We sat down with Lars Stephan, EMEA director of marketing, policy and public affairs for system integrator Fluence, to discuss energy storage, data centres and cybersecurity at Intersolar last month. The interview took place at the Smarter E Europe trade show in Munich, Germany, last month, colloquially known as Intersolar, which is actually the solar PV portion of the expo. The battery and battery energy storage systems (BESS) industry meanwhile convened in the ees Europe section of the show, where Energy-Storage.news had a video interview booth: the full video interview and write-up of our discussion with Stephan is below. BESS technology development While Stephan focuses on market design, policy and regulation, we touched on battery energy storage system (BESS) technology developments too. Fluence unveiled a more energy-dense, 10MWh iteration of its Smartstack AC block solution at the event. Try Premium for just $1 - Full premium access for the first month at only $1 - Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled - Cancel anytime during the trial period Premium Benefits - Expert industry analysis and interviews - Digital access to PV Tech Power journal - Exclusive event discounts Or get the full Premium subscription right away Or continue reading this article for free New hardware, particularly around grid-forming and sodium-ion solutions, were a key theme over the three days. Sodium-ion especially was talk of the town, following big industry news in the space. Stephan said new technologies are always exciting, but that analytics and software are also hugely significant and less talked about. “The cells are innovating, more energy density is driving cost declines and better performance, and that’s very exciting,” Stephan said. “And we can’t not talk about sodium-ion. We’re not quite there in terms of large-scale deployments in Europe or the US, but it’s