Emerging Opportunities in Distributed Power Electronics and Battery Integration: Setting the Stage for an Energy Storage Revolution

The quantum improvement of battery technology in terms of cost, performance efficiency, and reliability paves the way for a new electric energy storage revolution. The new storage systems, when coupled with power electronics integration approaches, promise to cause a significant paradigm shift in power electronics technology, broadly expanding its application reach. Safe and reliable integration of photovoltaic (PV) panels, batteries, and power electronics in a single module is a powerful approach for meeting the challenging demands of the distributed solar energy market. Given recent advances in power electronics and battery technologies, one can now economically, reliably, and safely integrate PVs, batteries, electronics, and protection within a single module.