Over the past couple of weeks, various flow battery makers have touted new sales and supply chain agreements as the fledgling sector fights for a share of the stationary energy storage market.

The rise of energy storage will enjoy a similarly meteoric trajectory to that enjoyed by solar PV deployment in the past and could reach 305GWh of installations by 2030, BNEF has predicted.

German renewables firm BayWa r.e. has commissioned a combined PV and battery system in Zambia’s Chisamba province, to supply irrigation for aquacultural farming.

While decreases in costs continue to make energy storage more and more competitive, financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard has highlighted just how variable project economics can be, citing examples of US projects with 9%, 11% and 21% IRR (internal rate of return).

Having been subject to discussion for years within the academic sphere, energy storage projects have become a topic of high interest to energy sector focused investors in recent years. Philipp Lobnig of E-nable+, an online platform connecting energy projects with investors, offers his views on the key questions these investors should be asking.

Rental solar power company Redavia has commissioned two microgrid PV-plus-storage systems totalling 303kWh of energy storage capacity, both located in the Songwe region in western Tanzania.

Private equity fund SoftBank Vision Fund has officially signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to develop 3GW of PV and energy storage capacity within Saudi Arabia.

The amount of VC funding invested in battery energy storage companies in the first nine months of this year has more than doubled from the equivalent period of 2016, according to a report from Mercom Capital.

Independent accreditation and testing company DNV GL has created Battery XT, the first testing-based verification of battery lifetime for Li-on batteries.

One of the ‘value of energy storage’ questions that was being asked a lot two or three years ago was around the use of batteries and decentralised system architecture instead of traditional “poles and wires” grid networks. However, advancements in this area have been slow to materialise and Navigant Research’s recent ‘Energy Storage for Transmission and Distribution Deferral’ report sought to fill the knowledge gap. Andy Colthorpe took the opportunity to ask lead author Alex Eller three quick questions around the topic.