The acquisition of a “next generation” battery start-up by Bosch could be a milestone for the e-mobility sector, but represents a risk for the German engineering giant, according to one analyst.

The International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) recently released its electricity storage technology roadmap, looking at how electricity storage can support the increased deployment of renewable energy.

Sharp Electronics will add software modelling the performance of energy storage systems to its commercial storage offering, with software an area industry figures and experts have highlighted as one of the most critical areas of competition and progress in the sector.

On a visit to heat battery maker Sunamp’s office, Scotland’s energy minister Fergus Ewing outlined aims to collaborate with his counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on nationwide storage strategy, while Sunamp CEO Andrew Bissel says greater understanding of heat source batteries is needed for the technology to be included.

Andy Colthorpe speaks to Matt Roberts of the Washington-based Energy Storage Association about topics including real-world applications of tech straight from the lab, why he dislikes subsidies and the group’s technical conference, happening later this month.

While a project to run a Spanish island off renewable energy which gathered media attention this week might only have successfully met the region’s energy demand continuously for four hours, the project is nonetheless “very significant”, an expert with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has said.

News in brief: Australia gets its largest battery storage system to date, Tesla man persuaded to go back to Sonnenbatterie and Gildemeister installs PV-linked flow battery systems in Czech Republic.

Highview Power Storage, a UK company which makes energy storage systems based on liquid air technology, has said that work is well underway on a 5MW demonstration project in the north-west of England.

Tesla’s much-hyped battery announcement in April raised important questions over what business models will drive the deployment of stationary battery storage. As Andy Colthorpe reports, one answer is the virtual power plant, in which residential and commercial battery systems are aggregated to provide grid services.

German utility firm RWE has launched a power-to-gas storage system, which it claims has achieved efficiencies as high as 86%.