Following the wishes of its customers, Germany-headquartered PV firm IBC Solar has launched a new package that helps partners in 30 countries with the planning, installation and maintenance of its lithium-ion energy storage solutions.

32 separate projects in smart grid, energy storage and related technologies which received backing through a European Union innovation programme, will pool knowledge and expertise in a shared network.

With the rise of solar-plus-storage applications round the world, Frank Qiao, sales director at Growatt New Energy, talks to PV Tech about some of the key inverter trends and new products.

Fluence, a new energy storage company, has been launched jointly by global engineering giant Siemens and energy storage system integrator and developer AES.

Britain’s government has thrown its weight behind vehicle-to-grid (V2G) by announcing £20 million (US$25.8 million) would be available for a competition to further the development of the bi-directional electric vehicle charging technology.

While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.

New research from the UK has found that almost half of those asked would like to see solar and storage installed in the their homes by 2020, signalling that Britain’s domestic market may yet recover from the hard knocks of recent subsidy cuts.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Energy storage system and PV module manufacturer Solarwatt and PV inverter specialist Fronius have formed a partnership to supply each other’s products, covering five European countries and Australia.

Nasdaq Helsinki-listed power company Wärtsilä’s acquisition of software specialist, system integrator and turnkey energy storage system provider Greensmith has been completed.