Solar inverter manufacturer Sungrow’s energy storage system integration arm has supplied a DC-coupled lithium-ion battery storage system to a solar farm which went online in northern Japan in December.

Germany’s draft renewable energy laws, which the government is seeking to introduce next year, have been heavily criticised by energy storage systems association BVES.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.

One of the first large-scale solar farms in Japan so far to be equipped with battery storage in order to meet the requirements of a local grid operator and utility, has been completed on the island of Hokkaido.

Q CELLS has officially launched a home solution that promises a “100% sustainable power supply,” through combining solar and battery storage to meet the majority of demand and a digital cloud solution to cover the rest.

It has always been anticipated that by the early 2020s, the feed-in tariff would have tapered away in Japan’s booming solar market. Andy Colthorpe speaks with analyst Izumi Kaizuka at RTS Corporation to learn more about what the future holds for post-subsidy solar in Japan.

The UK government has confirmed that energy storage systems will be eligible under the UK’s newly unveiled successor policy aimed at supporting the deployment of residential solar in the wake of feed-in tariff cuts, but only if co-located with a participating renewable energy generator.

Details have emerged of the UK’s Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), which will see owners of small-scale solar facilities continue to be paid for surplus energy sent to the grid, aiming to close the policy gap left by the end of feed-in tariffs (FiTs), by the end of 2019.

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.

Sales of battery storage units to residential households in Germany are booming, but it’s the value of services the batteries can provide, rather than the hardware itself that offers a long-term economic opportunity, a Siemens representative has said.