While Germany is one of the world’s leaders in solar PV and now an early leader in residential energy storage, utility-scale energy storage is still “under discussion” and not yet a mature proposition, industry figures have said.
In a major energy strategy upheaval, the South Australian government is providing significant funding to support energy storage projects, starting with a 100MW grid-connected battery that will be the largest in the country.
Swedish start-up Northvolt, which is run by two former Tesla Motors executives, plans to build a huge lithium-ion battery factory in the Nordic region, giving Tesla and Panasonic’s Nevada Gigafactory a close rival within Europe in terms of size.
US battery and energy storage system manufacturer Aquion Energy has declared bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and offloaded 80% of its employees, according to a company release.
Led by a record-breaking final quarter, energy storage reached 336MWh in 2016, growing 100% in megawatt-hours from 2015’s installed capacity, despite staying roughly flat in megawatts with 221MW deployed last year.
The North American subsidiary of international investor-owned energy supplier E.ON has partnered with Greensmith Energy to deliver two grid-scale energy storage systems known as the Texas Waves projects.
The Australian body in charge of promoting investment in renewables has criticised “heavy-handed” regulation of home energy storage systems in certain states.
A new joint venture has been established to fund early stage energy storage and renewable energy projects in the UK, beginning with two of the winning projects from National Grid’s Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) tender.
SolarEdge is rolling out a new complete residential solution throughout Europe that combines inverters, storage and home automation. The idea is to manage and monitor electricity consumption, solar energy generation and storage through one central device control that enables enhanced energy independence and increases self-consumption.
