Stem Inc and Sunverge, best known for providing battery and solar-plus-storage solutions for businesses and homes respectively, are partnering with companies in the electric vehicle (EV) sector. 

US backup power solutions specialist Generac has embedded ‘Smart Grid Ready’ functionality into some of its products, leveraging its acquisition of distributed energy platform tech company Enbala.

Tesla will deliver a battery energy storage system (BESS) to a ‘Battery Power Park’ project in Japan which will participate in various electricity market opportunities and help stabilise the grid on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Recognising the importance of energy storage for decarbonising and securing Australia’s energy system in the coming years, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has published two new sets of market rules.

Electric school buses in the US could be turned into a virtual power plant (VPP) resource, through a new partnership between student transport supplier Zum Services and artificial intelligence-driven distributed energy software company AutoGrid.

Vertically integrated solar PV company SunPower and residential battery storage provider sonnen have each started up programmes to deploy solar-plus-storage for communities in California and New York respectively.

Stem Inc said that its portfolio of aggregated battery energy storage systems was called into action to help balance electricity networks across four different states and provinces in the US and Canada during heat waves in June.

A residential virtual power plant (VPP) programme in Maryland has received regulatory approvals, enabling a partnership between technology provider Sunverge and utility Delmarva Power to get started on the project.

A company that pairs available energy capacity with the needs of electric utilities is preparing to put 288MW of flexible power onto the California grid in time for the summer peak in electricity demand that threatens energy security across the state each year.

In the first part of this interview with Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan we heard about how Swell Energy has been working to ‘productise’ the virtual power plant proposition: making it attractive to utilities and to their end-customers and then wrapping that into a long-term agreement. This time out, we speak to Suleman about some of the finer details of the VPP proposition and where he thinks the market is heading.