Scientists at Ohio State University claim to have developed a hybrid device which combines a solar cell with a rechargeable battery, as part of a US Department of Energy funded research programme.
A large scale ‘battery park’ has gone online in West Meklenberg, Germany, designed to stabilise grid frequency in an area where a large amount of power generation comes from wind and other renewable energy.
Sunworks, the installation arm of PV manufacturing start-up, Solar3D, has begun offering battery storage systems in its solar power projects.
The Swiss and Chinese power engineering firms ABB and BYD have revealed a collaboration to develop new storage technologies.
Reborn Chinese manufacturer Suntech is to spend US$25 million to acquire a 30% equity interest in US energy storage company, Powin Energy.
The Canadian province of Ontario is preparing to install a variety of new energy storage technologies after finalising details of a 34MW commercial-scale storage trial.
The UK division of Chinese PV manufacturer ReneSola has sold forty domestic energy storage units to an installation company in Essex, England.
Earlier this year New York governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled plans for an “energy modernisation initiative that will fundamentally transform the way electricity is distributed and used in New York State”. This will include the creation of a leading energy storage marketplace, argues Bill Radvak, chief executive officer of American Vanadium, whose company recently installed a vanadium flow battery storage system for New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority in Manhattan.
A boom in the use of electric vehicles will help push the energy storage market to US$50 billion by 2020, a study by Lux Research has concluded.
Energy storage has been touted as the enabler of high levels of intermittent renewables in the electricity system – the silver bullet or Holy Grail for solar and wind. A key attribute for the technology’s deployment will be scalability, writes Melissa Lott.
