Janet Mills, Governor of Maine, has signed legislation that makes hers the ninth US state to have adopted a deployment target for energy storage.

More than 500 residential energy storage batteries will be aggregated into a virtual power plant (VPP) by US utility Portland General Electric (PGE), with some participating households offered US$5,000 rebates on battery system purchases as well as money off their monthly electricity bills.

Massachusetts is to become the third US state, after California and Oregon, to impose minimum requirements for usage of energy storage systems.

A community-owned utility company in California is preparing to install a large-scale battery system that could enable the addition of around 50MW of solar generation capacity to the local grid.

After a strong showing in the energy storage segment at its European counterpart in June, Intersolar North America is following suit with a number of companies and organisations launching new products at the show.