South Korean industrial group Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has self-executed a solar-plus-storage project at its head offices in Changwon, using this and other projects on its own premises as a learning curve for external projects.

While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.

At this year’s Intersolar Europe trade show in Munich, South Korean battery manufacturer Samsung SDI is exhibiting a range of high-capacity, high-voltage residential storage modules.

The South Korean government to incentivise solar power plants to install energy storage systems (ESS) from 2017, raising local ESS demand by US$390 million.

Korean battery provider Kokam is to develop a 36MW/13MWh energy storage system for South Korea’s largest utility Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).

South Korean corporate industrial holdings company Doosan has acquired Seattle-based 1Energy Systems, which develops the software platform needed to automatically integrate distributed energy resources (DER) into the grid.

The global grid-connected energy storage project pipeline is forecasted to hit 2GW this year; a 20% increase on the figures for the end of 2015, according to new analysis by IHS.

Korean firm Kokam has supplied two lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) oxide batteries to utility Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) for frequency regulation on the South Korean grid.

Doosan Fuel Cell America will supply 30.8MW of hydrogen fuel cells to Busan, South Korea, in a deal also involving Samsung Construction and Trading (Samsung C&T) and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power.

European inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology will supply equipment to a 200MW large-scale energy storage project in Korea, including 1,000 battery inverters.