A serious incident at an energy storage project that hospitalised four firefighters in Arizona is currently under investigation, with “investigative outcomes” from the utility in question, APS, set to inform the industry’s path forwards.

Along with TEPCO, Mercom named other major utilities and companies with a background in oil and gas as investors in the battery storage sector during the quarter.

While energy storage, like the electrification of transport, is often discussed as the ‘Next Big Thing’ for first world economies, this emerging technology is starting to play an important role in developing nations too.

Grid-connected energy storage deployments have enjoyed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 74% worldwide in the years 2013 to 2018, with a “boom” in deployment figures expected over the next five years, analysis firm Wood Mackenzie has said.

A push to establish an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for energy storage has not only been welcomed by clean energy advocates and the industry, but might also meet the some stated aims of the Trump administration’s energy policies, an analyst has said.

NEC has now executed five grid-scale battery energy storage projects in China and been awarded another, winning deals in spite of what a company representative described as “aggressive” price competition from domestic vendors.

Chinese solar inverter manufacturer Sungrow not only continues to lead the global market for inverter shipments, the company’s energy storage business enjoyed huge growth in revenue during 2018.

Andy Colthorpe caught up with Moixa CTO Chris Wright to hear about how a tie-in with trading company ITOCHU and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is creating smarter energy networks in Japan using solar, batteries, electric cars – and Moixa’s GridShare software platform.

Questions around who should own, operate and ultimately benefit from the deployment of energy storage systems could soon be resolved in the Philippines after the government Department of Energy issued a set of draft guidelines.

The ‘world’s first dedicated energy storage infrastructure fund’ will invest in California battery energy storage projects, with Macquarie set to sell 50% of a 340MWh tranche to the fund’s owner, SUSI Partners.