Hawaii’s electricity regulator and main utility have recognised that customer-sited distributed energy resources (DERs), including rooftop PV and energy storage, can provide essential grid services and better visbility for network operators, the VP of Stem Inc’s Hawaii operations has told Energy Storage News.

The organisation responsible for overseeing California’s bulk electric power system has approved proposals to accommodate more distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar, energy storage, advanced inverters and demand response, onto the state’s grid.

Volker Wachenfeld of SMA explores some technical and policy factors driving growing use cases for refurbishing home PV systems to add energy storage, and the markets where this is already gaining traction as an idea.

Battery energy storage used on the grid for ancillary services has been gaining momentum ever since the United States changed its frequency regulation markets by introducing a concept known as pay-for-performance. Roger Lin of NEC ES takes a good look at how this space is evolving, as the UK’s National Grid prepares a 200MW tender for enhance frequency response.

The UK government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is seeking answers from the energy storage industry on how best to define and consider the various technologies, both behind and in front of the meter.

A joint statement on economic and social cooperation between the governments of India and France has “noted the important role of energy storage to promote renewable energies”.

French manufacturer Leclanche will supply battery storage systems to a 13MW capacity storage project with 53MWh of storage duration in Ontario to be used for voltage control and in providing reactive power support to the grid.

Although Britain’s government has cut support for renewable energy severely in the past few months, controversially claiming a need to balance the transition away from fossil fuels against the cost to consumers, energy storage may face less of a challenge at the top level, according speakers at a conference in London.

Misconceptions over the true value of energy storage are developing because of a “narrow focus” on the initial costs of the technology, a report has concluded.

The US Department of Energy is to fund six projects trialling the combination of solar and energy storage.