In just the past few days, nearly US$500 million has been committed to downstream activity in the battery energy storage space, with AES Distributed Energy raising US$341 million of debt financing and EsVolta US$140 million of borrowing.

Dimitrios Pappas, analyst at new energy consultancy Delta-EE, considers the impact the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) could have on the energy transition, particularly for batteries used in EVs and ESS, while Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe adds his own take.

Solar industry players target opportunities in the residential energy storage market in the US and elsewhere with the rollout and launches of new products.

For Japan, the famous 4Ds of the energy transition – creating a distributed, decarbonised, decentralised and digitised grid – will involve a huge scaling up of smart solutions on a market basis, various sources have told Energy-Storage.news.

The fire unit at global multinational engineering firm Honeywell made its first move into lithium-ion safety in recognition of battery storage’s “huge potential” for decarbonisation and to help the world move “in a more energy efficient way”, the company has said.

In addition to Silicon Valley, California could also be host to its own “Lithium Valley” as the US state’s Energy Commission met last week to discuss extracting the vital battery ingredient from geothermal brine.

Northvolt, the startup which recently netted a US$1 billion equity raise for its initial lithium battery ‘gigafactory’ in Sweden, has said that its ambitions extend deep into the energy storage solutions space, in addition to its involvement with major carmakers.

Virginia lawmakers passed a bill to support the US Commonwealth’s electric grid going 100% “clean” by 2050, which includes an energy storage deployment target of 3.1GW by 2035.

Honeywell is rolling out fire detection and safety technologies for lithium-ion batteries via its Building Technologies business unit, combining it with alternative energy innovation group Nexceris’ gas detection systems.

Multinational chemicals company BASF has furthered its interest in the energy storage industry, partnering on the development of ‘metal-free’ flow battery electrolytes with German startup JenaBatteries.