At this year’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe event, Ron Shen of GoodWe spoke on camera with our sister site PV Tech. The China headquartered inverter manufacturer, which has recently diversified into adding capabilities such as module-level monitoring and optimisation to its range and launched products specifically aimed at the growing market for bi-facial (two-sided) solar panels, sees energy storage as a critical component of a successful future PV business.

Australia’s energy and environment minister has hailed the country’s accelerating residential energy storage sales as a report has emerged from Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel which says the “financial equation is straightforward” for adding batteries to home PV systems.

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.

BYD has just opened a gigawatt-scale lithium battery factory in Qinghai Province, a few days after a senior company representative told Energy-Storage.news that, like electric vehicles (EVs), it is only a matter of time before lithium batteries for stationary storage reach mainstream acceptance.

Softbank Energy and Kyocera, two major names in Japan’s solar energy industry, are partnering with utilities, grid operators and other stakeholders to execute virtual power plant (VPP) projects backed by the government.

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.

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.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), part of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has offered to transfer its lithium-ion cell technology to Indian companies to support them in establishing lithium-ion cell production facilities in India.

An Indian clean energy firm hopes to bring down the cost of lithium-ion cell manufacturing below INR15,000/kWh (US$222) by setting up a facility in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Australia could be getting its first lithium-ion battery ‘Gigafactory’, with some progress made in the past few days for a facility proposed to be built in Queensland.