India-based solar manufacturer and EPC player Vikram Solar has signed a collaboration agreement with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), while at the founding ceremony of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.

The CEO of ‘intelligent energy storage’ provider Stem Inc, has said a recently-awarded project in Japan will lean on business models the company has used in the US, while artificial intelligence (AI) technology makes that same transference possible.

The winner of India’s first major solar-plus-storage auction, which has subsequently been scrapped for retendering, has said that despite being an unfortunate development, the firm is still keen to work closely with government on this technology for which the economics are continuously and rapidly improving.

The Indian Budget has seen a hike in customs duty for lithium-ion batteries from 10% to 20%.

Japanese trading house Itochu has invested £5 million (US$7.04 million) into UK-based energy storage and related services provider Moixa, which will enable Itochu to add Moixa’s ‘GridShare’ aggregation platform to its own suite of battery storage solutions.

The start of construction on India’s largest energy storage project is not only of strategic importance to regulators, but could also drive another wave of utility-scale projects in India, the chief of the country’s storage Alliance has said.

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has reached out to industry to establish how much interest there is in providing EPC services for a 160MW solar-wind hybrid project coupled with energy stroage in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Major oil company Shell and European utility ENGIE are among investors to have pumped US$20 million into Husk Power Systems, a developer of microgrids which is expanding its efforts in Asia and Africa.

Dr. Rahul Walawalkar of the Indian Energy Storage Alliance also predicts at least two lithium-ion cell manufacturing plants of 500MWh+ capacity to start construction in India this year.