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.

Following the announcement of a ‘virtual power plant’ pilot in Australia, Sunverge energy storage systems have been selected for another trial project to test the capabilities of customer-sited storage, this time in the US.

At a recent London event hosted by UK storage manufacturer Moixa Technology, academic Jonathan Radcliffe of the University of Birmingham talks through some of the benefits – and barriers – to storage in the UK, as well as the wider implications for adding flexibility to electricity networks with batteries and related technologies.

Energy storage start-up Stem says it sees “strong opportunity” for expansion of its business in Australia, Japan and the EU, in the week when the company closed a US$12 million funding round led by Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co.

An ‘electricity trading’ scheme to be launched by Reposit Power in Australia for residential energy storage system owners has been described by an analyst as “one of the most interesting examples” of software as a differentiator in the energy storage marketplace.

Bosch, BMW and Swedish state-owned power company Vattenfall have begun the latest attempt to harness the potential of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) to provide stability to electrical grid infrastructure.

A new scheme to provide grid-balancing services directly from the batteries of electric vehicles (EVs) will be trialled by car maker BMW, in partnership with California utility company Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).