Israel-headquartered SolarEdge launched a software platform for aggregating household energy storage units – and other distributed energy equipment – into virtual power plants, last week. The company’s solution has already been chosen for a VPP project in Australia by AGL, one of the country’s biggest utilities. The commercial launch of the VPP platform direct to customers is now underway. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lior Handelsman, one of SolarEdge’s founders and vice president of marketing and product strategy.

Virtual power plants (VPPs) can greatly increase the value of home energy storage systems for a range of stakeholders including grid operators, utilities and their customers, according to SolarEdge, which has just launched a VPP software platform.

The Thailand subsidiary of Delta Electronics, which makes equipment including solar inverters, has confirmed that it is investigating energy storage systems as part of a clean energy drive, following reports in local press.

There will be no benefit to basing home energy storage systems on automotive batteries, in the medium or long term, a representative of Mercedes-Benz Energy has said.

Voltstorage, a German company founded in Munich in 2016, is launching a vanadium-redox-flow (VRF) energy storage system aimed at the residential market.

1414 Degrees, an Australian startup manufacturing thermal energy storage systems using a proprietary silicon storage medium is preparing to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and build a 200MWh ‘module’ at a renewable energy facility.

Intersolar Managing Director Dr. Florian Wessendorf and NAATBatt International Executive Director James Greenberger have collaborated to forecast top trends that are expected to dominate the ees North America show floor this year.

A glass packaging facility in Scotland is getting a 2MW Tesla battery on a ‘no-money-down’ deal after Irish state-owned utility ESB agreed to take on the risk for raising commercial revenues from the asset.

Battery storage is a “necessity” for Hawaii to reach its 100% renewable energy by 2045 target, leading to electric cooperative KIUC becoming the top-ranked US utility for watts of energy storage deployed per customer in 2017.

French utility Engie and German energy storage firm sonnen have formed a partnership to offer a package of solar and energy storage to households in France, according to Reuters.