Industry commentators have expressed shock and surprise that NEC Corporation’s Energy Solutions business has been wound down, while an analyst said the reasons for the energy storage system integrator’s demise are likely to go back further than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.
NEC’s Energy Solutions division, which has been responsible for NEC Corporation’s activities in the battery energy storage industry, is “going out of business” according to a report by Bloomberg.
There was a near-70% increase in capacity of operational energy storage projects in China paired with solar energy from 2018 to 2019, according to figures recently published by the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA).
From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.
The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has extended bid submission deadlines for a number of solar projects with battery storage co-location requirements.
Sungrow is to partner with Huanghe Hydropower, providing PV inverter and energy storage systems for a major solar-plus-storage project in Qinghai Province, China.
The government of India has announced measures to promote new “Champion Sectors” of economic growth, including support incentives for advanced battery cell and solar PV manufacturing.