Remaining on the grid while using solar paired with batteries is likely to become a more economically attractive option for commercial and residential customers in key US markets, a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) claims.

PV Tech Storage interviews John Jung of Greensmith, an energy storage system and software provider which claims to have been involved with one third of all storage deployed in the US last year. Jung discusses ‘killer apps’, opening up new business models in new markets, software and battery agnosticism.

Research into energy storage and related technologies has been given a boost in the US in the past few days, with a major utility company committing funding in Indiana for renewables integration and New York’s governor announcing the creation of a research facility.

While solar and energy storage are not inextricably linked, at least not yet, storage helps households make the most of their solar power and one day could help grid networks make their final leap of faith. In the second of two blogs from the Energy Storage Europe conference and exhibition in Düsseldorf last week, PV Tech Storage talks to experts and industry figures as they tackled some of the biggest issues facing storage and renewable energy.

Bosch looks likely to become the latest big name to participate in a government-funded micro-grid trial, with the company proposed to receive almost US$3 million from California’s energy policy planning agency.

The increasing amount of PV installed in combination with electrical storage options is bucking the trend in the opposite direction for overall residential solar installations in Germany.

The use of energy storage to increase renewables integration and provide stability to the grid requires the removal of regulatory barriers, rather than increased direct funding, according to one expert on the German market.

E.ON, the German utility giant with 61GW of generation assets, has announced plans to split its business in two. The company will stake its future on renewables in a major restructuring, spinning off its conventional power generation business, in part as a response to the growth in distributed generation. Cosmin Laslau of Lux Research digs deeper.

Investment bank Citigroup is predicting a 240GW global battery storage market worth US$400 billion by 2030 as increased deployment creates a “virtuous circle” of falling costs.

Bosch, BMW and Swedish state-owned power company Vattenfall have begun the latest attempt to harness the potential of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) to provide stability to electrical grid infrastructure.