Islands around the world provide ideal conditions for trialling new approaches to energy provision. David Pratt reports on some of the work going on globally to bring the benefits of cutting-edge renewable energy, storage and smart grid technologies to the world’s geographically isolated communities.

2017 was tet another record-breaking year for energy storage. Riding high on expectation, the industry is braced for challenges and successes in equal measure this year too. We canvassed opinions from some of the world’s leading trade associations and representative bodies on the year just gone and what 2018 could bring

The commercial and industrial segment is one of the most promising sub-sectors of the energy storage space. Julian Jansen of IHS Markit describes recent efforts to model the US C&I storage landscape and what it reveals about this dynamic emerging market. As told to Andy Colthorpe

Islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters such as hurricanes. John Merritt looks at some of the emerging solutions to building more resilient energy systems through the deployment of microgrids that combine multiple energy generation and storage technologies

Storage integration | Our team profile 10 of the leading global system integrators working in energy storage today. This is a handful of the names that are designing systems, solving problems, executing projects and shaping the industry around us. By: Andy Colthorpe and John Parnell with Tom Kenning, Danielle Ola, David Pratt and Liam Stoker

Policy | State governments and agencies have a key role to play in fostering the growth of energy storage. Todd Olinsky-Paul of the Clean Energy States Alliance looks at the key policies, programmes and incentives being used by America’s pioneering storage states

Markets | The UK government has placed energy storage at the forefront of its industrial strategy. David Pratt and Lauren Cook report on how this is creating the right conditions for what many believe will be a boom market in years to come

Grid storage | The advent of grid-scale energy storage means a whole raft of new technical, safety and risk-mitigation requirements for the industry to understand. Martijn Huibers, PhD and Paul Raats, MSc of DNV GL report on guidance designed to help stakeholders get to grips with this fast-emerging sector