Microinverter specialist Enphase has revealed details of plans for two residential solar-plus-storage trials in Australia and New Zealand and publicly put a figure on prices for its AC battery product.

PV inverter firm Bonfiglioli has launched its RPS TL-4Q inverter series for utility-scale grid-connected energy storage systems in India, claiming there is strong future potential for on-grid and off-grid battery storage systems in the Indian market.

The UK, catapulted into being one of the world’s leading regions for solar PV deployment unexpectedly over the past couple of years, is now facing just as unexpected challenges in the form of drastic FiT cuts of as much as 87%. While this is undoubtedly bad for the industry, there are some possible avenues for policy adjustments that won’t require subsidising as well as strategies the industry could adopt to make self-consuming solar with storage a more viable option, writes Simon Daniel of Moixa Technology.

NextEra Energy’s CEO sees energy storage as one of three areas driving “tremendous growth” for the group and has said that discussions about renewables are “naturally” leading into dialogue on storage.

Power conversion specialist Ideal Power has received an order for 1.5MW of its 30kW battery converters and power conversion systems from a new system integration partner.

News in brief: Indian PM Modi visits Tesla and talks solar-plus-storage with Musk; Scottish renewable energy group forms energy storage division; Harvard team developing flow batteries reports findings.

The €32 million (US$36 million) Hydrogen Mobility Europe programme was launched today, with Germany, the UK, the Scandinavian countries and France signing up with the aim of expanding hydrogen refuelling station coverage across the continent. Andy Colthorpe speaks to one of the companies behind the project and power-to-gas energy expert Christopher Hebling of Fraunhofer ISE about this “modern fairytale” technology.

Australia-based flow battery provider Redflow has halved the price of its zinc-bromide battery (ZBM) to the point where the cost of energy produced from its battery drops below the price of energy from the grid.

Electronics and design giant Apple is setting its sights on a 2019 launch for its own range of electric vehicles (EVs), according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Europe’s largest energy storage battery project could conceivably also be its best looking, as these pictures show. The two companies behind the project, which saw a large-scale energy storage system deployed in the small German village of Feldheim, also decided to call on professional street artists and invited schoolchildren to get involved with designing the outside of the system’s enclosure.