Solar storage batteries for households in Australia enjoyed a more than 1000% percent rise in the number of annual installations from 2015 to 2016, according to a new industry report.
An energy trade association which includes Apple, energy storage maker AES and solar giants SunPower and First Solar in its leadership has welcomed the proposal by US energy regulator, FERC, to remove barriers to participation in wholesale markets for energy storage and distributed energy resources (DERs).
The US Navy plans to develop a utility-scale solar farm and energy storage system on the 863.6 hectare Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, according to a draft environmental assessment.
Last year was a “seminal year” for energy storage, where the technology moved from “dream to reality”, according to impact investor Nancy Pfund, one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity.
There is a significant opportunity for energy storage under the Trump administration, the US Energy Storage Association has said.
Financial services giant Morgan Stanley has anticipated that the US energy storage market will grow faster than current consensus expectations, while Deloitte has earmarked the technology for exponential growth – although not perhaps this year.
To widen the access for solar to low-income utility customers, non-profit solar organisation GRID Alternatives and PV microinverter producer Enphase Energy have partnered to launch a new solar-plus-storage project in California for up to 50 customers.
Industry insiders have criticised a lack of encouragement for green energy projects after battery storage won just over 10MW of combined capacity in the latest capacity market auction, well down on the success enjoyed by the technology in December’s T-4 bidding process.
Australia will launch a new large-scale energy storage funding round, the country’s prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed.
