France has named the winners of its latest solar-plus-storage tender with a total volume of 52MW across 33 projects in its island territories.

Germany, until recently the leading European nation for installed PV capacity, extended a scheme to support purchases of lithium-ion energy storage systems for solar at the beginning of this year.

An influential German think tank and a national energy storage industry association have both said that long-term solutions need to be found for residential solar-plus-storage owners’ part-time reliance on the grid.

Many have predicted 2016 will be the year when energy storage starts to live up to its hype. Andy Colthorpe canvased views from some of the leading figures and companies in the sector on the next developments a market that could help take solar and other renewables to the next level.

Energy Storage News visited the offices and production facilities of Sunamp, a maker of heat batteries, in East Lothian, Scotland to hear how the systems are made and how they were developed.

Volker Wachenfeld of SMA explores some technical and policy factors driving growing use cases for refurbishing home PV systems to add energy storage, and the markets where this is already gaining traction as an idea.

As residential storage solutions fast become a staple of energy companies’ product portfolios, many in the market are addressing the growing conundrum of how to sell storage solutions to the residential customer, writes Daniel Roca of Panasonic Eco Solutions Europe.

Globally, energy storage is developing rapidly. Businesses that are shaping the market are being asked to nominate themselves to join the Energy Storage 100, a new industry initiative from Energy Storage News’ publisher, Solar Media.

A document setting out new policy directions on solar support says the UK government has recognised the potential of energy storage but has decided the feed-in tariff would not be an appropriate mechanism to incentivise uptake.

PV Tech Storage attended the late November launch of sonnenCommunity, a new energy trading platform launched on a limited basis in Germany based on Sonnen’s residential energy storage systems. Andy Colthorpe spoke to two key members of the Sonnen team at the event, CEO Christoph Ostermann and sales director Philipp Schröder.