Panasonic has given the first indication of the expected size of its investment in collaborator-competitor Tesla’s battery Gigafactory, which according to the company’s president could be up to US$1.6 billion.

Globally, energy storage is developing rapidly. Businesses that are shaping the market are being asked to nominate themselves to join the Energy Storage 100, a new industry initiative from Energy Storage News’ publisher, Solar Media.

News in brief: Japan’s northern island tackles grid constraints for renewables with 60MWh battery; AES switches on large-scale storage in Northern Ireland; telecoms appear to be a good fit for Imergy’s flow batteries.

A UK electricity distribution network operator has signed a contract with Renewable Energy Systems (RES) to deliver an energy storage system co-located with large-scale solar, which will be used to develop ways to commercialise services to the grid.

Production and deliveries of Tesla’s stationary storage systems have now begun, while a company spokesman said it welcomes new competitors such as Faraday Future to the EV space – in line with Tesla’s stated values to accelerate clean energy deployment.

Glen Dimplex, by some estimates the world’s biggest maker of domestic heating appliances, is due to start recruiting households to participate in the latest phase of an EU trial of energy storage technologies.

The former VP of Solar Grid Storage has predicted average Balance of Systems (BoS) costs for energy storage will drop from around US$670 to less than US$400 per kilowatt in the next five years.

As a climate scientist, reducing carbon emissions is at the heart of Dr Jill Cainey’s working life, but is it at the heart of UK Government policy?

Japanese financial services company Orix Corporation has invested in UniEnergy Technologies (UET), a US company delivering large-scale energy storage based around its own vanadium flow batteries.

A document setting out new policy directions on solar support says the UK government has recognised the potential of energy storage but has decided the feed-in tariff would not be an appropriate mechanism to incentivise uptake.