In contrast to “behind-the-meter” household energy storage systems, whose operational strategy is generally aimed at local financial optimisation of power consumption, the use cases for battery technologies on an industrial scale are primarily determined by the requirements of the electricity supply grids, particularly the regional distribution grids. SMA’s Voker Wachenfeld and Dr Alexsandra Sasa Bukvic-Schaefer take a closer look at some of the demands and applications driving the sector forward.

Financial activity in the third quarter of this year was slightly flatter than Q2 for smart grid, batteries, energy storage and energy efficiency, but the average deal size grew, according to Mercom Capital Group.

US commercial energy storage provider Stem has deployed its first system in Hawaii, for a pilot project that could help the island state’s main utility reach renewable energy goals “better, and at lower cost”.

While some observers have breathlessly called 2015 the “Year of the Battery,” a more accurate description might be that we are seeing the dawn of the “Age of Energy Storage,” especially the winning combination of storage integrated with solar and emerging smart grid technologies, writes Panasonic’s Daniel Roca.

24M Technologies, a battery company spun out of A123 Systems in 2010, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to supply its semisolid lithium-ion cells to NEC Energy Solutions for use in NEC ES’s integrated energy storage systems.

European inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology will supply equipment to a 200MW large-scale energy storage project in Korea, including 1,000 battery inverters.

Battery-based energy storage could provide up to 13 different services to the US electricity grid, while the usefulness of the technology increases the more ‘distributed’ it is along the system, according to a new report.

We’ve been talking over the past few months with a large number of key and emerging players in the UK’s energy storage industry. With our show Solar Energy UK coming up next week, we thought this would be a good opportunity to share with you the thoughts of two of those players on the relationship between renewables and energy storage.

The UK, catapulted into being one of the world’s leading regions for solar PV deployment unexpectedly over the past couple of years, is now facing just as unexpected challenges in the form of drastic FiT cuts of as much as 87%. While this is undoubtedly bad for the industry, there are some possible avenues for policy adjustments that won’t require subsidising as well as strategies the industry could adopt to make self-consuming solar with storage a more viable option, writes Simon Daniel of Moixa Technology.

Plans by Italy’s grid operator to allow for the interconnection of energy storage to the network have resulted in the country’s first grid-connected solar-smoothing storage facility being inaugurated.