EXCLUSIVE: SolarEdge's first battery launch and how solar is 'now a real contender' in the fight against fossil fuels
Here's the extended audio version of our recent interview with Lior Handelsman, founder and VP for product and marketing strategy, talking for the first time in depth about the forthcoming launch of a battery system under the SolarEdge brand. Lior spoke with Andy Colthorpe, Energy-Storage.news' editor, about how solar and storage can be competitive with fossil fuels, how SolarEdge is maintaining its own competitive advantage as well as some exclusive inside info on the company's forthcoming residential battery energy storage systems. The strategy behind the takeover of high power NMC battery maker Kokam and establishing a giga-supply chain, why NMC and not LFP and why, after a few years of caution, SolarEdge is now "all in" on energy storage. You may have seen the edited video version on the YouTube channel already, this is the 21-minute full chat, which goes more in-depth on the role of data in energy networks, which markets are moving quicker than you might expect to in adopting solar-plus-storage and the dual dynamics of cost reduction and value optimisation. This interview feature follows on from our look at SolarEdge's '24 hour solar story' at the show, an AR experience demonstrating the power of distributed resources, a similar look at Hanwha Q CELLS' complete all-in-one home storage and energy supply package, which you can see on the E-S.n YouTube channel, as well as the Solar Media Editors' chat where UK editor Liam Stoker and Andy Colthorpe from E-S.n discussed what they'd seen around the show this year (Episode 1 of this podcast series).