Timed to coincide with this week’s EU elections, a set of 10 recommendations to “kick start” energy storage has been unveiled by European trade association EASE.

With carbon reduction goals a long way off from being met in Europe’s transport sector, energy storage can play a key role in coupling transportation and energy technologies, the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has said.

Andy Colthorpe spoke with Janice Lin of the California Energy Storage Alliance on what sort of role energy storage will play in reaching the ‘100% carbon-free retail electricity’ goal of the state’s SB100 legislation. This is Part 2 of a feature interview originally included in Solar Media’s quarterly journal PV Tech Power.

Ben Hill is widely known in the solar and energy storage industries as the former Trina Solar executive who drove the Chinese company towards a leading position in the European market in the days of the large-scale boom before leaving to become Tesla’s VP for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. UK start-up Solo Energy is among a number of companies he is now working with closely as an advisor.

EDF Energy is to offer its business customers vehicle-to-grid (V2G) chargers in the UK, as well as using them on its own sites, after partnering with charger supplier and technology developer Nuvve.

Tesla’s former EMEA vice-present has taken on an advisory role for Solo Energy as the company seeks to build out its vision of a virtual power plant driven by residential and commercial battery systems.

Battery installations are underway at a European Regional Development Fund-backed project deploying low carbon infrastructure on the Isles of Scilly, in a model that it is hoped could be widely replicated elsewhere.

What has driven the recent boom in Germany’s household energy storage installation figures? What value do customers expect when adding a storage system to their homes? And more importantly, what are energy storage providers doing to sustain and accelerate growth, which can eventually unlock a true mass market? Florian Mayr of Apricum takes a closer look.

UK renewable electricity supplier Solo Energy is set to launch a ‘free battery’ business model to UK homeowners after a successful pilot on the remote Scottish islands of Orkney.