Sharp Electronics will add software modelling the performance of energy storage systems to its commercial storage offering, with software an area industry figures and experts have highlighted as one of the most critical areas of competition and progress in the sector.

On a visit to heat battery maker Sunamp’s office, Scotland’s energy minister Fergus Ewing outlined aims to collaborate with his counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on nationwide storage strategy, while Sunamp CEO Andrew Bissel says greater understanding of heat source batteries is needed for the technology to be included.

Andy Colthorpe speaks to Matt Roberts of the Washington-based Energy Storage Association about topics including real-world applications of tech straight from the lab, why he dislikes subsidies and the group’s technical conference, happening later this month.

News in brief: Australia gets its largest battery storage system to date, Tesla man persuaded to go back to Sonnenbatterie and Gildemeister installs PV-linked flow battery systems in Czech Republic.

Tesla’s much-hyped battery announcement in April raised important questions over what business models will drive the deployment of stationary battery storage. As Andy Colthorpe reports, one answer is the virtual power plant, in which residential and commercial battery systems are aggregated to provide grid services.

Solar cell and battery hybrid technology could become a commercial success as long as it clears the “valley of death” out of academia, a scientist working on the project has claimed.

Competition generated in part by the transport sector has catapulted lithium to its position as storage technology frontrunner, according to Volker Wachenfeld, senior vice president for hybrid and energy storage integration at SMA Solar Technology.

Following the announcement of a ‘virtual power plant’ pilot in Australia, Sunverge energy storage systems have been selected for another trial project to test the capabilities of customer-sited storage, this time in the US.

Through a brief history of batteries and some findings from his own team’s work, Volker Wachenfeld of SMA Solar Technology answers a frequently asked question in energy storage; how can compatibility with the existing variety of batteries in the market be put into practice?

Construction has begun on what is claimed to be the world’s first modular large-scale battery storage system, a 5MW device at a research university in Aachen, Germany.