India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is planning two hybrid projects with a combined total of 14MW solar PV and 42MWh of battery energy storage in Leh and Kargil, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

While the likes of California, Massachusetts and New York make headlines as the leading US states for energy storage policy, initiatives from the ground up in New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan have been announced already this year.

A local authority in England has unveiled two landmark solar-plus-storage projects on existing landfill sites which aim to be the first of their kind in the UK.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our series looking back on last year’s challenges, milestone and successes and looking ahead to a busy 2019. After featuring a range of views from industry participants and experts, now it’s my turn to throw out some predictions for the year ahead…

Infrastructure development and engineering company Black & Veatch has just completed a microgrid project in the US for Shell which is set to help inform the oil and gas company on its next steps into distributed energy.

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) is planning to develop its own renewable energy projects at the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep, with an eye on coupling the projects with battery energy storage.

VRB Energy, a maker of flow batteries headquartered in Canada and owned by a metal resources and mining company, said the first phase of a 40MWh flow battery project in China has now been commissioned.

Britain’s government is seeking to remove a significant hurdle for utility-scale co-located storage sites, enabling projects with combined capacities in excess of 50MW to proceed without requiring government consent.

While a tranche of seven solar-plus-storage projects under proposal in Hawaii would see renewable energy make its biggest competitive play against fossil fuels in the US island state so far, a project just completed will deliver energy well into the evening at just US$0.11 per kWh.

Iowa’s Maharishi University of Management has completed and powered up a new solar power plant featuring both single-axis tracking and vanadium redox flow battery energy storage.