The Senate committee examining a house bill granting a PV mini-grid franchise to renewable energy firm Solar Philippinnes has been debating the reach of the franchise as well as its exclusivity, with the discussion to reconvene in May after the general election.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our series looking back on last year’s challenges, milestone and successes and looking ahead to a busy 2019. After featuring a range of views from industry participants and experts, now it’s my turn to throw out some predictions for the year ahead…

In today’s third and final instalment of our series to welcome in 2019, we look at what our respondents are expecting to see this year, what they would like to see happen and some of the ways they will be trying to fulfil those expectations.

In the previous instalment of this blog, we looked at how our respondents from across the energy storage industry had viewed 2018’s biggest challenges. This time out we look at what some of 2018’s biggest successes were.

After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GWh of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In this first part, we look at the challenges faced by the industry in 2018.

Solar modules and deep cycle batteries have been stolen from seven secondary public schools in two municipalities in southern Palawan, in the Philippines.

State-run utility Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) is planning to facilitate 1GW of hybrid floating solar-hydro projects across eight dams throughout the country, while the national government is piloting large-scale battery energy storage.

A smart grid pilot will be put into action in the Thai province of Mae Hong Son, to integrate and balance growing shares of renewable energy using battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Sembcorp will collaborate with Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) as part of a pilot programme to support the deployment of energy storage in the country.

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is supporting a 41MW hybrid solar-wind-storage project being developed by private Indian energy firm IL&FS Energy Development Company Limited (IEDCL) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh by providing a grant to aid the plant’s technical design and planning.