Energy storage technology provider Fluence and battery gigafactory startup Northvolt will collaborate to develop “next-generation battery technology for grid-scale storage applications,” the companies said today.

ENGIE has sold its 60.5% stake in stationary storage and e-mobility solutions company ENGIE EPS to Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC).

Corporate funding into the battery storage sector in the first quarter of this year totalled US$4.7 billion across 17 deals, a huge leap from the equivalent period of last year, according to a new report from Mercom Capital.

In the first part of this interview with Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan we heard about how Swell Energy has been working to ‘productise’ the virtual power plant proposition: making it attractive to utilities and to their end-customers and then wrapping that into a long-term agreement. This time out, we speak to Suleman about some of the finer details of the VPP proposition and where he thinks the market is heading.

News in brief from around the world in energy storage.

Canada-headquartered lithium-ion battery recycling specialist Li-Cycle will build its third facility in Arizona, joining plants the company already operates in Ontario and New York State.

Energy storage can help enable cleaner, reliable, low-carbon energy networks while connecting energy assets to the market opportunities that will make the transition to renewable energy economically feasible. We speak to Wärtsilä’s Jeff Damron about the ways that the value of energy storage can be realised in markets across the world, both today and in the future.

The April 2021 episode of the Solar Media Podcast, sponsored by Honeywell, is now available to stream. We discuss everything from long-duration energy storage and floating solar technologies to the UK’s greenest weekend ever and Vietnam’s solar rush.

As society moves away from centralised fossil fuel generators to increasing shares of distributed renewable energy resources, the idea that customers’ homes could become host to virtual power plants (VPPs), joining the dots between electricity supply and demand across the grid, has gradually gathered traction. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Suleman Khan CEO of Swell Energy, which has raised nearly half a billion dollars in financing for solar-plus-storage VPPs in 14,000 homes across California, New York and Hawaii.

An investment worth €110 million (US$131.5 million) has been agreed by ‘thermal battery’ manufacturer EnergyNest which would make infrastructure equity investor Infracapital its biggest shareholder.