London-headquartered oil and gas company BP has announced plans to invest US$500 million (£358.5 million) in low carbon businesses each year as it looks to further embrace the low carbon transition.

A spokesman for S&C Electric has confirmed the company will no longer be producing its power conversion system (PCS) for energy storage systems but will remain in the market as a system integrator.

African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has invested in Starsight Power Utility, a Nigeria-based energy services company providing solar-diesel-battery hybrid and efficient cooling and lighting solutions to its commercial and industrial clients.

Energy storage in the state of South Australia has continued its prolific pace of development with the announcement of two new grid-scale projects and a sizeable commercial and industrial (C&I) installation.

Innovations in new distributed energy technologies are challenging conventional thinking around the most effective ways to serve electricity customers and utilise grid infrastructure. Alex Eller of Navigant Research looks at how one of the most significant expenses for electric utilities, maintaining and upgrading transmission and distribution (T&D) networks could be undercut using non-wires alternatives – including energy storage.

California has proved energy storage is both effective and cost-effective as a capacity resource, leading to one utility being instructed to hold competitive solicitations for energy storage, the head of the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) has said.

GE has formed a strategic alliance with UK energy infrastructure company Arenko to develop grid scale batteries in the UK, starting with a 41MW system in the Midlands.

Battery storage and demand-side response have continued to play a crucial role in the UK’s power mix, together landing more than 500MW of contracts in the most recent T-1 Capacity Market auction.

The CEO of Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has said that his company is working to establish “a scalable commercial model” for solar PV and energy storage, viewing both as potential drivers of long-term growth.

We continue with the second part of our feature interview with clean energy entrepreneur and financier Jigar Shah of Generate Capital. We’ve just left off discussing the risk profile of various investors and how the industry is gradually drawing attention from more traditional sources of capital, from the early adopter-venture capital mentality we have seen to date.