The United States has now added the capacity to store a billion watts of power for one hour and it may double that total by the end of this year. According to the firm GTM Research, the energy storage industry – previously nearly invisible – is undergoing rapid growth. Much of the growth has been in homes with products like the Tesla Powerwall but has also been on the scale of the electric grid, where power companies can use storage to control when to deploy excess electricity generated from renewable sources such as solar power.
It is now commonplace to see solar panels on the rooftops of homes and businesses. There are more than a million solar homes in the US alone. But a new generation of see-through solar technology has the potential to also turn the windows of buildings and cars, as well as other glass-coated objects, into electricity generators.
Japan is a country seeking energy independence as well as environmental credibility. It has grappled with nuclear disaster at Fukushima and is currently the sixth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.