Primus Power, a flow battery maker which claims its systems can cost less than half the price of lithium-ion energy storage over its lifetime, is establishing manufacturing lines in China.

The amount of energy storage investment that came from VC (venture capital) funding more than doubled in the first half of 2017 compared to last year, a new report has found.

A “first-of-its-kind” project financing deal will bring 50MW of Tesla Powerpacks online in California, Macquarie Capital, the investing and advisory arm of global finance corporation Macquarie Group has said.

Project funding for energy storage jumped to US$820 million in 2016 from just US$30 million in 2015, while Sonnen was revealed as the energy storage company to raise the most VC funding this year.

US energy storage had a fairly quiet period in the third quarter of this year deploying just 16.4MW/31.4MWh but enjoyed a record quarterly sum of US$660 million of corporate investment.

The participation of venture capital (VC) investors seems to have cooled, while project funding has conversely seen a sharp rise, in the latest quarterly report into funding and mergers and acquisitions from Mercom Capital.

Canadian manufacturer Sentinel Solar has announced a ‘plug-and-play’ energy storage system, the AHI Wave ESS, for residential use.

Mercom Capital Group’s latest report showed how energy storage companies brought in US$125 million in venture capital (VC) funding in Q2 2016, double that of the previous quarter. Year-over-year funding this second quarter roughly matched last year’s Q2 output, which had US$126 million in 13 deals.

Energy storage system integrator Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) has secured US$200 million of project finance from Macquarie.