With the rise of solar-plus-storage applications round the world, Frank Qiao, sales director at Growatt New Energy, talks to PV Tech about some of the key inverter trends and new products.

At least two global technology leaders could set up Gigafactories to manufacture lithium-ion cells in India in the next couple of years, and most major Indian firms are setting up energy storage divisions, according to the head of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA).

Fluence, a new energy storage company, has been launched jointly by global engineering giant Siemens and energy storage system integrator and developer AES.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Northvolt, the Swedish battery start-up founded by former Tesla executives, has closed in on two possible sites for its planned multi-gigawatt production facility.

Nancy Pfund is managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm which specialises in investing in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns, and positive social impacts. There have been some serious clean tech companies in DBL’s portfolio, including a pre-IPO investment in Tesla. With this in mind, we spoke to Nancy about how to invest in energy storage wisely and heard her views on the waves of the future. Part 2 to be published tomorrow.

Energy storage provider and system integrator Younicos has been bought out by Aggreko, a power generation equipment and energy controls supplier.

As early as next year, demand for energy storage in consumer electronics could be overtaken by markets for electric mobility and stationary energy storage, Lux Research has forecast.

Orders for distributed energy storage and the rise of an electric mobility market have kick-started a battery assembly push in India.

Chinese PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow has installed a hybrid solar-diesel-storage system for five islands in the Maldives, consisting of 2.7MWp of solar and 700kW / 333kWh of energy storage.