Battery manufacturing represents a “huge economic opportunity for India”, according to a draft ‘National energy storage mission’ (NESM) document, which outlines how the country could capture value across the supply chain and accelerate the country’s adoption of renewable energy.

BYD has just opened a gigawatt-scale lithium battery factory in Qinghai Province, a few days after a senior company representative told Energy-Storage.news that, like electric vehicles (EVs), it is only a matter of time before lithium batteries for stationary storage reach mainstream acceptance.

Australia could be getting its first lithium-ion battery ‘Gigafactory’, with some progress made in the past few days for a facility proposed to be built in Queensland.

Indian power minister R.K. Singh has chaired a meeting with battery-based energy storage manufacturers calling on them to set up manufacturing units in India.

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.

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is president and MD of Customized Energy Solutions and an executive director of the India Energy Storage Alliance. A proud evangelist for renewables and advanced energy storage technologies, Andy Colthorpe asked him about what 2017 meant for India’s storage industry and what’s getting him enthused – or apprehensive – about 2018.

In a feature article from the latest volume of PV Tech Power, the editorial team at Energy-Storage.News canvassed the opinions of trade association chiefs from five key global regions. Here’s some ‘bonus’ content…

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a loan request from Northvolt that will see the bank provide a financing facility of up to US$64.8 million to support Northvolt’s pilot demonstration facility.

Well, we seem to say it at the end of every year, but 2017 seemed a lot busier than 2016, 2016 was busier and more exciting than the year before that, and so on! There have been some hints already on what the industry and its observers expect to see in 2018 and we do not doubt energy storage will continue in its rise to become a flexible cornerstone of the world’s electricity infrastructure. In the meantime, let’s reflect on the top news stories of last year, as reported by Energy-Storage.News and based on readership statistics from you:

Start-up Romeo Power has opened a lithium battery pack factory in Los Angeles, aimed at the EV and stationary energy storage markets, aiming to ramp up to 4GWh production capacity by next year.