Sonnen is looking to sign up 2,000 Australian customers this year for SonnenFlat, where households sign up to pay a monthly ‘flat rate’ for power while their batteries are used to benefit the local grid.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Energy storage system and PV module manufacturer Solarwatt and PV inverter specialist Fronius have formed a partnership to supply each other’s products, covering five European countries and Australia.

Nasdaq Helsinki-listed power company Wärtsilä’s acquisition of software specialist, system integrator and turnkey energy storage system provider Greensmith has been completed.

Northvolt, the Swedish battery start-up founded by former Tesla executives, has closed in on two possible sites for its planned multi-gigawatt production facility.

Expected since the beginning of this year, Massachusetts has confirmed that it will implement an “aspirational” 200MWh energy storage procurement target for electric distribution companies.

Nancy Pfund is managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm which specialises in investing in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns, and positive social impacts. There have been some serious clean tech companies in DBL’s portfolio, including a pre-IPO investment in Tesla. With this in mind, we spoke to Nancy about how to invest in energy storage wisely and heard her views on the waves of the future. Part 2 to be published tomorrow.

Energy storage provider and system integrator Younicos has been bought out by Aggreko, a power generation equipment and energy controls supplier.

Work begins this month on solar-plus-storage projects in North Carolina that will deploy a total 12MWh energy storage, by developer Cypress Creek Renewables and turnkey solar and storage provider United Renewable Energy.

Dutch grid-scale electrical equipment and integration company, Alfen, has delivered a 3MW wind power-integrating energy storage system using BMW car batteries, in the central Netherlands.