Lilia Xie of Lux Research spoke with the founders of 24M, which claims to have reduced lithium cell costs by 50% over existing technologies and is targeting US$100 per kWh by 2020.

24M, a battery company that claims it can achieve 50% cost-savings over existing Li-ion technology and hit US$100 per kWh by 2020, is positioning itself as a ‘disruptor’ of the energy storage space, an industry analyst has said.

US PV installer SolarCity is now taking orders for solar and home energy storage systems including Tesla’s new Powerwall battery pack, as part of the company’s expanded homebuilder programme.

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.

Making safe lithium-ion based home energy storage systems is not really a challenging prospect, but standards need to be adopted across the whole industry, German research and education institution Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has said.

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.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has done the rest of the storage industry a big favour by putting a price point on lithium-ion batteries, according to the CEO of Sonnenbatterie’s North American operations.

Last week the US Energy Storage Association (ESA) hosted its annual conference and exhibition in Dallas, Texas. Andy Colthorpe spoke to Jim McDowall of battery and energy storage system provider Saft, which won the show’s Outstanding Acheivement Award.

While debates over renewable energy targets continue to rage at the political level in Australia, Panasonic has signed a deal with three utility companies to pair its energy storage systems with rooftop solar.