The remote Faroe Islands in northern Europe are to benefit from a major energy storage system, which as well as helping integrate renewable energy sources, will also operate on a commercial basis providing grid balancing and other ancillary services.

An energy storage project aimed at enabling the grid integration of 1MW of solar and 4.5MW of wind on the Portuguese island of Graciosa will be supplied with batteries by Leclanché.

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is like King Canute, standing on the shore commanding the tide of renewable energy and energy storage not to come in. But no matter how much he rails against the future, this prime minister is way too late to stop the tide of progress. A range of factors are coming together at the same time that will see distributed solar PV combined with energy storage move into the early mainstream in the coming years – and sooner than later, says John Grimes of the Australian Storage Council and Australian Solar Council.

An advanced microgrid comprised of four smaller, interlinking grids has been unveiled in Texas by power electronics firm S&C and energy management company Schneider.

The importance of technologies and services that enable effective energy storage including software and systems integration, is set to grow more than 30 times over in the next nine years, a new report claims.

A partnership to take on the micro-grid sector has been formed by battery maker Samsung SDI and ABB, the Swiss-headquartered power and automation specialist.

Solar power systems serving an oilfield in Qatar will be fitted with utility-scale energy storage batteries, helping to ensure the continuity of operations at 775 oil wells.

More than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is still without electricity, with the figure rising to more than 85% in rural areas. Andrew Jones of S&C Electric looks at how energy storage could play a crucial role in realising the continent’s solar potential.

US renewable energy developer SunEdison is planning to power rural electrification and micro-grid projects in India with vanadium flow batteries, announcing that it plans to purchase 100 megawatt hours-plus from Imergy Power Systems.

Bosch looks likely to become the latest big name to participate in a government-funded micro-grid trial, with the company proposed to receive almost US$3 million from California’s energy policy planning agency.