Sonnen is looking to sign up 2,000 Australian customers this year for SonnenFlat, where households sign up to pay a monthly ‘flat rate’ for power while their batteries are used to benefit the local grid.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Nancy Pfund is managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm which specialises in investing in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns, and positive social impacts. There have been some serious clean tech companies in DBL’s portfolio, including a pre-IPO investment in Tesla. With this in mind, we spoke to Nancy about how to invest in energy storage wisely and heard her views on the waves of the future. Part 2 to be published tomorrow.

Swedish state-owned power company Vattenfall has established a new business unit dedicated to solar-plus-storage.

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), arms of US firm PPL Corporation, have developed a research centre for energy storage at a power plant in Kentucky.

Stem’s virtual power plants (VPPs) have been utilised to provide emergency demand response services in California during a major heatwave.

Work begins this month on solar-plus-storage projects in North Carolina that will deploy a total 12MWh energy storage, by developer Cypress Creek Renewables and turnkey solar and storage provider United Renewable Energy.

What is expected to be Europe’s largest community battery is set to be installed at an innovative regeneration scheme in Nottingham, England, with a 2MWh Tesla battery to be deployed in September as part of a housing scheme alongside community solar.

Dutch grid-scale electrical equipment and integration company, Alfen, has delivered a 3MW wind power-integrating energy storage system using BMW car batteries, in the central Netherlands.

A distributed infrastructure subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the US’ biggest utilities, has formed a partnership with Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) to execute behind-the-meter distributed energy projects.