PBES Norway and Norwegian Solar AS have agreed to a partnership deal that will offer PBES’ energy storage systems to support PV projects in global markets.

Australian homes and businesses will soon be able to use renewable energy stored in their batteries to bid into a local energy market and provide a range of grid services using a new software platform backed by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Duke Energy announced plans to install North Carolina’s two largest battery storage systems — which stands as a US$30 million investment as part of Duke Energy’s Western Carolinas Modernisation Plan.

Solar entrepreneur and financier Jigar Shah probably requires little introduction. The SunEdison founder and former CEO is now president at Generate Capital, a project financing venture for sustainable infrastructure investment. Shah spoke with Andy Colthorpe about Generate Capital’s latest solar-plus-storage projects for a school district in California, as well as sharing his thoughts on the economics of energy storage today.

Shifting responsibility for product safety onto manufacturers, rather than installers, of residential energy storage systems would be a positive step forward for Australia’s industry, the country’s Clean Energy Council has said.

Australian battery company Redflow Limited has repeated its largest-ever sale of its ZBM2 zinc-bromine flow batteries after receiving an international order worth about US$600,000.

Legislation recently introduced in California to cut red tape and reduce permitting times for energy storage systems and currently awaiting the state Governor’s rubber stamp could also halve the costs associated with paperwork, commercial system provider Stem has said.

While lithium-ion is rapidly racing ahead to become the “de facto grid storage solution” and is the most popular technology choice by far, vendors of other types of batteries are also targeting the market, with varying degrees of success.

Centrica has completed the installation of a 3MW battery in the North-East of England for local authority Gateshead Council, which the multinational utility’s Distributed Energy and Power business has dubbed one of the country’s largest commercial battery storage schemes.

China-based technology giant BYD has installed the first of its residential high-voltage B-Box energy storage systems in Germany and is aiming to launch the system into the US later this year.