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.

Africa’s largest private equity firm has led a round of financing for Off Grid Electric to fuel the microgrid provider’s expansion in the continent, with investors including an arm of General Electric (GE).

Major oil company Shell and European utility ENGIE are among investors to have pumped US$20 million into Husk Power Systems, a developer of microgrids which is expanding its efforts in Asia and Africa.

Since the launch of the site almost four years ago, Energy-Storage.News (and PV Tech Storage as it was previously known), has consistently brought you high-quality blogs from both guest contributors and our team of journalists and experts here at Solar Media. Here’s just a selection of some of the best guest blogs we ran from January to June, 2017:

Powerhive has been delivering access to electricity for rural and remote communities since its inception in 2011, classifying itself as much as a technology company as it is a developer or vendor of energy solutions. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Daniel Porras, vice president for impact and communications and a member of the executive team.

German renewables firm BayWa r.e. has commissioned a combined PV and battery system in Zambia’s Chisamba province, to supply irrigation for aquacultural farming.

Rental solar power company Redavia has commissioned two microgrid PV-plus-storage systems totalling 303kWh of energy storage capacity, both located in the Songwe region in western Tanzania.

A not-for-profit utility cooperative from Texas has been awarded a contract to electrify a community in Liberia with a solar-plus-storage microgrid, to benefit around 400 homes and businesses.

French energy storage developer and system integrator Electro Power Systems (EPS) has hailed the speedy execution of a microgrid’s expansion in Somalia, which has just been completed in less than 30 days.

UK-based renewable energy company BBOXX announced Monday that it met with Faure Gnassingbé, the President of the Republic of Togo, to discuss the “CIZO” presidential initiative.