Corporations and utilities are already interested in energy storage but must collaborate to advance deployment and lower costs, avoiding some of the past mistakes of the PV industry, according to the heads of one California-based industry group.

The unsung hero in the grid revolution is the data that enables new technology and provide more control of an increasingly complex system. Andy Colthorpe explored the growing role of Big Data in energy networks in a feature article for the downstream solar technology journal PV Tech Power.

DNV GL’s new recommended practice guidelines for grid-connected energy storage systems is aimed at “reducing risks” for investors and the wider community, the document’s lead author has said.

A team of teachers volunteering to educate refugees and displaced peoples among the camps of Calais in northern France, will power a mobile school with a solar-plus-storage system.

News in brief: Japan’s northern island tackles grid constraints for renewables with 60MWh battery; AES switches on large-scale storage in Northern Ireland; telecoms appear to be a good fit for Imergy’s flow batteries.

Wolfram Walter of German energy storage maker ASD Sonnenspeicher – who converted his own sports car into a solar-powered EV – believes the established practise of connecting battery cells in series is holding back the potential of e-mobility.

Production and deliveries of Tesla’s stationary storage systems have now begun, while a company spokesman said it welcomes new competitors such as Faraday Future to the EV space – in line with Tesla’s stated values to accelerate clean energy deployment.

Glen Dimplex, by some estimates the world’s biggest maker of domestic heating appliances, is due to start recruiting households to participate in the latest phase of an EU trial of energy storage technologies.

Japanese financial services company Orix Corporation has invested in UniEnergy Technologies (UET), a US company delivering large-scale energy storage based around its own vanadium flow batteries.

Over two weeks at the beginning of December, unseasonal rains brought Chennai to a standstill. Rahul Walawalkar argues that energy storage-backed mircrogrids are an investment that would add resiliency of supply to extreme weather-affected areas as well as improving overall access to electricity.