The Energy Superhub Oxford in England is a sophisticated project to create a decarbonised urban environment using a mix of advanced technologies. Jorn Reniers, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science gives us insights into his role, which is to make a digital twin of the Superhub, including its 50MW hybrid battery storage system.

The new CEO at VRB Energy, a maker of vanadium redox flow battery energy storage devices, claims that ongoing improvements to its technologies will allow it to outcompete lithium-ion energy storage in the coming years.

There’s a race to develop new technologies – and adapt existing ones – that can either be complementary to lithium batteries, or even compete with them. Representatives from three technology providers offer up some case studies, data, insights and opinions on where they think the market could go.

Germany company Voltstorage, claiming to be the only developer and maker of home solar energy storage systems using vanadium flow batteries, raised €6 million (US$7.1 million) in July.

Long duration energy storage is “essential” to help accelerate renewable deployment, according to the US Department of Energy’s Dr Imre Gyuk, who moderates this panel discussion with Matt Harper from flow battery provider Invinity Energy Systems and Russ Weed from gravity energy storage company ARES.

While we do acknowledge the challenges faced as a result of COVID-19, we cannot afford to lose sight of the opportunity renewable energy and energy storage solutions, such as the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRFB) present, argues Paul Vollant, Director of Sales and Trading at vanadium supplier Largo Resources.

Energy generation has never been a single technology market and energy storage is no different, says Ed Porter from Invinity Energy Systems.

Transmission and distribution network operator Hokkaido Electric Power has contracted Sumitomo Electric Industries to supply a grid-scale flow battery energy storage system for a wind farm in northern Japan.

While lithium-ion batteries continue to take the dominant share of new installations by some distance, there are a variety of other technologies looking to complement, combine or even compete. Panellists at the Energy Storage Digital Series looked at the questions of which energy storage technologies are the likeliest contenders for that future.

What are the biggest market segments by region, application and opportunity today in energy storage? Guidehouse Insights senior research analyst Alex Eller takes us through the present and emerging hotspots of the global energy storage industry. Taken from the Energy Storage Digital Series online conference held earlier this year.