The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is set to launch a technology roadmap for electricity storage at the solar industry conference and exhibition Intersolar Europe next month. IRENA technology roadmap analyst Ruud Kempener spoke to Andy Colthorpe about the project.

SunEdison co-founder Jigar Shah will deliver a keynote address at next week’s Energy Storage Association annual conference and exhibition in Texas. Other organisations and companies speaking at the event represent a bona fide “who’s who” of the US energy storage market landscape.

Trojan Battery, manufacturer of deep-cycle lead acid batteries, has announced that it is expanding its research and development capabilities with a new facility in Sligo, Ireland.

Energy storage solution provider Eos Energy Storage has announced that it has raised US$23 million in Round C equality financing — which it will use to help its commercial launch of the company’s grid-scale battery technology.

The UK is lagging behind many other countries in both private and public investment into the deployment of modern electricity storage. Despite some measures which represent a good start, the new British government needs to act to remove the “roadblock” to this activity, blogs Anthony Price.

One analyst has predicted that 12,500 residential PV storage systems could be installed in Germany in 2015, more than the total number of systems installed with support from a government scheme in its first two years.

A renewable energy and energy efficiency consultancy, IT Power (ITP), will use funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to trial the effectiveness of six brands of lithium-ion batteries for enhancing grids and increasing the deployment of renewable energies.

A large-scale storage system co-located at a German solar farm by the PV plant’s developer Belectric, has been given the green light to operate in the grid-balancing frequency response market.

France’s government has launched a tender for 50MW of projects combining solar power with energy storage systems on Corsica and its overseas islands territories.

Tesla’s grand entrance to the stationary storage market has been (largely) welcomed but question marks remain over the company’s business model. Andy Colthorpe gauges the latest reaction and explores the options facing Elon Musk.