The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has invited expressions of interest for what may be India’s first utility-scale energy storage project to be combined with a solar and wind hybrid project at Rangreek in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh.

Korean firm Kokam has supplied two lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) oxide batteries to utility Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) for frequency regulation on the South Korean grid.

The Japanese city in which the manufacturing bases of lithium-ion battery makers including Panasonic, Hitachi Maxcell and GS Yuasa are located will play host to the world’s biggest energy storage battery and system testing facility to date.

The US energy storage market grew 243% last year, making 2015 the biggest year of any on record for storage, according to GTM Research.

A hydro power plant in Germany has installed a 3MW lithium-ion battery made by manufacturer ads-tec to perform frequency regulation.

The anticipated growth in stationary energy storage will be dependent on a significant decrease in costs. Florian Mayr and Hannes Beushausen explain how the relative costs of different storage technologies in different applications can be compared and understood as an intial step towards increasing competitiveness.

German solar integration specialist Belectric has begun serial production of its ‘Energy Buffer Unit’ (EBU) battery system.

US President Barack Obama has visited battery manufacturer Saft America’s automated lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in Jacksonville, Florida, claiming that government policy on clean energy helped support employment at the facility.

In the simplest terms, if 2014 was the year of test deployments and proving storage can work, 2015 was a year of getting things done. But what are the big trends likely to drive the space on in 2016? Lux Research closely tracks the energy storage industry, in combination with solar, in terms of its synergy with EVs and in its own right. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lux analyst Cosmin Laslau to get his views and predictions on what we can expect to see this year.

Roundup: EV registrations leaped 68% in 2015, EDF goes to PJM and SolarCity launches solar, storage and heat in integrated offering in Hawaii.