The Solar Media Podcast returns for a new season to mark the new year. In this first episode of 2021, sponsored by SKE Engineering, Andy Colthorpe and Liam Stoker cast their gazes at the horizon and profile what the immediate future holds for the solar and storage industries.

A round-up of energy storage news in brief; this edition has a distributed, behind-the-meter flavour.

Distributed energy storage systems made by power management company Eaton will be able to participate in grid balancing markets through integration with a virtual power plant (VPP) platform developed by electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment provider Virta.

Updated 7 January 2020: Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) will supply lithium-ion batteries to energy storage system integrator FlexGen for two large-scale energy storage projects totalling 220MWh in Texas.

Let’s take a look at the news stories that had the most page views on the site since the beginning of 2020. The list covers everything from always-in-focus topics of cost reduction and competitiveness, to fire safety, innovation and commercialisation of new technologies and, of course in this year, COVID-19.

A year in webinars, presentations and panel discussions that you can watch on our Youtube channel right now.

Here’s the top-ranking blogs from 2020 on the website, based on page views.

DERs interconnected with the grid position a utility to better manage peak demand, avoid transmission overloads and keep electricity flowing, but interconnection of battery, solar and other DERs is not without its challenges. Jason Allnutt from IEEE Standards Association discusses a standard that has become an “essential resource” for stakeholders.

Renewable energy marketplace creates a financial contract that “complements” existing power purchase agreements (PPAs) between corporations and developers.

Vertically-integrated solar company Q CELLS has completed the acquisition of US-based Growing Energy Labs Inc (Geli) that was announced in August.