Our ability to generate renewable energy is scaling up fast, and solutions to integrate that energy will rely on technologies like blockchain to help keep new solutions on track. Power Ledger’s executive chairman and co-founder, Dr Jemma Green, looks at the role blockchain plays within her company’s platform to integrate and automate solar energy trading and balancing.

The optimal integration of distributed energy resources such as solar, battery storage and smart thermostats becomes an ever-more complex and pressing question. Rahul Kar, general manager and VP for New Energy at AutoGrid Systems looks at the role artificial intelligence can play in smarter energy networks.

Battery system integrators must navigate a broad array of technologies and varying market drivers when putting systems together. Andy Colthorpe speaks to Powin Energy and Sungrow about the engineering challenges involved in building lithium-ion battery storage systems at scale.

In the second of a two-part series for this journal, Jens Noack, Nataliya Roznyatovskaya, Chris Menictas and Maria Skyllas-Kazacos from CENELEST, a joint research venture between the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology and the University of New South Wales, examine the potential of vanadium redox flow batteries in the future energy system.

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It has always been anticipated that by the early 2020s, the feed-in tariff would have tapered away in Japan’s booming solar market. Andy Colthorpe speaks with analyst Izumi Kaizuka at RTS Corporation to learn more about what the future holds for post-subsidy solar in Japan.

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With Japanese companies keen to learn from their counterparts in deregulatedenergy markets such as the UK, the Japan Energy Challenge provided the ideal forum for exchanging ideas. Andy Colthorpe reports.

Last year saw large-scale storage come of age in the USA and Canada, with some heavyweight storage portfolios starting to take shape. Speaking to four leading North American developers, Andy Colthorpe takes the pulse of a market poised for growth.

Paul Verrill, director of energy data analyst EnAppSys, explains how renewable energy generation and the integration of smart grid technologies and efficient energy storage systems can create a sustainable power system for the future.