The recognition by regulators of the need for an enlarged role for energy storage in the UK is a major milestone for the sector, trade associations in the country have said.

Lithium-ion battery-based energy storage for commercial and industrial customers in the US lies on the cusp of becoming “viable” over the next three to five years, according to international credit rating agency Moody’s.

A Silicon Valley-headquartered flow battery maker will provide energy storage for telecommunications networks in China, replacing diesel use in a pilot programme ahead of “wide-scale deployment”.

The two fastest moving regional markets for energy storage in the US have installed nearly 90% of the total deployed across the country for more than two years, according to GTM Research.

The acquisition of a “next generation” battery start-up by Bosch could be a milestone for the e-mobility sector, but represents a risk for the German engineering giant, according to one analyst.

Sharp Electronics will add software modelling the performance of energy storage systems to its commercial storage offering, with software an area industry figures and experts have highlighted as one of the most critical areas of competition and progress in the sector.

While a project to run a Spanish island off renewable energy which gathered media attention this week might only have successfully met the region’s energy demand continuously for four hours, the project is nonetheless “very significant”, an expert with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has said.

Competition generated in part by the transport sector has catapulted lithium to its position as storage technology frontrunner, according to Volker Wachenfeld, senior vice president for hybrid and energy storage integration at SMA Solar Technology.

Australia’s Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) released a hefty report on global energy storage and how it relates back to the domestic situation last month. Tom Kenning investigated one of the report’s main conclusions – that the value for energy storage in Australia, initially at least, will most likely be found behind-the-meter.

Effective ways of assigning economic value to services provided by aggregated storage systems must be found to progress the use of such technology, according to a technical consultant involved in a recent report assessing Australia’s energy storage landscape.