The U.S. unit of Japanese Sharp Corp. announced Monday that it has entered the New Mexico energy storage market with a project that combines commercial solar arrays with battery systems at an Albuquerque non-profit food bank.

The Sharp Electronics Corp.’s Energy Systems and Services Group (ESSG) has partnered with Albuquerque-based Affordable Solar Installation, the companies reported. The project installed at Roadrunner Food Bank includes two Sharp 30-kW SmartStorage systems paired with the site’s existing 366-kW solar rooftop array.

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WESTBOROUGH, Mass. & TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–NEC Energy Solutions (NEC ES), a subsidiary of NEC Corporation, today introduced the DSS™, a new distributed energy storage platform and a significant step into the commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage segment, enabling its partners to offer distributed energy management services. As one of the most trusted global suppliers of energy storage technology, NEC ES is offering the DSS platform with proven lithium-ion battery storage technology, power conversion, and advanced controls software in a range of flexible outdoor-rated configurations that are smaller, simpler, smarter and safer than competitive products.

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The US company Axiom Exergy has been wasting no time getting its new thermal energy storage technology to the marketplace. Just 18 months after nailing a glowing review from the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Axiom has inked a major deal with the New York City utility Con Edison to supply its “Refrigeration Battery” to grocery stores all over Brooklyn and Queens.

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In a fast-developing industry teeming with technologies that promise to be the next big thing, energy storage appears to be the biggest.

Its supporters not only sing its praises but also tout what they say is its inevitability.

“We’re going to have 10 times as much energy storage on the grid by the end of this decade and that is going to impact every facet of the energy industry,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry trade group.

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As the California legislative session wound down, lawmakers voted on four separate bills aimed at giving a boost to energy storage.

AB 33 directs the CPUC to consider large-scale storage, specifically pumped hydro. The bill comes after the California ISO identified a need for fast-ramping, flexible resources to balance the grid and mitigate the potential impacts of over-generation from renewables.

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New research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) forecasts massive growth in the energy storage market, first in utilities and then in corporations seeking to reduce their overhead costs.

The “Global Energy Storage Forecast, 2016-2024” shows that the annual investment in energy storage systems will increase six-fold to $8.2 billion in 2024.

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A new report states that there is huge energy storage potential in repurposing used electric vehicle batteries.

Analysts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance believe that using these batteries could bring about a new form of low cost energy storage.

In the report, BNEF senior analyst Claire Curry calculates that there will be 29 GWh of used EV batteries coming out of cars by 2025 – a capacity that she says “far exceeds the size of the current stationary storage market”.

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U.K. grid operator National Grid has just put its money behind one of the world’s single largest procurements of energy storage. Late last week, the owner and operator of the transmission grid in England and Wales announced 201 megawatts of winning bids of its first-ever tender for “enhanced frequency response.”

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US Senator Dean Heller issued the following statement after becoming a cosponsor of S. 3159, the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act. The legislation, introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, establishes investment tax credits (ITC) for business and home use of energy storage. The bipartisan bill was also cosponsored by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii). The proposed tax incentives are modeled on the current ITCs for solar energy and apply to either large, grid-connected energy storage systems or to smaller battery systems for residential power. Home battery storage, coupled with a small wind or roof-top solar system, could be used to store energy during the day for use later in the day or during overcast skies and to help consumers reduce their energy bills.

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