It would be unfair to put the burden of paying for the rollout of smart meters onto German households with PV-plus-storage when the devices would primarily benefit grid operators, trade association BSW Solar has said.

Microinverter maker and energy management specialist Enphase has started taking orders from installers for its AC battery for home PV systems in Australia and New Zealand, with shipments to start arriving in August 2016.

Oil and gas company Total has proposed to buy battery company Saft, which produces devices for the stationary storage industry as well as for transport and other applications.

Global maker of construction and mining equipment Caterpillar has launched an integrated micro-grid solution which combines solar PV and energy storage with the company’s power generation equipment.

SolarCity, one of the biggest names in US residential solar, has announced a new set of services targeted at utility and grid operators including the official launch of its grid-scale solar-plus-storage offering.

Tucson Electric Power (TEP), a utility in Southern Arizona with around 420,000 customers, has received approval to build two 10MW energy storage systems, including one co-located with solar, from the state’s regulator.

An influential German think tank and a national energy storage industry association have both said that long-term solutions need to be found for residential solar-plus-storage owners’ part-time reliance on the grid.

SolarReserve eyes 1GW solar thermal storage deal in China, first bi-directional inverter launched and proposed Australian pumped hydro site up capacity to 450MW.

Operators of transmission infrastructure and wholesale markets in the US have supplied their views on energy storage to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with industry and other stakeholders expected to follow. Energy-Storage.News’ Andy Colthorpe spoke with Energy Storage Association policy expert Jason Burwen on what he describes as a “systematic review” that could have a transformative effect on the market and drivers for storage.

A utility in California is investigating how energy storage technology for keeping food and other goods refrigerated could help counter the challenge posed by the famous “duck curve” of PV energy supply and demand.