Dr Alastair Martin of Flexitricity sheds light on negative energy pricing and the opportunity it represents for batteries.

Confirming reports made earlier this week, UK battery storage developer Zenobē Energy has secured c.£600 million from investment firm KKR.

Virtual power plant (VPP) projects using home batteries have been launched and extended in Texas, Vermont and California.

Xcel Energy has launched scheme in Colorado, rewarding customers for allowing utility to use battery storage to provide grid services.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved the participation of aggregated home batteries in demand response programme.

Leap, a provider of software to aggregate distributed energy resources into VPPs, has raised US$12 million equity investments.

Bi-directional smart charging from The Mobility House will turn electric vehicles (EVs) from Renault into vehicle-to-grid (V2G) assets.

Another serving of news in brief from around the world in energy storage.

As distributed energy resources such as residential solar rooftop increase in the next decade, aggregation into virtual power plants could save US utilities up to US$35 billion, according to The Brattle Group.

Google’s smart home division has joined a group of companies including Ford, Sunpower and Sunrun in founding a new partnership centred around scaling the market for virtual power plants (VPP).