The Solar Media podcast is back for another episode, and Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe explores the deepening materials crisis impacting upstream solar manufacturing, through from modules to trackers.

Almost 70% of home solar PV in Germany comes with battery energy storage attached and the country’s residential storage market represented around 2.3GWh of installed capacity by the end of 2020.

The grid operator for the Canadian province of Alberta’s forthcoming technology pilot for fast frequency response services is a “step in the right direction” to enable energy storage deployment, but current regulatory conditions present barriers to maximising the value of batteries and other storage, Energy-Storage.news has heard.

Consumers in a South London housing estate will soon be able to trade solar power amongst themselves as an blockchain-enabled pilot project backed by EDF gets underway.

A unanimous vote taken by the US regulator FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) which would allow energy storage and other distributed energy resources to play into wholesale markets has been hailed as a “significant step” forward.

An energy trade association which includes Apple, energy storage maker AES and solar giants SunPower and First Solar in its leadership has welcomed the proposal by US energy regulator, FERC, to remove barriers to participation in wholesale markets for energy storage and distributed energy resources (DERs).

The UK’s government department for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) and its regulator, Ofgem, have jointly launched a Call for Evidence on System Flexibility for the country’s power networks, putting storage at the forefront. Anthony Price, head of trade group the Electricity Storage Network spoke to Energy-Storage.News about the document, which gives stakeholders until January to respond.

Energy storage in the US is being propelled forward by falling costs and increasingly favourable markets and policy. But for the full value of storage to be realised, numerous regulatory and fiscal barriers must still be surmounted, writes Matt Roberts.