A trade association representing some of Germany’s energy storage industry has welcomed the renewal of a support scheme for batteries, but says that establishing “fair market conditions” for storage would be more important.

One research firm has welcomed predictions from a think tank that Germany’s electricity network could cope with the addition of “huge amounts” of solar-plus-storage and even benefit, but also agreed that policy changes will most likely be required to enable that scenario.

The importance of balancing and improving electric grids is opening up pathways to the deployment of utility-scale energy storage, according to a Guest Blog from SMA Solar Technology, published this week on PV Tech Storage.

The UK government could deliver cheaper electricity bills to households and businesses by pursuing a decentralised energy strategy with solar and storage at its centre, a new report co-ordinated by major consultancy group KPMG has claimed.

US commercial energy storage provider Stem has deployed its first system in Hawaii, for a pilot project that could help the island state’s main utility reach renewable energy goals “better, and at lower cost”.

Energy storage will be used to maximise the benefit of locally generated solar power, including reducing transmission losses, in a trial put together in Bavaria, Germany, by a partnership between academics, private companies and local government.

Battery-based energy storage could provide up to 13 different services to the US electricity grid, while the usefulness of the technology increases the more ‘distributed’ it is along the system, according to a new report.

The two fastest moving regional markets for energy storage in the US have installed nearly 90% of the total deployed across the country for more than two years, according to GTM Research.

Tesla’s much-hyped battery announcement in April raised important questions over what business models will drive the deployment of stationary battery storage. As Andy Colthorpe reports, one answer is the virtual power plant, in which residential and commercial battery systems are aggregated to provide grid services.

Construction has begun on what is claimed to be the world’s first modular large-scale battery storage system, a 5MW device at a research university in Aachen, Germany.