A 1MWh battery developed by US manufacturer Aquion Energy and installed at a private estate in Hawaii will allow the area’s residents to meet almost all of their electricity demand with power generated from a connected solar array.

German storage system manufacturer Sonnenbatterie, which announced this week the close of a US$10 million equity funding round, said it sees “high growth potential” for its products in Australia, the UK and Italy.

The market for residential solar paired with energy storage will grow tenfold by 2018, despite the relative failure of deployment to “live up to hype”, according to a new report from analysis firm IHS.

In December, PV module manufacturer Hanwha Q CELLS will join other big names in solar by launching an integrated energy storage product to the German residential market, in partnership with Samsung SDI.

Sharp, ABB, SMA and Bosch are among the big names readying new energy storage products for the UK PV market. Andy Colthorpe caught up with them at the Solar Energy UK show to find out what tech fits best for the UK’s nascent storage sector.

PV Tech Storage speaks to Wolfram Walter of German storage designer and manufacturer ASD Sonnenspeicher about a subject close to home, his home. Walter built a battery system for his own PV array, turning it into a business and turning his prized Porsche into a PV-friendly EV along the way.

California governor, Jerry Brown, is expected imminently to sign off new legislation extending a funding programme said to be a vital lifeline for the state’s nascent energy storage sector.

The deployment of solar storage units in German is set to boom over the next few years in what has been hailed a “quiet revolution” for the PV industry.

In the year that has passed since Germany began offering subsidies for lithium-ion battery systems for residential use, around 4,000 solar-plus-batteries have been installed, the country’s Federal Solar Industry Association (BSW Solar) has announced.

Swiss inverter manufacturer, SolarMax, is to launch a range of PV self-consumption and storage technologies at Intersolar Europe next month.