Members of the public in South Australia are being given the chance to participate in creating the biggest ‘virtual power plant’ of solar PV and batteries the world has ever seen.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and the government of Canada have formed a financial partnership that will utilise public funding to generate private sector investments to spur renewable energy, including energy storage, in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Chinese electronics and engineering company Huawei, which also manufacturers inverters for solar PV systems, is starting the supply of its FusionHome Smart Energy Solution, providing solar-plus-storage capabilities to the Australian residential market during the first quarter of 2018.

The CEO of Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has said that his company is working to establish “a scalable commercial model” for solar PV and energy storage, viewing both as potential drivers of long-term growth.

We continue with the second part of our feature interview with clean energy entrepreneur and financier Jigar Shah of Generate Capital. We’ve just left off discussing the risk profile of various investors and how the industry is gradually drawing attention from more traditional sources of capital, from the early adopter-venture capital mentality we have seen to date.

A 3,000MW energy storage target, proposed in Arizona as part of a grid modernisation policy, recognises the role of the technology in reducing the need for fossil fuels to stabilise the grid, a consultant has said.

Steps taken in California to enable energy storage systems to provide multiple services and to ‘stack revenues’ are “an essential starting point” for the industry, the head of California’s Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) has said.

Japanese trading house Itochu has invested £5 million (US$7.04 million) into UK-based energy storage and related services provider Moixa, which will enable Itochu to add Moixa’s ‘GridShare’ aggregation platform to its own suite of battery storage solutions.

SunEdison founder and solar financing pioneer Jigar Shah talked to Andy Colthorpe about having the ‘freedom to invest’ for the biggest impact and why, with traditional lenders still reluctant to finance energy storage, there will always be space for frontrunners who are able to properly understand the value propositions of new and innovative sustainable technologies.

VC funding for energy storage projects increased significantly, while debt and public market financing remained “steady” during 2017, Mercom Capital has found.