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.
Germany is looking increasingly likely to extend its incentive programme for domestic energy storage systems, according to a prominent member of the country’s Green Party.
Sonnenbatterie, Germany’s market leader for residential energy storage, has launched an energy trading platform that the company believes could make it as big as existing utility companies, rebranding itself as Sonnen in the process.
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.
Top names have signed up to support the Energy Storage division of PV Tech Storage’s publisher Solar Media, which has launched a series of events and media activities for next year, targeting the UK’s nascent industry.
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.
German trade association BSW Solar has called for an extension to the country’s PV energy storage incentive programme.
Energy storage manufacturing is the fastest growing business unit for tool maker Manz, the company has told PV Tech Storage.
One research firm has welcomed predictions from a think tank that Germany’s electricity network could cope with the addition of “huge amounts” of solar-plus-storage and even benefit, but also agreed that policy changes will most likely be required to enable that scenario.
One UK energy storage company has compared its latest venture to the energy trading markets of California ISO, as it prepares to pay its customers for providing vital grid services through their residential systems.
