Voltstorage, a German company founded in Munich in 2016, is launching a vanadium-redox-flow (VRF) energy storage system aimed at the residential market.

News in brief from around the world of energy storage.

The US is expected to remain the world’s biggest market for energy storage until 2022, with China its closest rival, GTM Research has said.

ESS Inc, US manufacturer of a novel iron flow battery for stationary energy storage applications, has entered the German market via an agreement with investor, chemical company BASF.

Already this year we’ve been able to learn directly about the energy storage market in Europe from the Energy Storage Summit in London at the end of February and Energy Storage Europe in Dusseldorf, which just took place last week. Andy Colthorpe summarises what he’s seen and heard.

Speakers at Energy Storage Europe were confident, despite a few reservations, that Germany’s new government which grants Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term in office will be good for the environment and for renewable energy.

The former head of the German Green Party, Dr Simone Peter, has said that the Energiewende (‘Energy Transition’) is in its second phase, and now requires more ‘sector coupling’ between electricity, heat and transport sectors.

At this week’s Energy Storage Europe event, Energy-Storage.News heard from German politician Thorsten Herdan that strong cooperation with other countries in Europe is vital for creating smarter, reliable and cost-effective energy networks.

A subsidiary of Enel is jointly developing a large-scale lithium-ion battery system project with wind power developer ENERTRAG, in what will be the multinational utility’s first energy storage project in Germany.

Case study: Blockchain technology is being put to the test in northern Europe, writes Jean-Baptiste Cornefert of Sonnen.