Prices for Tesla’s stationary storage systems for homes, businesses and off-grid communities, to be packaged and sold in partnership with SolarCity, will begin at US$3,000, thought to be as little as a third of the price of comparable products previously available on the market.

An academic based in north east England has called on the UK government to give energy storage “its own asset class with accompanying rules for appropriate regulatory treatment” as well as investing in the technology in order to enable future energy bill savings.

While solar and energy storage are not inextricably linked, at least not yet, storage helps households make the most of their solar power and one day could help grid networks make their final leap of faith. In the first of two blogs from the Energy Storage Europe conference and exhibition in Düsseldorf this week, PV Tech Storage talks to experts and industry figures as they tackled some of the biggest issues facing storage and renewable energy.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is to run a workshop in Germany next month to canvas final opinion ahead of publishing its first roadmap for electricity storage technologies.

The UK’s minister for energy has said that her government is not planning any framework of incentives for energy storage, but said nonetheless that public funds can help “bridge the gap” between ideas and commercialisation.

In the second part of his exploration of the areas of the world taking a lead in supporting the deployment of storage, Andy Colthorpe looks at Germany, Japan and Puerto Rico.

Parallels are frequently drawn between the nascent energy storage business and solar 10 years ago – that it needs strong policy direction to take off. Andy Colthorpe profiles some of the areas emerging as world pioneers in supporting the deployment of storage.

The New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY BEST), like much of the storage industry worldwide, appears primarily concerned with two things – technological development and looking at how policy, regulatory bodies and other factors can help shape viable markets. Andy Colthorpe spoke to John Cerveny, director of resource management of the association about what makes New York’s storage market tick.

The US Department of Energy’s Sunshot initiative has announced US$15 million in funding to aid the integration of solar into the electrical grid infrastructure using energy storage systems.

The Canadian province of Ontario is preparing to install a variety of new energy storage technologies after finalising details of a 34MW commercial-scale storage trial.