Tom Tipple, regional VP for Imergy Power Systems, a flow battery maker headquartered in Fremont, California, recently visited the PV Tech Storage offices to share his thoughts on the global market for energy storage.

Andy Colthorpe speaks to Matt Roberts of the Washington-based Energy Storage Association about topics including real-world applications of tech straight from the lab, why he dislikes subsidies and the group’s technical conference, happening later this month.

News in brief: Australia gets its largest battery storage system to date, Tesla man persuaded to go back to Sonnenbatterie and Gildemeister installs PV-linked flow battery systems in Czech Republic.

Following the announcement of a ‘virtual power plant’ pilot in Australia, Sunverge energy storage systems have been selected for another trial project to test the capabilities of customer-sited storage, this time in the US.

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.

Effective ways of assigning economic value to services provided by aggregated storage systems must be found to progress the use of such technology, according to a technical consultant involved in a recent report assessing Australia’s energy storage landscape.

Production of stationary storage systems has already begun at Tesla’s facilities in Fremont California, while the company’s Gigafactory is “on track” and could even be expanded beyond original plans, company executives said yesterday.

The man who will host the UK’s first Tesla Powerwall in his home has said the British residential energy storage industry needs to avoid “false starts” which could result in “lots of inappropriately installed systems”.

Energy storage can become a “significant” component for future balancing of the UK National Grid, but must overcome policy challenges if it is to realise its potential.

Some news in brief from around the world of energy storage this week: Dutch grid-balancing act heralds AES’ first Europe installation, Japanese PV inverter company Tabuchi makes bid to become household name in US solar-plus-storage and Solar Impulse takes unscheduled break from spreading clean energy message.