Well, we seem to say it at the end of every year, but 2017 seemed a lot busier than 2016, 2016 was busier and more exciting than the year before that, and so on! There have been some hints already on what the industry and its observers expect to see in 2018 and we do not doubt energy storage will continue in its rise to become a flexible cornerstone of the world’s electricity infrastructure. In the meantime, let’s reflect on the top news stories of last year, as reported by Energy-Storage.News and based on readership statistics from you:

US commercial and industrial (C&I) sector player Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) has been selected by a water authority in California to deliver a 3MWh energy storage system at a facility processing polluted groundwater.

Shanghai-headquartered energy storage system maker Pylontech has become the first company to receive certification from TUV Rheinland that its lithium battery storage devices are suitable for use in Germany.

Power equipment supplier and system integrator Alfen is putting energy storage and EV chargers on a football stadium in its Dutch homeland, while the company is reportedly considering a stock market flotation.

Since the launch of the site almost four years ago, Energy-Storage.News (and PV Tech Storage as it was previously known), has consistently brought you high-quality blogs from both guest contributors and our team of journalists and experts here at Solar Media. Here’s just a selection of some of the best guest blogs we ran from January to June, 2017:

The digital ledger system blockchain has been both praised and misunderstood in equal measure and its relationship to the physical world of electrons is at its earliest stages of exploration. In the latest ‘Storage & Smart Power’ section of PV Tech Power, Carsten Reincke-Collon, CTO of Younicos looks at how energy storage and management software will interact with blockchain-led or blockchain-like systems of data processing and recording.

The CEO of Primus Power agrees that at present, lithium battery systems are more bankable than the flow battery energy storage systems of the type his company makes, but asserted that he believes this will change over time.

Battery storage and smart technologies are to be rolled out to homes in the Irish town of Dingle as part of a new trial to test their potential to support the use of variable renewable energy supply resources and smart connection to the Irish electricity grid.

German-American system integrator and technology provider Younicos has completed a two-phase operation to upgrade a lead acid energy storage system for lithium batteries, at the 36MW Notrees facility in Texas.

Powin Energy has just sold 116MWh of its project assets and pipeline of future developments to esVolta and made a deal which sees Powin become exclusive supplier to the latter’s projects.