The U.S. energy storage market just had both its best quarter and best year of all time. According to the GTM Research/Energy Storage Association’s U.S. Energy Storage Monitor 2015 Year in Review, the U.S. deployed 112 megawatts of energy storage capacity in the fourth quarter of 2015, bringing the annual total to 221 megawatts. This represents 161 megawatt-hours for the year.

The 112 megawatts deployed in the fourth quarter 2015 represented more than the total of all storage deployments in 2013 and 2014 combined. Propelled by that historic quarter, the U.S. energy storage market grew 243 percent over 2014’s 65 megawatts (86 megawatt-hours).

FIGURE: Annual U.S. Energy Storage Deployments, 2012-2015



Source: GTM Research/ESA U.S. Energy Storage Monitor

The report breaks down the market into three segments: residential, non-residential and utility. The utility"The Tales of Hoffmann" was Offenbach's attempt to conquer the world of serious opera after a long and lucrative career spent writing ebullient comic operettas. The new production that opened the San Francisco Opera's summer season on Wednesday night, in a forceful performance boasting a first-rate cast, takes the composer at his word.

There are bursts of humor scattered throughout the evening - they could scarcely be avoided - but the predominant thrust of director Laurent Pelly's production is to underscore the work's dark, demonic character. Never mind the ardent lover or aspiring aesthete who sometimes occupies center stage in this piece - the Hoffmann who spends a long evening cataloging his amorous travails this time is a tortured soul with one foot already poised on the path to