Some news in brief from around the world of energy storage this week: Dutch grid-balancing act heralds AES’ first Europe installation, Japanese PV inverter company Tabuchi makes bid to become household name in US solar-plus-storage and Solar Impulse takes unscheduled break from spreading clean energy message.
The opening keynote address at Intersolar North America next week will be delivered by Tesla’s chief technical officer (CTO) JB Straubel.
Lilia Xie of Lux Research spoke with the founders of 24M, which claims to have reduced lithium cell costs by 50% over existing technologies and is targeting US$100 per kWh by 2020.
24M, a battery company that claims it can achieve 50% cost-savings over existing Li-ion technology and hit US$100 per kWh by 2020, is positioning itself as a ‘disruptor’ of the energy storage space, an industry analyst has said.
US PV installer SolarCity is now taking orders for solar and home energy storage systems including Tesla’s new Powerwall battery pack, as part of the company’s expanded homebuilder programme.
ASD Sonnenspeicher is preparing to put a new piece of battery technology on the market that allows cells to be connected in parallel, with the company claiming it could have a transformative effect on energy storage, batteries and EVs.
Joe Warren, managing director at UK energy storage start-up Powervault, says there is enough room in the market for multiple storage manufacturers as his company looks set to do battle with Tesla to win over British households.
Makers of flow batteries have redoubled their efforts to make the technology the leading choice for utility-scale storage applications, with one installing the largest such system to date in Europe and North America just a few days ago.
Energy storage developer Imergy Power Systems has announced the installation of a 30kW, 120kWh ESP30 vanadium flow battery to be tested with PV systems at the SunEdison and Global Academy of Technology (GAT) solar research and testing centre in Bangalore, India.
The vice-president for marketing and product strategy at one of only two inverter suppliers to Tesla says it has promised customers that it can “get the battery within six months”.