SolarCity, one of the largest solar installers and leasing companies in the US, has moved into providing energy storage via pilot programmes for residential and commercial customers in key regional markets including California. Will Craven, director of public affairs and spokesman for SolarCity, discusses the regulatory situation facing the company and others in the rapidly growing area of energy storage-plus-solar.

After a strong showing in the energy storage segment at its European counterpart in June, Intersolar North America is following suit with a number of companies and organisations launching new products at the show.

Energy storage has been touted as the enabler of high levels of intermittent renewables in the electricity system – the silver bullet or Holy Grail for solar and wind. A key attribute for the technology’s deployment will be scalability, writes Melissa Lott.

PV Tech Storage interviewed Bill Radvak of American Vanadium, whose company has a plan to scale up flow batteries for renewable energy integration, using its own vanadium deposits.

A remote town in Canada which lies 55km away from the nearest electrical substation, was supplied with a battery system aimed at shoring up the reliability of its electricity supply.

Toshiba is to provide a 1MWh lithium-titanate battery for an energy storage system being developed by University of Sheffield in the UK.

Fuel cells for distributed generation will be developed through 13 new projects that have been announced by Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the US government agency responsible for promoting funding and RnD into advanced energy technologies.

NEC Energy Solutions has completed six new grid-tied energy storage systems for UK distributed network operator (DNO), Northern Powergrid.

The battle of the chemistries has long been alluded to in the energy storage space, and nowhere with greater frequency than with reference to battery chemistries.