Distributed Storage

New analysis from LCP Delta finds Germany is Europe’s top market for home energy management systems and predicts European yearly sales will more than double by the end of the decade.

Germany-based Energielenker has developed a “self-learning” energy management system that controls energy flows in buildings with PV systems, using AI algorithms to analyze data from all relevant components.

The project, located in Victory Giant Technology Industrial Park in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, is designed to have a capacity of 121 MW/630 MWh, making it the largest commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage station in China.

At The Smarter E Europe event – recently held in Munich, Germany – Growatt shared insights on the European market. It reports a slowdown in the residential segment in Central Europe due to lower demand, but Growatt VP Lisa Zhang said she expects more growth in the commercial and industrial (C&I) solar and storage sectors.

Germany’s AEG is selling new stackable, high-voltage batteries with usable capacity of 5 kWh. They come with a 10-year warranty and reportedly have a lifecycle of more than 4,500 cycles.

Building on research work at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, Sinonus has developed carbon fiber-based structural batteries that not only store energy but also become an integral part of a product’s structure. Their possible span of energy density is said to be around 25-50% of a conventional lithium-ion battery at current technology level.

Chinese manufacturer Deye says its new three-phase residential hybrid inverter system has a rated output power ranging from 14 kW to 20 kW.

Somalia’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources has launched a tender for off-grid solar-plus-storage power plants to serve 46 education facilities in the southeast of the country. The deadline for bids is August 1.

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, have shown that their response to a February 2024 grid emergency provides evidence that electric vehicles (EVs) equipped with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems could strengthen the grid during blackouts, marking a global first for such research.

Researchers in Spain have created a novel PV forecasting method that uses only direct radiation as a parameter. They found it to be “comparable, if not superior” to four established forecasting techniques. The method could help homeowners with PV systems decide when to use electricity-intensive appliances and cleaning systems.