A planned commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage project in England could increase onsite solar consumption to the point that no power will be drawn from the grid on some days of the year.

Europe’s installed base of electrical energy storage leaped by almost 50% during 2017 but perhaps the bigger takeaway is the growing share of battery systems installed behind-the-meter, an analyst has said.

Even among high level stakeholders, there are real gaps in education, knowledge and understanding of what energy storage is, and what it can do. We were privileged at last week’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe shows in Munich, Germany, to be joined by four leading thinkers – and doers – in the energy storage industry, who helped us tackle this difficult question.

Intersolar Managing Director Dr. Florian Wessendorf and NAATBatt International Executive Director James Greenberger have collaborated to forecast top trends that are expected to dominate the ees North America show floor this year.

UK demand response and energy resource aggregation company Kiwi Power has unveiled its largest behind the meter battery to date with the completion of the 4MW / 4.8MWh Tesla battery at Cenin Renewables in south Wales.

On the back of rapidly decreasing costs for energy storage and solar photovoltaics (PV), consumers wishing to achieve a low-cost and reliable supply of power are considering grid defection—or at least, partial grid-defection—as an increasingly attractive alternative. Julian Jansen, analyst at IHS looks at the economics of grid defection in Europe today and in the future – and how its proliferation could impact the energy industry as a whole.

Commercial and industrial (C&I) businesses in the UK are to be offered free energy storage services from Omnio, a new firm set up to address the ‘overlooked’ market of small, distributed energy users.

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.

A ‘multi-stakeholder’ approach, where different parties benefit from batteries at different times, could be the key to enabling communities to deploy grid-connected energy storage systems, DNV GL has said.

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.