Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe return for the August 2020 episode of the Solar Media podcast, reflecting on the biggest news stories from the global solar and energy storage ecosystems.

The market for grid-connected energy storage will defy the “headwinds” caused by the coronavirus pandemic on industries across the world, analysis firm IHS Markit has predicted.

A selection of video replays from the Energy Storage Digital Series, hosted earlier this year by Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media are available on YouTube and have been compiled into a handy playlist.

Solar PV inverter supplier Sungrow debuted its latest 1500V lithium iron phosphate (LFP) lithium-ion energy storage solution at trade show SNEC, held in Shanghai, China.

Canadian Solar has highlighted the increasing importance of adding energy storage to PV projects and the “significant growth opportunities in the solar-plus-storage market” while reporting its latest quarterly financial results.

Q CELLS will acquire US energy storage software company Geli, as the solar company targets becoming a complete provider of “smart energy solutions”.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.

Transmission and distribution network operator Hokkaido Electric Power has contracted Sumitomo Electric Industries to supply a grid-scale flow battery energy storage system for a wind farm in northern Japan.

While lithium-ion batteries continue to take the dominant share of new installations by some distance, there are a variety of other technologies looking to complement, combine or even compete. Panellists at the Energy Storage Digital Series looked at the questions of which energy storage technologies are the likeliest contenders for that future.

Despite the fundamental drivers remaining unchanged, Covid-19 will certainly leave its mark on the post-pandemic energy storage world. Florian Mayr at cleantech advisory and consultancy group Apricum examines how the energy storage industry can best adapt to the “next normal”.