Energy Storage

Historic Swiss brand Leclanché is on an expansionist trail, notably in India and low-carbon shipping, but restructuring its debts will involve ceding even more control of the venerable company to institutional investors.

The Indian Ministries of External Affairs and Power, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), organized the South Asia Power Summit 2018, held recently in New Delhi. The daylong conference highlighted that diversity of energy resources in South Asian countries brings the opportunity to provide affordable, low-carbon energy in the region. The business case for enhanced energy trading in the region, and challenges faced in inter-country electricity trading were important elements of this discussion.

Controllable, distributed battery storage systems can help avoid bottlenecks in power distribution networks. That reduces the cost of grid expansion, but to turn this use of storage systems into a business model, a number of conditions still have to be met.

The world is witnessing a major shift in energy demand from advanced to developing economies, with demand growing fastest in India – according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) latest World Energy Overview.

The first companies are demonstrating that today it can be worthwhile commercially to back electric vehicles in combination with solar generation and storage. Particularly in the case of public charging stations, solar power used for electric vehicle charging could become the basis for a profitable operator model in the future.

Analysts are weighing into the debate over the MNRE’s big solar plans, but pointing out that even a partial victory would set the foundation for future solar triumphs.

The farming sector offers the largest green energy innovation opportunity, with rice transplanting, pesticide spraying and grain harvesting together having a market potential worth $40 billion – says the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

The global installation of photovoltaics is expected to reach the terawatt level within just five years, according to Bloomberg NEF. And with more than 99.1 GW of grid-connected solar installed in 2017, switching on to the importance of storage is key.

Saurabhbhai Patel, Minister of Energy, Government of Gujarat, has announced that the state will soon issue a 250 MW grid-connected solar tender linked with storage. He also said that Gujarat will add more than 5 GW of new PV capacity in the next three years.

India’s Prime Minister kick started the first Assembly of the ISA, the second IORA Renewable Energy Ministerial Meeting, and the 2nd Global RE-Invest yesterday in Greater Noida. The agenda of the day? Universal access to solar energy at affordable rates; securing 40% of India’s electricity generation from non-fossil fuels by 2030, and allocating up to US$80 billion to boost domestic PV manufacturing.