California’s Governor Jerry Brown has passed the state’s 2045 zero-carbon electricity target into law, offering a major boost to the energy storage sector in the process.

A route to market for residential flexibility resources to access grid balancing revenue streams could save individual households in Britain more than £200 (US$260.90) each, according to a new study.

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.

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.

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.

US utilities deployed more than 520MWh of energy storage on their networks in 2017, bringing the country’s cumulative installed capacity of grid-connected energy storage systems to over 1GWh, trade organisation Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) has found.