Madagascar’s Ministry of Water, Energy and Hydrocarbons (MEEH) has released a list of six pre-qualified bidders for the country’s 25MW(AC) Scaling Solar tender, which is the first to include energy storage in its remit.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and the government of Canada have formed a financial partnership that will utilise public funding to generate private sector investments to spur renewable energy, including energy storage, in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Bank plans to make energy storage an integral part of its ‘Scaling Solar’ program, that until now has been focused purely on facilitating large-scale solar tendering, predominantly in Africa.

Plans are in place for a combined 160MW solar and wind project with up to 40MWh of energy storage in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, while a smaller scale demonstration project experimenting with multiple technologies is being developed for Kerala.

Electrification of remote areas of the developing world using solar, storage and microgrids can and should go further than just providing basics like lamps and phone chargers.

Microgrids—distributed systems of localised generation, distribution network and load—are being increasingly deployed particularly in rural areas of emerging and under-developed countries to achieve energy access. However, a “fragmented and unorganised” sector still faces significant challenges, writes Harsh Thacker.

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) will soon tender for utility-scale solar-plus-storage projects in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The World Bank’s groundbreaking US$1 billion loan for Indian solar will partly focus on improving transmission for solar parks and innovation in wind and energy storage hybrids, according to a senior government official.

Many have predicted 2016 will be the year when energy storage starts to live up to its hype. Andy Colthorpe canvased views from some of the leading figures and companies in the sector on the next developments a market that could help take solar and other renewables to the next level.