Reports that a grid operator in France has found battery-based energy storage “too costly” to be used to integrate renewable energy have been criticised by a spokesman for energy storage developer Younicos.

Some news in brief from around the world of energy storage this week: UK residential storage company chases scale with crowdfunder, Younicos could hire 150 more employees by 2017, and Southern California Edison is set to flick the switch on a grid-stabilising storage system from NEC ES.

Residential solar will be sold almost exclusively in bundled energy systems that include storage and energy management components within a “couple of years” the CEO of Enphase has predicted.

Makers of flow batteries have redoubled their efforts to make the technology the leading choice for utility-scale storage applications, with one installing the largest such system to date in Europe and North America just a few days ago.

John Grimes of Australia’s Energy Storage Council reports back from a recent visit to China, where he took a look at the processes and state of play of some of the country’s battery manufacturers.

UK energy efficiency solutions provider Anesco has bolstered its portfolio of operational storage solutions, installing its second commercial battery at a solar farm.

The vice-president for marketing and product strategy at one of only two inverter suppliers to Tesla says it has promised customers that it can “get the battery within six months”.

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.

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.

A small number of regional markets are leading the way for energy storage deployment in the US, but this is likely to change in the near future, an analyst from GTM Research has said.