Andy Colthorpe spoke to Energy Storage Association (ESA) executive director Matt Roberts a few weeks ago, shortly after the group’s annual conference in Dallas, Texas. Based in Washington, the organisation’s activities include advising on policy at regulatory and state level as well as encouraging technologists and researchers to share knowledge.

Utilising renewable energy instead of traditional diesel generators on islands and in remote areas would bring “substantial socio-economic benefits”, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

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.

The average global cost of installing residential energy storage systems will fall from US$1,600 per kWh in 2015, to US$250 per kWh by 2040, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report.

A New York-based project proving the ability of solar paired with storage to provide power in the event of natural disasters and other causes of grid outages is now underway at City University of New York (CUNY).

Oil major Shell is to purchase 20MW of energy storage from Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS).

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.

So-called ‘second life’ batteries taken from Nissan’s Leaf electric vehicle (EV) will be deployed in commercial-scale energy storage systems in regions including the US, following a deal involving Green Charge Networks.

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.

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.