Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.

Up to 140MW of capacity will be procured under the first ever tender for Ireland’s new frequency response and balancing programme, with projects to go live by September 2021.

US-based energy storage technology provider Powin Energy has claimed it has a pipeline close to 500MWh of projects under contract, including recent awards totalling 70MWh for customers in North and Central America and in Italy.

Tesla’s former EMEA vice-present has taken on an advisory role for Solo Energy as the company seeks to build out its vision of a virtual power plant driven by residential and commercial battery systems.

Macquarie Capital Korea, a subsidiary of investment firm Macquarie Group, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the county office of Goesan in South Korea to finance a significant solar-plus-storage project, while it has also invested in what is said to be the largest energy storage project base in the country.

The Australian state of Victoria has been given a “taste of what’s possible” with the launch of utility Origin Energy’s first virtual power plant (VPP) project to date.

Over 370MW of energy storage projects, along with 1.25GW of solar, have been successfully moved into the ‘first batch’ of projects to be processed under a new connections procedure, brought in to tackle the surging levels of smaller projects aiming to connect.

The US deployed 42% megawatts more energy storage in the second quarter of this year than in the first, with residential installations overtaking utility deployments for the first time.

Using energy storage – and often renewables – could see mines, cement companies, data centres and other large industrial operations in emerging markets reduce their electricity costs drastically, the CEO of Greensmith has said.

Following news of SB100, legislation that would set California on a path to 100% renewables by 2045, the state is also on the brink of setting up a rebate programme for energy storage equipment sales.