The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hosted a technical conference on hybrid resources – pairing storage with generation – examining in order to overcome barriers that exist to the otherwise fastest-growing phenomenon of the grid.

Long duration energy storage is “essential” to help accelerate renewable deployment, according to the US Department of Energy’s Dr Imre Gyuk, who moderates this panel discussion with Matt Harper from flow battery provider Invinity Energy Systems and Russ Weed from gravity energy storage company ARES.

While lithium-ion batteries continue to take the dominant share of new installations by some distance, there are a variety of other technologies looking to complement, combine or even compete. Panellists at the Energy Storage Digital Series looked at the questions of which energy storage technologies are the likeliest contenders for that future.

UPDATED 14 July 2020: The European Union has agreed that energy storage will be vital in its clean energy economy of the future as Members of European Parliament (MEPs) voted overwhelmingly to adopt a strategy report putting energy storage and hydrogen at the heart of its agenda.

The European Union (EU) has just published its Strategy for Energy System Integration, including pledges to support renewables and energy storage as the continent targets carbon neutrality by 2050.

Solar Media’s Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe return for the July 2020 episode of the Solar Media Podcast.

A key committee of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has voted overwhelmingly to thrust energy storage into the heart of the continent’s decarbonisation agenda, while trade group EASE has urged the EU to raise its targets on 2030 emissions reduction.

Calls have been made across Europe for recognition and support for the vital role that energy storage can play in decarbonisation, reducing air pollution and contributing to a ‘green recovery’, both through legislation and industry sector activity.

The US national Energy Storage Association’s policy director, Jason Burwen, spoke with Andy Colthorpe about the seven early adopter states of energy storage targets and whether this is likely to be a spreading pattern across the country.

There was a near-70% increase in capacity of operational energy storage projects in China paired with solar energy from 2018 to 2019, according to figures recently published by the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA).