California’s CalCharge is a partnership between public and private sector, aiming to accelerate the adoption of energy storage in the state. Andy Colthorpe of Energy Storage News spoke with CalCharge president Danny Kennedy, the Australia-born former chief of US residential PV installer Sungevity who has a colourful background in eco-activism and the programme’s recently appointed manager, Alex Luce.

DNV GL’s new recommended practice guidelines for grid-connected energy storage systems is aimed at “reducing risks” for investors and the wider community, the document’s lead author has said.

Globally, energy storage is developing rapidly. Businesses that are shaping the market are being asked to nominate themselves to join the Energy Storage 100, a new industry initiative from Energy Storage News’ publisher, Solar Media.

A UK electricity distribution network operator has signed a contract with Renewable Energy Systems (RES) to deliver an energy storage system co-located with large-scale solar, which will be used to develop ways to commercialise services to the grid.

A document setting out new policy directions on solar support says the UK government has recognised the potential of energy storage but has decided the feed-in tariff would not be an appropriate mechanism to incentivise uptake.

Energy storage installations in the US this year are expected to be treble what they were in 2014, making it the “biggest year ever” for storage, according to the latest forecasting by GTM Research.

A trade association representing some of Germany’s energy storage industry has welcomed the renewal of a support scheme for batteries, but says that establishing “fair market conditions” for storage would be more important.

Energy storage is already competitive in a number of mainly grid-based applications, while lithium-ion battery prices could fall by as much as 50% in the next five years, financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard has found.

Steag, a major power generator which constructs, plans and operates power plants, is spending US$100 million on acquiring 90MW of large-scale energy storage to help stabilise Germany’s grid.

The number of installed stationary battery energy storage systems (BESS) is growing significantly. According to recent estimates, today’s annual global market volume of about US$1 billion is expected to increase more than twentyfold in less than 10 years, reaching a staggering US$20–25billion by 2024. Florian Mayr of Apricum Consulting looks at this growth in the context of specific use cases for storage in two of its most advanced regional markets, the US and Germany.