In the past month we have heard a lot about the future of storage in the UK. From plans by the government and regulator to enable greater flexibility across electricity networks to changes to technical rules governing the market, there’s been a sense that a great deal is changing. Analyst Lauren Cook of Solar Media’s in-house market research team takes a look at the utility-scale pipeline figures behind the headlines.

Florian Mayr, partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory, reflects on knowledge gained in energy storage’s rapidly growing markets and offers his five key ingredients for success.

The world pipeline for energy storage on the utility side of the meter has doubled in the past year, reaching 3.4GW, according to new research by I.H.S.

According to the latest GTM Research figures, energy storage is coming into its own and is no longer confined to a handful of US states. 21 states now have 20MW of storage projects proposed, in construction or deployed. Further, 10 states have pipelines of more than 100MW.

Financial services giant Morgan Stanley has anticipated that the US energy storage market will grow faster than current consensus expectations, while Deloitte has earmarked the technology for exponential growth – although not perhaps this year.

Software for energy storage systems will be a mixture of in-house solutions by integrator/ developers and third-party providers, in an industry segment set for a steep rise in value, according to one expert.

New value propositions which will radically change the way energy is generated and used by end-customers are already accelerating energy storage market growth. Julian Jansen of Delta-ee takes a look at three distinctive types of business model which are taking shape.

Andy Colthorpe and Ben Willis profile some of the companies and technologies making waves in the fast-changing world of stationary energy storage, in a feature article which originally appeared in the seventh issue of PV Tech Power.

Another period of growth in US energy storage was enjoyed in the first quarter of 2016, up by 127% year-over-year compared to the equivalent period in 2015, GTM Research has found.

While seeming “tech breakthroughs” garner a great deal of media attention, the three key factors in determining the likely impact of storage tech companies are innovative technology, scalability and a proven track record, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst has said.