Tokyo’s main power company is using blockchain distributed ledger technology to assess how customers on its new renewable energy tariffs could use solar, batteries and electric vehicles to trade energy via the grid.

Following announcements from various manufacturers of deployments and partnerships in new territories, the latest wave of flow battery news includes an agreement that could put batteries in space for mission critical applications at the likes of NASA and the International Space Station.

Thanks to “innovative business models” and the combination of PV with batteries, Japan’s “solar boom” is far from over, market expert Izumi Kaizuka of RTS PV has said.

Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation has invested in US-based company, GridMarket, which is focused on distributed generation projects using battery storage, solar PV, fuel cells, and combined heat and power.

Demand for more reliable electricity from a district of the Republic of Bashkortostan will soon be answered by the largest hybrid solar and energy storage project in the region to date.

Subsidiaries of state-run energy conglomerate China Energy Engineering Corp have started constructing two major solar plants and one of the largest energy storage systems in China, according to filings on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX).

NEC has now executed five grid-scale battery energy storage projects in China and been awarded another, winning deals in spite of what a company representative described as “aggressive” price competition from domestic vendors.

The sale of Nissan’s power battery business, Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) to Envision Group has been completed, with the new owner aiming for 20GWh of annual production capacity of nickel manganese cobalt batteries in China.

A Tesla Powerpack energy storage system with 7MWh capacity has been deployed for a train company in Japan, adding backup power capabilities to trains and adding the system to an ongoing virtual power plant project.

Chinese solar inverter manufacturer Sungrow not only continues to lead the global market for inverter shipments, the company’s energy storage business enjoyed huge growth in revenue during 2018.