Tesla’s grand entrance to the stationary storage market has been (largely) welcomed but question marks remain over the company’s business model. Andy Colthorpe gauges the latest reaction and explores the options facing Elon Musk.
Following February’s Guest Blog which looked at factors- barriers, boundaries and benefits- that can influence its widespread adoption, SMA’s Aleksandra-Sasa Bukvic-Schaefer and Volker Wachenfeld focus on the discussions behind designing and implementing home solar-plus-storage.
Sonnenbatterie, considered to be one of the market leaders in Germany’s emerging solar-plus-storage sector, claims the new version of its Sonnenbatterie Eco battery storage system has as much as double the potential lifespan of previous models.
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is like King Canute, standing on the shore commanding the tide of renewable energy and energy storage not to come in. But no matter how much he rails against the future, this prime minister is way too late to stop the tide of progress. A range of factors are coming together at the same time that will see distributed solar PV combined with energy storage move into the early mainstream in the coming years – and sooner than later, says John Grimes of the Australian Storage Council and Australian Solar Council.
UK energy storage start-up Powervault has exceeded its £350,000 (US$500,000) crowd funding target as it looks to commercialise its ‘plug and play’ domestic storage device.
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.
Kyocera is targeting the German market for self-consumed solar electricity, with the Japanese company preparing to launch a home energy storage system in May.
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.
