The latest edition of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar PV industry is now available online, including ‘Storage & Smart Power’, a dedicated section brought to you by the team here at Energy-Storage.news.

Ben Hill is widely known in the solar and energy storage industries as the former Trina Solar executive who drove the Chinese company towards a leading position in the European market in the days of the large-scale boom before leaving to become Tesla’s VP for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. UK start-up Solo Energy is among a number of companies he is now working with closely as an advisor.

CATL, a major Chinese manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, has just opened its first sales and service centre in North America.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

A trucking terminal in Ohio, US, will play host to a microgrid that incorporates around half a megawatt of wind and solar generation combined with battery energy storage from distributed energy technology company EnSync.

Kenya’s government has launched a plan for total electrification in the country by 2022, which acknowledges the role that off-grid systems, mini-grids and stand-alone solar plants can have in complementing extensions to the grid and mitigating higher loads.

Residential PV system owners who signed up to Japan’s feed-in tariff policy for 10-year contracts, that will soon expire, may be able to find new ways to benefit from their solar using battery storage.

EDF Energy, one of the UK’s ‘Big Six’ major energy suppliers, is seeking to build a portfolio of domestic batteries to take into energy services markets by offering discounted energy storage units to consumers via a new partnership with manufacturer Powervault.

Steven Marshall, the Premier of South Australia, has welcomed the start of assembly-line work at Sonnen’s new factory in Adelaide, while rival Tesla’s virtual power plant (VPP) in the state is beginning its second phase of development.

The US government has been urged to recognise the “critical role” energy storage can play in making the grid cleaner and able to accept more renewable energy, by increasing the eligibility of batteries and other technologies to receive the Investment Tax Credit (ITC).