The trial of a 6MW/10MWh ‘Big Battery’ has proven energy storage can help Britain’s electricity network, but the next crucial phase is to assess the business case, the grid operator which commissioned it has said.

Utility-scale solar projects in a region of Japan affected by fears of grid capacity constraints have been supplied with energy storage, aimed at mitigating the potential effects of output curtailment.

While the effectiveness of flow batteries in islanded situations is quickly being recognised, on the grid, the cost of providing that storage is still seen as something of an inhibitor to uptake. Andy Colthorpe spoke with the RedT CEO, Scott McGregor, to get his views on how flow batteries can thrive – and why lithium-ion is not the enemy.

Energy storage and interconnection are complementary technologies, as a means of adding flexibility and keeping costs down in electricity grids, an expert from Fraunhofer ISE has said.

Moves by the US’ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to assess electricity storage’s potential role in wholesale markets and in maintaining a low-cost, reliable network have been welcomed by the Washington-headquartered Energy Storage Association.

A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.

Roundup: A third of US PV installers offer storage and 26% more could join them this year, China’s BYD signs up with UAE’s Masdar, Sunvault and Aboriginal Power’s ‘self-sustaining’ community project.

Deploying battery storage at grid level is relatively uncharted territory, but a number of pioneers’ projects are now in the ground. Patrick Leslie and colleagues at RES, which built some of the first wave of storage projects, teases out the key technology, finance and regulatory lessons the industry can learn from these early experiences.

PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow is partnering with renewable energy storage system market leader Samsung SDI to perform demonstrative energy storage projects in China.

Unsubsidised, commercial solar-plus-storage projects of the type being executed in Puerto Rico could demonstrate how to overcome many of the challenges imminent for the world’s PV markets, according to one company with experience in the field.