Thermal storage startup Antora Energy has raised US$50m from a group of investment firms including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures to accelerate the development of its heat-based carbon block energy storage system for heavy industry. 

Verdant Microgrid, a developer of distributed generation projects ranging from 1MW to 20MW largely for commercial and industrial (C&I) sector customers, has secured a US$150 million financing agreement to further its activities.

Electrical and heat storage using specially nanocoated salt (NCS) could be economically competitive with pumped hydro, SaltX has said, with a large-scale demonstration facility inaugurated in Berlin, Germany.

Centrica has completed the installation of a 3MW battery in the North-East of England for local authority Gateshead Council, which the multinational utility’s Distributed Energy and Power business has dubbed one of the country’s largest commercial battery storage schemes.

US utility Southern California Edison (SCE) is looking to acquire distributed energy projects to help strengthen the grid in the Goleta area of Santa Barbara, California.

Centrica, multinational major utility and owner of British Gas, is to launch a £19 million (US$24.2 million) UK pilot project which will assess the development of a virtual energy marketplace with renewables and storage at its heart in the UK.