US PV installer SolarCity is now taking orders for solar and home energy storage systems including Tesla’s new Powerwall battery pack, as part of the company’s expanded homebuilder programme.
There is a greatly expanded amount of energy storage on offer at the European edition of the Intersolar trade exhibition and conferences this year, including the Electrical Energy Storage (EES) Europe show hosting its own conference for the first time. Andy Colthorpe took the opportunity to canvas opinions on the big trends and topics from a number of industry figures.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has done the rest of the storage industry a big favour by putting a price point on lithium-ion batteries, according to the CEO of Sonnenbatterie’s North American operations.
Aggregating connected energy storage systems to create ‘virtual power plants’ is likely to become a big part of the next phase of storage, according to the executive director of the US-based Energy Storage Association.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is set to launch a technology roadmap for electricity storage at the solar industry conference and exhibition Intersolar Europe next month. IRENA technology roadmap analyst Ruud Kempener spoke to Andy Colthorpe about the project.
SolarEdge, one of only two companies at present to produce Tesla Powerwall-compatible inverters, will launch its expanded range of residential and commercial solutions at Intersolar Europe next month.
One analyst has predicted that 12,500 residential PV storage systems could be installed in Germany in 2015, more than the total number of systems installed with support from a government scheme in its first two years.
A large-scale storage system co-located at a German solar farm by the PV plant’s developer Belectric, has been given the green light to operate in the grid-balancing frequency response market.
Tesla’s grand entrance to the stationary storage market has been (largely) welcomed but question marks remain over the company’s business model. Andy Colthorpe gauges the latest reaction and explores the options facing Elon Musk.
Tesla’s Powerwall home energy storage system will join the US market at a “remarkably low price”, according to one analyst PV Tech has spoken to following the announcement from Silicon Valley last night.
