Barriers to financing for energy storage could hold back the growth of solar in the US, while an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for standalone energy storage should be introduced, the audience heard as our publisher Solar Media hosted the Solar and Storage Finance USA event last week.

Maxine Ghavi, head of grid edge solutions at Hitachi ABB Power Grids speaks to Energy-Storage.news about the role of battery storage in the global energy transition.

Siemens and Macquarie Group have created a new joint venture that will develop distributed energy resources such as solar and battery storage for US corporations and institutions.

Within the US, different jurisdictions are at different points of DER adoption and interconnection: Ravi Subramaniam at IEEE asks commissioners from across the country about the different drivers and dynamics they see.

A newly released standard creates nationally applicable guidance for DER manufacturers on how grid support functions in their products will be tested. Brian Lydic, chief regulatory engineer at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), talks about what this means for enabling the grid modernisation that will be needed to support high levels of renewable energy and energy storage.

Bringing a proven, flexible, virtual power plant (VPP) platform into North America is a step towards “unleashing the potential” of distributed energy, the chief commercial officer of UK-headquartered solutions provider Kiwi Power says.

UK-headquartered distributed energy services provider Kiwi Power has made its first official expansion into the US, operating in the ERCOT market of Texas and planning a further step into the PJM Interconnection service area.

The optimal integration of distributed energy resources such as solar, battery storage and smart thermostats becomes an ever-more complex and pressing question. Rahul Kar, general manager and VP for New Energy at AutoGrid Systems looks at the role artificial intelligence can play in smarter energy networks.

QCELLS has invested AU$5 million (US$3.45 million) in SwitchDin, an Australian distributed energy resources (DERs) software company that offers capabilities including virtual power plant aggregation and microgrid-forming.

A new guide has been published in the US to “help stakeholders assure prudent use of funds by electric utilities” when it comes to upgrading the distribution grid.