Energy Storage Special Report 2019, from the editorial teams behind Energy-Storage.news and PV Tech, brings you no less than seven feature articles and technical papers looking at everything from the policy and regulatory initiatives that still need to happen, to bankability and profitability of ESS, system technologies and architecture, all the way to recycling and end-of-life care for batteries.

NEC will be using so-called ‘liquid metal’ batteries produced by Ambri in projects that could require more than four hours’ duration of energy storage, the company announced at SPI / ESI this week.

We’ve arrived at Day One of Smart Energy Week – hosting Solar Power International and Energy Storage International in Utah. Here are some of my observations: both on and ‘off’ the record.

A new white paper from Wärtsilä Energy shows that being able to integrate and then optimise all of these different assets is the key to ensuring that your project – and your investment – is going to provide the maximum benefit, longest possible lifetime in the field – and the best business case. Risto Paldanius, Director of Business Development, Energy Storage and Integration at Wärtsilä told us a bit more about what optimization really means in today’s energy market.

While lithium-ion enjoys the most media and customer interest at the moment, alternative technologies for storing energy could become competitive – if investors are willing to take them on to the extent that manufacturing efforts can be greatly scaled up.

This week at the Solar & Storage Live show in England, Energy-Storage.news met with system integrator and inverter maker Multi-Source Power (MSP), which is now working on EV charge solutions using AFC’s fuel cells.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) last week approved power purchase agreements for what is thought to be the cheapest solar-plus-storage project so far in the US.

Despite the huge strides energy storage has made, significant hurdles remain before the technology in its many guises can be claimed to have fulfilled its massive potential. E-S.n editor Andy Colthorpe assesses the key successes and ongoing challenges for this indispensable part of the future power system.

Neoen, the French developer which partnered with Tesla on the 129MWh large-scale battery at Hornsdale Wind Farm, South Australia, wants to build an energy superpark in the state that comprises 1.2GW of wind, 600MW of solar and 800MW of battery storage capacity.

California’s success in embracing renewable energy technologies, particularly solar, has brought with it challenges around reliability of supply to consumers. Janice Lin and Jack Chang of Strategen explore how the Golden State is pioneering the deployment of energy storage as it pursues its goal of complete energy decarbonisation by 2045.