined by four leading thinkers – and doers – in the energy storage industry, who helped us tackle this difficult question.