At this year’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe event, Ron Shen of GoodWe spoke on camera with our sister site PV Tech. The China headquartered inverter manufacturer, which has recently diversified into adding capabilities such as module-level monitoring and optimisation to its range and launched products specifically aimed at the growing market for bi-facial (two-sided) solar panels, sees energy storage as a critical component of a successful future PV business.

Swiss vertically-integrated battery and energy storage system and equipment maker Leclanché has followed sonnen in netting a significant amount of investment to go into the second half of 2018, securing CHF75 million (US$76 million) from its main existing investor.

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 US is expected to remain the world’s biggest market for energy storage until 2022, with China its closest rival, GTM Research has said.

Narada Power, which makes batteries and complete energy storage systems as well as acting as a project system integrator, is establishing a subsidiary for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries.

News in brief from around the world of energy storage.

A project demonstrating the integration of energy storage onto grid networks in Hubei, China, will see the first phase of a 10MW / 40MWh project built by Pu Neng, a vanadium flow battery manufacturer.

Primus Power, a flow battery maker which claims its systems can cost less than half the price of lithium-ion energy storage over its lifetime, is establishing manufacturing lines in China.

With the rise of solar-plus-storage applications round the world, Frank Qiao, sales director at Growatt New Energy, talks to PV Tech about some of the key inverter trends and new products.

While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.