Energy Storage

According to the industry experts present at the first “Energy Storage” conference, held this week in Düsseldorf, Germany, either technology could win the race to enable Germany’s renewable energy future.

During the second day of Solarpraxis’ “Energy Storage” event in Germany’s Düsseldorf, it was claimed that the storage bottleneck needs to be broken, in order to develop large-scale storage solutions, which are critical to the future dominance of both solar and wind.

Off-grid photovoltaic system provider, Eight19 has picked up an award, as Climate Week kicked off across the U.K. yesterday. The company, which has pioneered a pay-as-you go solar system in Africa, was named Best Initiative for Small or Medium-Sized Business.

The first day has drawn to a close at Solarpraxis’ Energy Storage conference in Germany’s Düsseldorf. Following calls from Germany’s Environment Minister to rapidly develop storage technology in the country, there is a belief that Germany is well-positioned to become an energy storage technology hotspot.

Pike Research has announced that investments in community and residential energy storage (CRES) systems will increase to more than US$4 billion in the next decade.

Following in the footsteps of companies like California-based SunRun and Solar City, a new start-up company, DZ-4, is looking to bring decentralized solar power to Germany’s masses. In the following interview, founder Tobias Schütt talks to pv magazine about his plans and explains why such schemes have not already been introduced in Germany.

A three-year multilateral and multinational research project has been launched, aimed at bringing efficiency, output and utilization gains right across the photovoltaic system. From cell to smart grid, the ERG project will involve research and development businesses, and bodies from eight European countries.

The PV Legal project has found that while positive progress has been made in reducing bureaucratic barriers to photovoltaic implementation, there are still many in place, which continue to hinder development. Grid connection was highlighted as the biggest bottleneck.

Germany’s Federal Environment Minister, Norbert Röttgen, has confirmed his attendance at the first “Energy Storage – Summit for the Storage of Renewable Energies” conference, scheduled to be held in Düsseldorf this March. During the event, he will address the issue of energy storage transformation.

While a new survey on photovoltaic inverters has revealed that price is the over-riding factor in customer purchasing requirements, it was also found that many are willing to pay more for efficiency gains. Meanwhile, monitoring and diagnostics, multiple power point trackers (MPPT), and energy storage were identified as key inverter features.