The huge increase in demand for safe and reliable batteries to store energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind heralds a new lease of life for advanced lead batteries, argues Dr Andy Bush of the International Lead Association.

The first solar-plus-storage microgrid in Asia to use Tesla’s Powerpack energy storage system is designed to end power reliability issues for a Philippines community, long used to losing light and productivity to brownouts.

Some of the “world’s biggest insurance companies” are investigating the advantages of pairing lithium batteries with ultracapacitors in energy storage systems, which can lower costs and extend battery lifetimes, the CEO of an ultracapacitor maker has said.

ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.

The CEO of ‘intelligent energy storage’ provider Stem Inc, has said a recently-awarded project in Japan will lean on business models the company has used in the US, while artificial intelligence (AI) technology makes that same transference possible.

The Indian Budget has seen a hike in customs duty for lithium-ion batteries from 10% to 20%.

Energy storage provider Connected Energy has secured £3 million (US$4.13 million) of investment from Macquarie Group and ENGIE to fuel its growth plans in the UK and abroad.

Since the launch of the site almost four years ago, Energy-Storage.News (and PV Tech Storage as it was previously known), has consistently brought you high-quality blogs from both guest contributors and our team of journalists and experts here at Solar Media. Here’s just a selection of some of the best guest blogs we ran from January to June, 2017:

Changes to the de-rating factors for battery storage projects competing in the UK’s Capacity Market (CM) will push the sector towards longer-duration batteries, while potentially sparking a shift towards energy arbitrage as a source of revenue for shorter duration applications. David Pratt heard from several industry sources following last week’s announcement.

Future battery energy storage projects in the UK have been hit with a major blow after the government published its intention to lower the de-rating factor in capacity market auctions by almost 80% for 30 minute duration batteries.