The European Union’s European Investment Bank (EIB) has affirmed its commitment to supporting a “pan-European battery industry”, while plans of the UK’s first full cycle battery cell gigafactory have been unveiled.

This week’s roundup of news in brief from around the world in energy storage focuses on recent products and services launches.

From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.

While the performance of lithium batteries has increased tremendously, there’s still room for improvement to lower cost, increase sustainability and maximise their impact on decarbonisation, says Marcos Ierides, consultant and materials expert at innovation consultancy Bax & Company.

The business case for behind-the-meter (BTM) battery storage in Australia appears to be positive, according to a University of Queensland report on the performance of a 1.1MW / 2.15MWh Tesla battery energy storage system (BESS).

With the award of funding from the California Energy Commission, advanced energy hardware and software including solar-plus-storage, blockchain and EV charging stations will help demonstrate the feasibility of decarbonising a disadvantaged community in Los Angeles.

The government of India has announced measures to promote new “Champion Sectors” of economic growth, including support incentives for advanced battery cell and solar PV manufacturing.

Why the real competition is fossil fuels, which battery optimisation strategies yield the best returns and bringing safety rules and guidelines to the attention of first-responders are among the topics discussed on the latest special episode of the Solar Media podcast.

Eos Energy Storage will deploy a megawatt-scale, behind-the-meter zinc hybrid cathode battery energy storage system for a large oil refinery in Greece, claiming it be validation of the safety and environmental benefits of the novel technology.

Residential energy storage provider Sunverge has won out in a competitive bidding process to provide systems and software for a proposed virtual power plant (VPP) project in Maryland in the US.