Solar Energy Storage and Battery News

A new report from analysts at Wood Mackenzie forecasts 6.6 GWh of residential energy storage to be installed across Europe by 2024. The economics of the technology are at a tipping point, increasingly reaching grid parity in European markets. With rising electricity demand and falling battery system costs, the trend will further spread across the continent and fuel an uptick in demand.

A new Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) report finds that the U.S. energy storage market is healthy and primed for continued growth, with interconnected capacity growing significantly in 2018.

The largest U.S. residential solar installer hit deployment expectations and built out its battery business in the second quarter.

The Swiss battery maker Leclanché will build a 35.6 MW / 44.2 MWh solar-plus-storage power plant, which will provide with clean power state-owned St.Kitts electric utility Skelec over a 20-year period. The new facility will be able to cover around a fourth of the archipelago’s total electricity demand.

Energy analysts from the United Kingdom have found that many of the world’s largest car manufacturers that are launching EVs, or looking to launch EVs, are engaged in an “unprecedented” level of collaboration in order to share the costs and risks inherent in EV development. Cornwall Insight found that the collaboration could see a major boom in supply from the early 2020s.

French renewables developer Neoen has won development approval from the South Australian government for a major renewable energy project, with 125 MW of wind, 150 MW of solar PV and 130 MW/400 MWh of lithium-ion battery storage. The project could also include up to 50 MW of on-site hydrogen production capability.

EDP Renewables’ American subsidiary will sell 100MW of energy and 10MW of energy storage from a project in central California to the city of San Jose's default electricity utility, San Jose Clean Energy.

The MNRE has invited proposals for high-efficiency perovskite solar cells, solar panel recycling, hybrid inverters and new applications that combine solar and storage, among others.

Major PV inverter manufacturer, SolarEdge Technologies has been forced to accelerate expedited shipping via air freight, despite a 25% increase in manufacturing capacity as the company continues to set quarter sales records.

The costs of residential solar-plus-storage have already dropped or will only take a few years to drop to nation-wide grid averages across key European markets, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Hyundai has released a version of its Sonata hybrid that has solar panels to help charge its battery.

Australian renewables developer Windlab has connected and energized its landmark energy park in northern Queensland, comprising 43 MW of wind, 18 MW of solar and a 4 MWh battery.

Railway operators can now feasibly connect solar plants to traction substations, claims a consortium that is now working on a similar demonstration project in the U.K. Almost all of the 30 kW installation’s output will be used to move trains, but in the future storage could come into the picture for larger “railway-connected” solar power projects, says 10:10, the U.K.-based climate change charity that developed the pilot.

According to a new report by BNP Paribas Asset Management, renewables offer more advantages than simply mitigating climate change. Electricity is easier to transport than oil, and wind and solar electricity prices are much more stable than volatile oil prices. An analyst from the French bank argues that major producers will need to reduce oil prices below $20 to compete with clean energy in the transport sector.

Scientists at the U.K.’s Faraday Institution have been able to observe degradation mechanisms at the lithium metal anode in a solid state battery, and made several discoveries which could improve the performance and design of future solid-state lithium-ion batteries.