One analyst has predicted that 12,500 residential PV storage systems could be installed in Germany in 2015, more than the total number of systems installed with support from a government scheme in its first two years.
France’s government has launched a tender for 50MW of projects combining solar power with energy storage systems on Corsica and its overseas islands territories.
Ecotricity, a UK-based supplier of renewable and clean energy, will trial a home energy storage box later this year.
One firm exploring the possibilities of contributing to grid stability by installing energy storage at solar farms is German PV plant technology provider Belectric. The company will install two large-scale energy storage projects in the UK and connected an energy storage system at a large-scale solar power plant in Germany late last year. The system at Alt Daber is the first such installation in Europe to operate on the primary operating reserve market. Andy Colthorpe interviewed Belectric’s UK managing director Duncan Bott and Tim Mueller, chief executive of Belectric’s solar research and innovation subsidiary, Adensis, about the Alt Daber project earlier this year.
An academic based in north east England has called on the UK government to give energy storage “its own asset class with accompanying rules for appropriate regulatory treatment” as well as investing in the technology in order to enable future energy bill savings.
A US energy company is testing power-to-gas systems that store energy from renewable energy production, including solar power, during times of excess supply.
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is like King Canute, standing on the shore commanding the tide of renewable energy and energy storage not to come in. But no matter how much he rails against the future, this prime minister is way too late to stop the tide of progress. A range of factors are coming together at the same time that will see distributed solar PV combined with energy storage move into the early mainstream in the coming years – and sooner than later, says John Grimes of the Australian Storage Council and Australian Solar Council.
Research into energy storage and related technologies has been given a boost in the US in the past few days, with a major utility company committing funding in Indiana for renewables integration and New York’s governor announcing the creation of a research facility.
Bosch looks likely to become the latest big name to participate in a government-funded micro-grid trial, with the company proposed to receive almost US$3 million from California’s energy policy planning agency.
The short-term outlook for residential solar-plus-storage in the UK will be “challenging”, but simple regulatory changes of the kind the renewables industry is already asking for might make a real difference, according to one analyst.
