Northvolt has agreed to acquire a site in Sweden where it will develop its planned gigafactory, capable of producing 100GWh of cathode materials.

ron flow battery provider ESS Inc has revealed a US$477 million net loss in 2021, in its first full-year results since becoming a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). 

A number of core challenges remain for lenders in the energy storage market, not least the relative nascency of it.

Although huge amounts of capital are being deployed into storage, some investors speaking at the Energy Storage Summit 2022 made it clear that the investment model is still set to evolve hugely. 

Pandemic-related supply chain issues for lithium battery materials hitting the energy storage space are just “bumps in the road” for the sector, and the supply chain will “come out stronger because of it”.

Standalone storage, demand from commercial and industrial (C&I) customers and new types of grid services will increasingly help drive growth in energy storage in the coming years, but the future mix between battery-based and alternative storage types is still unclear.

Investors are becoming increasingly comfortable with energy storage as an asset class but numerous regulatory and market design hurdles remain across European markets.

The first awards of funding designed to “turbocharge” UK projects developing long-duration energy storage technologies have been made by the country’s government, with £6.7 million (US$9.11 million) pledged. 

Creating a wider ecosystem of services and software is essential for system integrators to stay ahead, according to Julian Jansen at Fluence.