UK company Solarcentury has commissioned two solar-storage-diesel mini-grids in rural communities in Eritrea that are far away from the grid and have relied purely on diesel power until now.

French energy giant teams up with Myanmar-focused off-grid energy specialist, Mandalay Yoma, to help spur rural electrification across the Southeast Asian country with mini-grids combining PV, diesel and battery storage.

A recycling process for lithium-ion batteries already up and running, by Finnish state-owned energy services company Fortum could make dramatic reductions in their environmental footprint, the company has said.

24M, spun out of an MIT laboratory, claims its latest semi-solid battery ‘breakthrough’, Dual Electrolyte technology, heralds a new era to come for advanced lithium batteries. Andy Colthorpe spoke to some of the company’s leadership team to find out more.

Norwegian utility Statkraft has partnered with flow machine specialist redT on a fully-financed solar-plus-storage offering for the UK’s thriving C&I renewables market.

24M, a startup battery company founded as a spin-off from MIT, claims it has made a breakthrough in creating semi-solid lithium-ion battery cells with an energy density exceeding 350Wh per kg.

Walking around Energy Storage Europe this year it was obvious that the show, like the market, has grown from a small handful of “strong believers” as one source put it, to a forward-looking show focused on a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.

Unlike the solar PV sector where there’s often an attitude of “let’s sell the project first and worry about O&M later,” storage projects must have services built in to the thinking and financial process from the beginning. With storage, a strong O&M plan and team become part and parcel of making and closing a strong productive deal, NEXTracker’s Marty Rogers argues.

With Brexit day less than a month away and still no certainty around what the final deal will look like, the time is now for the energy storage sector to prepare for every eventuality so it can play to its increasing strengths, writes Stephen Irish, co-founder of Hyperdrive Innovation.

Saba Electric Company, sole supplier of electricity to the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba, celebrated as the island ran on 100% solar for the first time ever this month, with the switch-on of a solar-plus-storage microgrid.