Dive Brief:

• Cogenra Solar plans to develop a hybrid, modular solar system that includes energy storage using a just-awarded $2 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
• Cogenra intends to combine photovoltaics with the storage capabilities of concentrating solar power (CSP).
• The startup company believes that its system will be cheap enough to enable storage for distributed commercial and industrial market segments, not just utility-scale projects.

Dive Insight:

Adding storage using CSP technology instead of through batteries is another way to increase the value of distributed. One way or another, storage will become increasingly common over the next decade.

“This proposed system has the potential to not only meet the cost structures needed for wide adoption of large-scale storage, but it could also do so for the distributed behind-the-meter customers,” Cogenra Solar CEO Gilad Almogy said.