Energy storage could have a ‘highly critical’ role to play in emerging economies, Aloke Gupta of Imergy Power Systems says. Gupta, who was previously with California’s Public Utilities’ Commission, the state’s regulator, talks about the uses and applications of micro-grids, from his vantage point of view as a flow battery and storage system maker.

Flow battery manufacturer ViZn Energy Systems has won a contract to provide a 128kW/320kWh system for a US department of energy project.

News in brief: Japan’s northern island tackles grid constraints for renewables with 60MWh battery; AES switches on large-scale storage in Northern Ireland; telecoms appear to be a good fit for Imergy’s flow batteries.

Japanese financial services company Orix Corporation has invested in UniEnergy Technologies (UET), a US company delivering large-scale energy storage based around its own vanadium flow batteries.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has selected five companies to deliver nine energy storage projects with a total capacity of 16.75MW.

PV Tech Storage spoke to Nancy Pfund of ‘social impact’ investors DBL Partners, among Tesla’s early backers and participants in two of the top five VC fund plays of this year’s third quarter.

A Silicon Valley-headquartered flow battery maker will provide energy storage for telecommunications networks in China, replacing diesel use in a pilot programme ahead of “wide-scale deployment”.

Australia-based flow battery provider Redflow has halved the price of its zinc-bromide battery (ZBM) to the point where the cost of energy produced from its battery drops below the price of energy from the grid.

Tom Tipple, regional VP for Imergy Power Systems, a flow battery maker headquartered in Fremont, California, recently visited the PV Tech Storage offices to share his thoughts on the global market for energy storage.

News in brief: Australia gets its largest battery storage system to date, Tesla man persuaded to go back to Sonnenbatterie and Gildemeister installs PV-linked flow battery systems in Czech Republic.