In late 2014, a virtually unknown company called Alevo announced it was entering the energy storage market with a new inorganic, sulfur-based lithium ion battery technology that it had acquired from the bankrupt German company fortu PowerCell. Alevo entered the U.S. with a big splash, investing over $68 million in the 3.5 million-square-foot former Philip Morris tobacco factory in Victory, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. It also announced that it would hire up to 2,500 workers over three years, with a potential maximum workforce of 6,000 capable of turning out thousands of megawatts of electricity storage products annually. In other words, Tesla would not be the only storage company with a gigafactory.

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Silatronix of Madison has raised $4 million to help support the technology company’s work to develop a better electrolyte for batteries.

A combination of strategic investors from Japan and company insiders are participating in the latest round, said CEO Mark Zager.

As of this week, Silatronix has raised $4 million out of a total of $7 million it’s seeking. The financing was disclosed in a pair of filings with securities regulators.

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The UK electrical energy storage market is not yet as advanced as global leaders such as the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Germany. However, as with these other countries, the UK is primarily looking to lithium-ion battery technology to be the forerunner of battery energy storage. The UK has around 30 operational battery energy storage projects, many of which are demonstration projects, with only a handful of operational projects larger than 1 megawatt (MW) in size.

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MUNICH–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ees Europe, Europe’s largest exhibition for batteries and energy storage systems, sends a positive signal to the market: The exhibition space was already booked up by 200 exhibitors two months before the start of the exhibition– a sure sign of the development in the worldwide energy storage market which is driving the global energy revolution. ees Europe will be held once again in Munich from 22 to 24 June 2016 together with Intersolar Europe the world’s leading exhibition for the solar industry and its partners. Visitors can expect over 1,000 exhibitors all together at both events, 380 of which will be showing innovative products, services and solutions for energy storage systems.

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Combining solar panels with batteries to keep electricity flowing when the sun isn’t shining has long been the target for companies dabbling in the emerging technologies of the power grid.

This year is seeing more development in that space than ever before, thanks to falling battery and solar prices, the marketing prowess of super-entrepreneur Elon Musk, and national and international clean-energy and climate-change policies.

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Tucson Electric Power (TEP), a utility in Southern Arizona with around 420,000 customers, has received approval to build two 10MW energy storage systems, including one co-located with solar, from the state’s regulator.

Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) approved the projects on Wednesday, for which TEP had issued a request for proposals (RfP) to lease last summer. TEP reached long-term agreements with E.On Climate & Renewables, an arm of the European utility which last year split off from its parent to work on clean, sustainable technologies and innovation, and NextEra Energy Resources, a wholesale electricity supplier and itself a subsidiary of a utility, US-headquartered NextEra Energy.  

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SolarCity one of the biggest names in US residential solar, has announced a new set of services targeted at utility and grid operators including the official launch of its grid-scale solar-plus-storage offering.

The PV provider will be branching into installation, financing and consulting services for utility-scale solar as well as expanding its activities in energy storage development. In conjunction, SolarCity will be advancing controls for distributed energy resources (DERs), demand response and aggregated grid services, to form a full network of solar-related activities.

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A subsidiary of German automaker Daimler has reportedly joined Tesla in the home energy storage market.

TechCrunch reports that Deutsche ACCUmotive — the Mercedes-Benz owner’s lithium-ion battery division— introduced storage batteries for industrial customers last year. Recently, home storage units were introduced in Germany with plans to expand into other countries not far behind.

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Global maker of construction and mining equipment Caterpillar has launched an integrated micro-grid solution which combines solar PV and energy storage with the company’s power generation equipment.

Cat Microgrid Technology is available in a range from 10kW to 100MW of modular solutions. It can be configured to include thin-film solar panels, Caterpillar generator sets and a selection of energy storage technologies, including ultracapacitors and lithium-ion batteries.

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In late 2014, a virtually unknown company called Alevo announced it was entering the energy storage market with a new inorganic, sulfur-based lithium ion battery technology that it had acquired from the bankrupt German company fortu PowerCell. Alevo entered the U.S. with a big splash, investing over $68 million in the 3.5 million-square-foot former Philip Morris tobacco factory in Victory, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. It also announced that it would hire up to 2,500 workers over three years, with a potential maximum workforce of 6,000 capable of turning out thousands of megawatts of electricity storage products annually. In other words, Tesla would not be the only storage company with a gigafactory.

Click Here to Read Full Article