While parallels are often drawn between the solar and storage industries, financing energy storage projects is a lot more complex than simply “transposing” learnings from solar to batteries.

Secure financing for energy storage is likely to be the main driver for its deployment, the chief of the UK’s biggest solar developer has said, echoing views given to Energy Storage News by analysis firm Lux Research.

Workable alternatives to utility power involving energy storage are beginning to emerge with new and innovative business models, according to an investment advisor who worked on Younicos’ recent US$50 million “land grab”.

Energy storage is already competitive in a number of mainly grid-based applications, while lithium-ion battery prices could fall by as much as 50% in the next five years, financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard has found.

Raj Prabhu of cleantech research and communications firm Mercom Capital talks through some of the interesting findings and trends highlighted by his company’s recent “Smart Grid, Battery/Storage, Efficiency Funding and M&A” report for Q1 2015.

Energy storage is likely to be worth “tens of billion dollars in the next five to 10 years” across a number of global regions, according to executives at solar microinverter firm Enphase.

The US department of Energy has included energy storage projects in a US$4 billion loan guarantee programme announced yesterday.

Grid-scale electrical energy storage (EES) company Primus Power announced that a Series C funding round has secured US$20 million worth of investment, including a “major contribution” from Anglo American Platinum.