Energy storage will be used to maximise the benefit of locally generated solar power, including reducing transmission losses, in a trial put together in Bavaria, Germany, by a partnership between academics, private companies and local government.

Sunamp, a Scottish manufacturer of heat batteries for domestic energy storage, including models designed to link with PV systems, has started serial production of its units from a base in the UK.

A 1,050MW hydroelectric pumped storage facility in Germany will receive an upgrade of its synchronous generators from engineering specialist Alstom.

One UK energy storage company has compared its latest venture to the energy trading markets of California ISO, as it prepares to pay its customers for providing vital grid services through their residential systems.

24M Technologies, a battery company spun out of A123 Systems in 2010, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to supply its semisolid lithium-ion cells to NEC Energy Solutions for use in NEC ES’s integrated energy storage systems.

We’ve been talking over the past few months with a large number of key and emerging players in the UK’s energy storage industry. With our show Solar Energy UK coming up next week, we thought this would be a good opportunity to share with you the thoughts of two of those players on the relationship between renewables and energy storage.

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.