California-based energy storage technology developer Gridtential announced that it has closed US$11 million in financing led by 1955 Capital, with assistance from East Penn Manufacturing, Crown Battery Manufacturing, Leoch International and Power-Sonic Inc., as well as an existing investor in The Roda Group.

Australia’s biggest utility AGL, which has committed to phasing out coal by 2050, has said it is likely to replace the capacity provided by one ageing power station with batteries, peaking plants, demand response and pumped hydro.

Heating and cooling uses more than half of Europe’s energy, but the potential “immense value” of thermal energy storage has barely been explored, the head of an energy storage trade group has said.

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued a new order seeking to improve the quality of components in the solar sector, including batteries to be used for stationary energy storage.

The IET has released a promotional video for its Code of Practice on installing and selling electrical energy storage systems for the UK consumer market, featuring representatives from storage pioneers Tesla and sonnen.

It has been the US’ busiest quarter to date for behind-the-meter energy storage installations, driven in part by residential adoption in the advanced markets of California and Hawaii, GTM Research has found.

The UK’s Solar Trade Association (STA) has refuted claims made in a recent report that a residential solar array in combination with an energy storage system was not “economically viable”, calling it flawed and lacking in detail.

Swiss utility and power distribution company EKZ (Elektrizitätswerke des Kantons Zürich) is building a grid-balancing and renewables integrating 18MW / 7.5MWh energy storage system and has appointed NEC Energy Solutions to execute the project.

A village in the south east of the Czech Republic will be host to what is thought to be the country’s first grid-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) connected to a solar farm.

News in brief from this week in energy storage around the world.