More than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is still without electricity, with the figure rising to more than 85% in rural areas. Andrew Jones of S&C Electric looks at how energy storage could play a crucial role in realising the continent’s solar potential.

After reports that it will build facilities to rival the capacity of Tesla’s ‘Gigafactory’, Chinese battery and EV-maker BYD (‘Build Your Dreams’) faces a similarly ambitious task to scale up demand, an analyst has told PV Tech Storage.

US renewable energy developer SunEdison is planning to power rural electrification and micro-grid projects in India with vanadium flow batteries, announcing that it plans to purchase 100 megawatt hours-plus from Imergy Power Systems.

Demand Energy, an energy storage company, and EnerSys, an industrial battery solutions company, have partnered with a luxury New York property developer to install 1MW of aggregated renewable energy across properties.

While solar and energy storage are not inextricably linked, at least not yet, storage helps households make the most of their solar power and one day could help grid networks make their final leap of faith. In the first of two blogs from the Energy Storage Europe conference and exhibition in Düsseldorf this week, PV Tech Storage talks to experts and industry figures as they tackled some of the biggest issues facing storage and renewable energy.

The increasing amount of PV installed in combination with electrical storage options is bucking the trend in the opposite direction for overall residential solar installations in Germany.

EV maker Tesla is looking to populate its stationary storage business, posting advertisements for more than 70 job openings on the company website.

SunEdison has made a significant first step into the grid-scale energy storage market, with the acquisition of US startup Solar Grid Storage.

US battery manufacturer, ViZn Energy, has teamed with financial services company, LFC Capital, on a programme to lease integrated solar and storage systems to property owners.

UK PV installer Martin Cotterell argues that the renewables industry needs something in place to make sure that battery systems are sold appropriately; for instance, there is the potential for customers to get charged extra for a battery ‘add-on’ that doesn’t really give them a whole lot of benefit.