The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has invited expressions of interest for what may be India’s first utility-scale energy storage project to be combined with a solar and wind hybrid project at Rangreek in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh.

German solar integration specialist Belectric has begun serial production of its ‘Energy Buffer Unit’ (EBU) battery system.

In the simplest terms, if 2014 was the year of test deployments and proving storage can work, 2015 was a year of getting things done. But what are the big trends likely to drive the space on in 2016? Lux Research closely tracks the energy storage industry, in combination with solar, in terms of its synergy with EVs and in its own right. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lux analyst Cosmin Laslau to get his views and predictions on what we can expect to see this year.

Efforts to modernise New York’s grid would be best served by adding 2GW of multi-hour energy storage by 2025 and 4GW by 2030, and enable the achievement of renewable energy targets, according to NY BEST.

Holland’s national grid operator has said that batteries will be an “excellent alternative” to conventional power plants in providing balancing services, especially as a complement to increased solar and wind deployment.

Hawaii has been namechecked as a ‘test bed’ for how grids can migrate to higher levels of PV penetration so often it has become something of a cliché. Stem’s VP for Hawaii operations, Tad Glauthier tells ESN about the projects that are going on, which lessons might be transferable to other regions – and which might not.

Tesla executives were unwilling to publicly put figures on expected sales for the company’s stationary storage products or for near-term cost reduction objectives, but said that production is on track.

A spokesman for Solar Frontier has said that a retrofit market for up to half a million home energy storage systems could open up in Japan from the year 2019, as agreements made under a subsidy scheme for solar in existence before the current feed-in tariff begin to reach the end of their terms.

Volker Wachenfeld of SMA explores some technical and policy factors driving growing use cases for refurbishing home PV systems to add energy storage, and the markets where this is already gaining traction as an idea.

Secure financing for energy storage is likely to be the main driver for its deployment, the chief of the UK’s biggest solar developer has said, echoing views given to Energy Storage News by analysis firm Lux Research.