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.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a non-profit organisation funded by electric utilities to conduct research on issues related to the electric power industry in USA, is leading a project that will see renewable energy development company SunEdison supply battery systems for nine net-zero energy homes in California.

A small municipal utility will be the recipient of what is thought to be one of the first US projects to try out a combination of revenue streams from a storage battery linked to a solar farm.

Battery-based energy storage integration and development company Younicos has launched a power converter unit and a standalone, easily deployable storage solution, with the company describing the move into hardware as a “next logical step”.

Start-ups and established players in energy storage alike will compete for attention at this week’s Solar Power International, which opens today in Anaheim, California.