Zola Energy, one of two US-headquartered providers of off-grid solar-plus-storage solutions to the African continent profiled in Energy-Storage.news’ recent Global Storage Opportunity 2018 report, has obtained US$20 million debt financing.

Islands around the world provide ideal conditions for trialling new approaches to energy provision. David Pratt reports on some of the work going on globally to bring the benefits of cutting-edge renewable energy, storage and smart grid technologies to the world’s geographically isolated communities. To be continued later this week on Energy-Storage.news.

VC funding for battery energy storage companies in the first half of this year has already exceeded 2016’s total and looks on the way to bettering 2017, with US$539 million raised across 29 deals.

Lithium and sodium sulfur batteries will be used for the first time in new territories, after NEC ES and NGK inked deals to deliver projects to an island archipelago in Brazil and in Dubai respectively.

Despite the growing interest and deployment figures for lithium-ion batteries for stationary energy storage, its ‘predecessor’ lead acid still has a strong role to play in enabling more and more people to go solar, a representative of Trojan Battery has argued.

Even among high level stakeholders, there are real gaps in education, knowledge and understanding of what energy storage is, and what it can do. We were privileged at last week’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe shows in Munich, Germany, to be joined by four leading thinkers – and doers – in the energy storage industry, who helped us tackle this difficult question.

Increasingly, solar energy and behind-the-meter battery storage assets are being deployed on an ‘as-a-service’ basis and system integrator Younicos has decided to replicate the strategy for microgrids.

First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the first of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe learns what the flow battery industry faces in the fight for commercialisation.

Advisory and certification house DNV GL is supporting Turkish plans to source 30% of total electricity generated in the country from renewable sources, carrying out a feasibility study for combinations of solar PV and energy storage.

Volume 15 of PV Tech Power, from our publisher Solar Media, has just hit the virtual shelves – and the quarterly technical journal is free to download from the PV Tech site.