July 2010: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy Conservation through Energy Storage (ECES) Implementing Agreement (IA) held its second workshop titled “Energy Storage – Matching the supply and demand in future” to coordinate research and development activities.

Recognizing energy storage as one of the central elements for the future integration of renewables, the ECES workshop, which convened from from 14-16 July 2010, in Germany, revolved around the question: “Do you need energy storage?” Workshop participants heard presentations from various IEA IAs highlighting the variety of storage needs across sectors. They also compared energy storage technologies, potentials as well as synergies and pathways for research collaboration. It was recognized that more interface between IAs is needed to better address energy storage issues, and the topic of the next workshop was set to revolve around the question: “What kind of energy storage do you need?” [Workshop Webpage]