Some news in brief from around the world of energy storage this week: UK residential storage company chases scale with crowdfunder, Younicos could hire 150 more employees by 2017, and Southern California Edison is set to flick the switch on a grid-stabilising storage system from NEC ES.
In less than a week, more than 180,000 Spanish citizens have signed a petition against plans for a new ‘sun tax’ on use of batteries for residential self-consumption of solar energy in Spain.
US PV installer SolarCity is now taking orders for solar and home energy storage systems including Tesla’s new Powerwall battery pack, as part of the company’s expanded homebuilder programme.
Following another year at Intersolar Europe where energy storage has carved out an even bigger place for itself than before, SMA’s Dr. Alexsandra Sasa Bukvic-Schaefer and Volker Wachenfeld give their take on one of the big talking points in residential system design.
The average global cost of installing residential energy storage systems will fall from US$1,600 per kWh in 2015, to US$250 per kWh by 2040, according to the latest Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report.
Joe Warren, managing director at UK energy storage start-up Powervault, says there is enough room in the market for multiple storage manufacturers as his company looks set to do battle with Tesla to win over British households.
John Grimes of Australia’s Energy Storage Council reports back from a recent visit to China, where he took a look at the processes and state of play of some of the country’s battery manufacturers.
The vice-president for marketing and product strategy at one of only two inverter suppliers to Tesla says it has promised customers that it can “get the battery within six months”.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has done the rest of the storage industry a big favour by putting a price point on lithium-ion batteries, according to the CEO of Sonnenbatterie’s North American operations.
The International Renewable Energy Agency has published a technology roadmap aimed at accelerating the deployment of electrical storage for renewable energy.
