Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe shares his top takeaways from last week’s Solar Power International convention, incorporating Energy Storage International and hosted this year at the North American Smart Energy Week in Utah.

Australia-headquartered flow battery maker Redflow is continuing with a strategy of selling devices into the telecoms sector, agreeing on a second deal to repower mobile phone towers for a South African provider.

Some choice words from conversations with Scott McGregor, CEO at redT, Avalon Battery president and chief product officer Matt Harper and NEXTracker’s chief technology officer, Alex Au.

The International Flow Battery Forum is taking place this week and long-time organiser, Anthony Price of consultancy Swanbarton, wrote to Energy-Storage.news with some of his views on the market and a snapshot of where development currently lies.

BASF is using NGK Insulators’ sodium sulfur batteries as its entry point into the energy market, with the German chemical company signing up as a sales partner to the Japanese manufacturer.

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development, owner and operator of the only known “Gulf Coast” style domal-quality salt formation in the western US, have launched an initiative that will see the start of the development for the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in central Utah. Tabbed by MHPS as the world’s largest project of its kind, the ACES initiative will develop 1GW of renewable energy storage.

ICYMI: This year’s Intersolar Europe was accompanied by the biggest energy storage show to take place at the Munich industry bonanza. For those of you that couldn’t be there, or were perhaps too busy with meetings to take in the whole show, here are some pictorial highlights and some quick commentary.

Following announcements from various manufacturers of deployments and partnerships in new territories, the latest wave of flow battery news includes an agreement that could put batteries in space for mission critical applications at the likes of NASA and the International Space Station.

‘Hybridising’ energy storage systems by combining lithium-ion and flow batteries, shares the power and energy application workloads between the two types of battery and can prolong their life expectancy, a representative of Thai engineering firm TSUS Group has said.

While energy storage, like the electrification of transport, is often discussed as the ‘Next Big Thing’ for first world economies, this emerging technology is starting to play an important role in developing nations too.