German energy storage system and energy management services provider Sonnen has made its first play for home storage markets in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Australian redox flow energy storage maker Redflow says a Thai factory set to start producing its batteries could be producing 30Wh annually when it becomes fully operational.

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).

The complexities of combining batteries and solar microgrids are explained by Sam Duby, who is co-founder and director of research and development at mini-grid technologies company SteamaCo Ltd and consults for TFE Consulting. TFE Consulting is a strategy consulting firm focusing on accelerating the energy transition in emerging markets and is active in Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Zinc-air battery-based energy storage system maker Fluidic Energy has received US$20 million in investment for projects in south-east Asia from a private equity fund which includes the Asian Development Bank as a partner.

Poor grid flexibility in Indonesia means energy storage could be critical leverage when trying to install solar and wind projects.

South Korean corporate industrial holdings company Doosan has acquired Seattle-based 1Energy Systems, which develops the software platform needed to automatically integrate distributed energy resources (DER) into the grid.

Trina Best, the energy storage company begun as part of Trina Solar but now a separate entity in its own right, wants to go public by 2020 and has not ruled out building its own battery cell production facilities in future.

News in brief: Korea’s main utility and Samsung SDI have overseas markets in their sights, Leclanché subsidiary targets US and Canada, UK lead acid maker moves to Li-Ion with new crowdfund drive.