In The News

Managing demand response (DR) is both a vital task and a significant challenge for utilities around the country as they seek to increase reliability, increase customer satisfaction and avoid the expense of building new generation capacity or activating peaker plants to meet increasing demand.

As solar and wind facilities come online and energy storage becomes more economical, storage projects are emerging across the U.S. with big implications for the technology’s future. Some states with ambitious renewables goals, such as California and Hawaii, are beginning to unlock booming markets for the resource.

Sunverge is interesting because they focus not only on the issue of on-premise storage, but specifically how to combine solar power and storage together. Sunverge currently manages 5.3 megawatt-hours (MWh) of distributed storage, combined with 1.9 MW of solar.

Electricity retailing giant AGL Energy has expanded its residential battery storage range, with the launch on Thursday of two new, larger battery systems at 11.6kWh and 19.4kWh, catering to customers with bigger rooftop solar systems and with greater levels of energy consumption.

Smart-home technology seems like the natural next step in human’s progression toward becoming the Jetsons. But beyond getting us closer to flying cars, most smart items are meant to help save money and cut carbon emissions.

Energy storage will be a “fundamental enabler” for a number of technologies in the U.S. 10 to 15 years from today, said Ken Munson, CEO of California-based Sunverge Energy, which offers solar and energy storage to customers and recently unveiled details on its first storage-only project in the U.S. with a Kentucky-based public power utility.

There’s definitely a value to storing solar energy in batteries, and then discharging that energy to meet grid and customer needs. Measuring that value — and finding a way to share it between battery-equipped solar customers and their utilities — is a trickier matter.

Twenty homes within PowerStream’s territory have embarked upon a project that could change the face of electrical consumption in Ontario. They are taking part in a pilot project which is probably best understood as Ontario’s virtual power plant for the grid & homeowners.