Sharp, ABB, SMA and Bosch are among the big names readying new energy storage products for the UK PV market. Andy Colthorpe caught up with them at the Solar Energy UK show to find out what tech fits best for the UK’s nascent storage sector.
Solar microinverter specialist Enphase has announced its first move into energy storage, launching an energy management system which includes an AC battery, at the Solar Power International show in Las Vegas this week.
Many in solar and other renewable energy industries are looking ahead to a future defined by self-consumption of on-site generated power and energy storage. As a key part of that, the role of the inverter is changing.
Tesla’s much talked about Gigafactory should be up and running in 2017. PV Tech Storage spoke to analyst Dean Frankel of Lux Research about some of the details and talking points of the EV maker’s ambitious plan to hit ‘500,000 battery packs by 2020’.
Scientists at Ohio State University claim to have developed a hybrid device which combines a solar cell with a rechargeable battery, as part of a US Department of Energy funded research programme.
German mechanical engineering company Manz has supplied a lithium-ion battery production line to a research centre for the commercial production of the batteries, initially for the e-mobility sector, at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg (ZSW) in Ulm.
French battery manufacturer and designer Saft has been contracted to supply a 1MW/3MWh lithium-ion storage system at an educational facility in California, aimed at mitigating the impact of variable solar generation.
A large scale ‘battery park’ has gone online in West Meklenberg, Germany, designed to stabilise grid frequency in an area where a large amount of power generation comes from wind and other renewable energy.
Australian solar and energy storage company ZEN Energy has received a AUS$200,000 (US$184,000) grant from local government toward the development and commercialisation of its energy storage technologies.
Tesla’s lithium-ion ‘Gigafactory’ will be built in Nevada, after company officials including chief executive officer Elon Musk appeared alongside the US state’s governor at a press conference held yesterday afternoon.
