Even among high level stakeholders, there are real gaps in education, knowledge and understanding of what energy storage is, and what it can do. We were privileged at last week’s Intersolar Europe/ees Europe shows in Munich, Germany, to be joined by four leading thinkers – and doers – in the energy storage industry, who helped us tackle this difficult question.

An inauguration event was held last week to unveil a new battery energy storage system combined with pumped hydro storage in Bavaria, Germany, after multi-national utility Engie completed work on the project.

French utility Engie and German energy storage firm sonnen have formed a partnership to offer a package of solar and energy storage to households in France, according to Reuters.

The huge increase in demand for safe and reliable batteries to store energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind heralds a new lease of life for advanced lead batteries, argues Dr Andy Bush of the International Lead Association.

The first solar-plus-storage microgrid in Asia to use Tesla’s Powerpack energy storage system is designed to end power reliability issues for a Philippines community, long used to losing light and productivity to brownouts.

Some of the “world’s biggest insurance companies” are investigating the advantages of pairing lithium batteries with ultracapacitors in energy storage systems, which can lower costs and extend battery lifetimes, the CEO of an ultracapacitor maker has said.

ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.

The CEO of ‘intelligent energy storage’ provider Stem Inc, has said a recently-awarded project in Japan will lean on business models the company has used in the US, while artificial intelligence (AI) technology makes that same transference possible.

The Indian Budget has seen a hike in customs duty for lithium-ion batteries from 10% to 20%.

Energy storage provider Connected Energy has secured £3 million (US$4.13 million) of investment from Macquarie Group and ENGIE to fuel its growth plans in the UK and abroad.