Energy storage has moved out of an early, marketing and awareness phase, and real business is being done throughout Europe, Energy-Storage.news heard yesterday at the annual ees Europe show Munich, Germany.

Walking around Energy Storage Europe this year it was obvious that the show, like the market, has grown from a small handful of “strong believers” as one source put it, to a forward-looking show focused on a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.

With carbon reduction goals a long way off from being met in Europe’s transport sector, energy storage can play a key role in coupling transportation and energy technologies, the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has said.

After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GWh of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In this first part, we look at the challenges faced by the industry in 2018.

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.

A new consortium, V2GB (Vehicle to Grid Britain), will develop driver-centred business models to support the rapid roll out of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies, enabling millions of electric car batteries to become a vital part of the UK energy system. National Grid, carmaker Nissan’s European Technical Centre, Moixa and energy consultancy Element Energy have come together to help work out how to reward drivers who use electric vehicle (EV) batteries to support the power network. Chris Wright, the Chief Technology Officer of UK home battery company Moixa, talks us through the mission behind V2GB and the potential impact of the study.

There is a perception that “batteries cannot be long life assets”, but it depends very much on how they are designed and used, Dr Marek Kubik of Fluence has said, in a video interview with Energy-Storage.News.

Speakers at Energy Storage Europe were confident, despite a few reservations, that Germany’s new government which grants Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term in office will be good for the environment and for renewable energy.

A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.