A €100 million (US$114.44 million) fund will be used to develop and deploy microgrid and energy storage projects by engineering and automation firm ABB, which has recently launched a new line of solutions in those areas.

SolarEdge is targeting a world where the “majority of solar systems will include storage”, according to CEO Guy Sella, as the company announced record revenues and shipments in the third quarter of 2018.

Quoting an expected doubling in installed PV capacity over the next five years, a partnership between Chinese battery storage system maker BYD and European PV inverter company SMA is targeting the USA market, identifying it – along with Africa – as having “high growth potential” for the pair’s products.

At this year’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe event, Ron Shen of GoodWe spoke on camera with our sister site PV Tech. The China headquartered inverter manufacturer, which has recently diversified into adding capabilities such as module-level monitoring and optimisation to its range and launched products specifically aimed at the growing market for bi-facial (two-sided) solar panels, sees energy storage as a critical component of a successful future PV business.

SMA Solar Technology’s new Sunny Boy Storage battery inverter has the ability to integrate up to three batteries, a feature that allows for a simple way to expand storage systems.

Israel-headquartered SolarEdge launched a software platform for aggregating household energy storage units – and other distributed energy equipment – into virtual power plants, last week. The company’s solution has already been chosen for a VPP project in Australia by AGL, one of the country’s biggest utilities. The commercial launch of the VPP platform direct to customers is now underway. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lior Handelsman, one of SolarEdge’s founders and vice president of marketing and product strategy.

While energy storage system price declines have slowed down in recent times in the US, standardisation of design and engineering will be among the key drivers in bringing down balance-of-system hardware and EPC costs.

Energy storage inverter and power conversion company DynaPower has delivered its first ever DC-to-DC converters to large-scale solar-plus-storage projects in the US, while Ideal Power has attained UL certification for two of its products.

Energy storage investors in Britain will need to have their projects in the ground by June next year at the latest if they are to take advantage of the lucrative new ancillary services market set to be implemented by National Grid, according to Sungrow’s European managing director.

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued a new order seeking to improve the quality of components in the solar sector, including batteries to be used for stationary energy storage.