We hope you’ve enjoyed our series looking back on last year’s challenges, milestone and successes and looking ahead to a busy 2019. After featuring a range of views from industry participants and experts, now it’s my turn to throw out some predictions for the year ahead…

In today’s third and final instalment of our series to welcome in 2019, we look at what our respondents are expecting to see this year, what they would like to see happen and some of the ways they will be trying to fulfil those expectations.

In the previous instalment of this blog, we looked at how our respondents from across the energy storage industry had viewed 2018’s biggest challenges. This time out we look at what some of 2018’s biggest successes were.

After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GWh of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In this first part, we look at the challenges faced by the industry in 2018.

The Dutch Development Bank (FMO) and investment firm Symbiotics have announced a US$32.5 million facility to finance ZOLA’s operations within Tanzania over the next five years.

Kenya’s government has launched a plan for total electrification in the country by 2022, which acknowledges the role that off-grid systems, mini-grids and stand-alone solar plants can have in complementing extensions to the grid and mitigating higher loads.

Australian firm Resolute Mining has signed an agreement with Africa-focused power developer Ignite Energy to set up a 40MW hybrid solar, battery and heavy fuel oil (HFO) plant at its Syama Gold Mine in Mali, according to an Australian Stock exchange (ASX) filing.

Daystar Power, a clean energy supplier based in Africa, has teamed up with Nigerian retail banking group Unity Bank to power the latter’s switch away from diesel, using renewable energy and energy storage.

Quoting an expected doubling in installed PV capacity over the next five years, a partnership between Chinese battery storage system maker BYD and European PV inverter company SMA is targeting the USA market, identifying it – along with Africa – as having “high growth potential” for the pair’s products.

French power giant EDF has acquired a 50% stake in the Togo-focused unit of off-grid renewable energy specialist BBOXX, with EDF adding its financial clout to speed up solar home system deployments and its technical expertise to improve the energy storage offering.