It has always been anticipated that by the early 2020s, the feed-in tariff would have tapered away in Japan’s booming solar market. Andy Colthorpe speaks with analyst Izumi Kaizuka at RTS Corporation to learn more about what the future holds for post-subsidy solar in Japan.

China’s energy storage industry entered a period of “rational adjustment” in 2019, as overall growth in new projects and capacity slowed down, yet deployed around 519.6MW/855MWh of new electrochemical energy storage capacity domestically.

The latest volume of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream sector, is now available to download free of charge.

Japanese maker of precision equipment, Yamaha, was exhibiting its recently launched products for testing and inspecting lithium-ion batteries at a major smart energy trade show in Tokyo this week.

Tesla Inc. today showed off recent activities in the virtual power plant (VPP) space at Tokyo’s Smart Grid Expo, with a view to bringing them at scale into the country’s rapidly changing energy market.

Dimitrios Pappas, analyst at new energy consultancy Delta-EE, considers the impact the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) could have on the energy transition, particularly for batteries used in EVs and ESS, while Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe adds his own take.

Solar industry players target opportunities in the residential energy storage market in the US and elsewhere with the rollout and launches of new products.

For Japan, the famous 4Ds of the energy transition – creating a distributed, decarbonised, decentralised and digitised grid – will involve a huge scaling up of smart solutions on a market basis, various sources have told Energy-Storage.news.

A 1.2GW hybrid tender in India coupling pumped hydro, batteries, solar and wind power has achieved tariffs that are highly competitive against coal power, according to prominent industry figures.

The India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) has welcomed provisions in finance minister Nirmala Sitharam’s Union Budget 2020-2021 to support renewables and prioritise climate change policy, although the group hopes more will be done to support in-country manufacturing of batteries for applications including ESS.