Sunverge has been active in the market since 2011 and Martin Milani became chief executive officer (CEO) in late 2017, taking over from company founder Ken Munson. One of the pioneers of using aggregated residential energy storage systems to create virtual power plants (VPPs), here’s some of the backstory and where the company is going these days, as told to Andy Colthorpe.

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.

While utility Hawaiian Electric (HECO) stands poised to announce the finalists of its recent massive procurement of solar-plus-storage and standalone energy storage projects, developers with winning bids seem determined to steal the utility’s thunder.

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.

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).

Utility PG&E has asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for approval of five large-scale battery projects, each with four-hours duration, that will take the investor-owned utility (IOU) past 1,000MW of battery energy storage in its service area.

Sungrow is to partner with Huanghe Hydropower, providing PV inverter and energy storage systems for a major solar-plus-storage project in Qinghai Province, China.

Battery software company Arenko has teamed up with National Grid ESO to provide upward and downward reserve flexibility in a “first of its kind trial”.

Merchant energy storage has become an investable asset class in the UK, a provider of battery optimisation services has said, with the market moving away from an emphasis on contracted revenue streams for supplying grid services.