German energy giants E.On and RWE have reached an agreement on a major exchange of business activities, promising a significant shake-up of the duo’s energy interests.

While research published this week demonstrates that the US as a whole is embracing energy storage technology, with regulator FERC’s recent wholesale market ruling likely to have a “significant impact”, the picture varies greatly when looking from state-to-state, an analyst has said.

The UK’s Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is calling on the sector to engage with the development of business rates that will be applied to energy storage projects in 2022, including those attached to subsidy-free solar farms.

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.

ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.

Mis-selling, insurance risk and the failure of associated costs to fall alongside sell prices could hold back greater battery storage deployment in Britain, a panel discussion has revealed.

The “devil is in the detail” when it comes to making regulatory changes in the US to open up wholesale markets for energy storage to participate in, a regional chief of regulator FERC has said.

North Kesteven District Council, a local authority in England’s Midlands, has approved a near 50MW solar farm alongside planning consent for a 50MWh battery for Pegasus Group, adjacent to an existing 18MW solar farm.

While energy storage system price declines have slowed down in recent times in the US, standardisation of design and engineering will be among the key drivers in bringing down balance-of-system hardware and EPC costs.

Kicking off with an unprecedented wave of policy commitments, 2018 promises to be an exciting year for energy storage in New York State. William Acker at NY-BEST explains what’s going on – and what should happen next.