Smart software and artificial intelligence can forecast everything from how much electricity will be generated and when it will be generated, to the right strategies for putting that electricity into different market opportunities. Energy-Storage.news speaks with Matt Penfold, VP of business development for digital at Fluence, about how the company has added 1.5GW to its portfolio of renewables and storage under management in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM).

NEC has now executed five grid-scale battery energy storage projects in China and been awarded another, winning deals in spite of what a company representative described as “aggressive” price competition from domestic vendors.

First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the second of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe dives deeper into questions of bankability, market segmentation and manufacturing strategies with four very different providers of flow energy storage technology.

The huge increase in demand for safe and reliable batteries to store energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind heralds a new lease of life for advanced lead batteries, argues Dr Andy Bush of the International Lead Association.

There is a perception that “batteries cannot be long life assets”, but it depends very much on how they are designed and used, Dr Marek Kubik of Fluence has said, in a video interview with Energy-Storage.News.

While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.