A research project aimed at validating technologies for the “industrial scale” storage and dispatch of solar generated electricity in Switzerland has received CHF2 million (US$2.17 million) in funding from a local government agency.
SunPower CEO Tom Werner says that the idea of solar power users combining their systems with battery storage to become fully independent of the grid is “naïve”, echoing the views of one of SolarCity’s founders.
PV Tech Storage interviews Paul Bundschuh of Ideal Power, whose company will supply Sharp’s new Smartstorage system with power converters and has also developed a three-port hybrid battery converter to better enable grid-resilience and micro grids.
An antenna tower in Australia serving a broadcaster will be the site of a solar-plus-storage project funded by the German government and designed to deliver power 24 hours a day.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has inaugurated a test centre at its northern campus that will pair a 1MW solar array to 100kWh of lithium-ion battery-based energy storage.
