On the back of rapidly decreasing costs for energy storage and solar photovoltaics (PV), consumers wishing to achieve a low-cost and reliable supply of power are considering grid defection—or at least, partial grid-defection—as an increasingly attractive alternative. Julian Jansen, analyst at IHS looks at the economics of grid defection in Europe today and in the future – and how its proliferation could impact the energy industry as a whole.

Sonnen is looking to sign up 2,000 Australian customers this year for SonnenFlat, where households sign up to pay a monthly ‘flat rate’ for power while their batteries are used to benefit the local grid.

Stem Inc. will build a 4.2MWh energy storage project on the California State University (CSU) Dominguez Hills campus to help the institution save on energy costs.

Tesla has announced the first programme to aggregate the capabilities of hundreds of its residential and commercial stationary storage systems in a partnership with Vermont utility Green Mountain Power.

Energy efficiency solutions provider and energy storage developer Anesco is to partner with “technology-driven utility” Limejump to deliver 185MW of energy storage capability in the UK into August’s capacity market, with plans for the units to be brought online by the end of 2018.

AGL has commissioned the first phase of what it claims is the world’s largest virtual power plant (VPP).

A 1MW ‘virtual power plant’ part-funded by the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR), utilising energy storage across 29 customer sites, has been connected in O’ahu, Hawaii, by Stem.

A plan by utility Con Edison to save US$1 billion on infrastructure spending in New York’s Brooklyn and Queens neighbourhoods will get 13MWh of energy storage from Green Charge.

Australian power company AGL is to install the largest ‘virtual power plant’ in the world in Adelaide, South Australia, using batteries from energy storage firm Sunverge Energy.

What is thought to be Canada’s first virtual power plant (VPP), aggregating the capabilities of a small fleet of solar PV-plus-storage systems with energy management software, has been deployed in Ontario.