Already this year we’ve been able to learn directly about the energy storage market in Europe from the Energy Storage Summit in London at the end of February and Energy Storage Europe in Dusseldorf, which just took place last week. Andy Colthorpe summarises what he’s seen and heard.

Some of the “world’s biggest insurance companies” are investigating the advantages of pairing lithium batteries with ultracapacitors in energy storage systems, which can lower costs and extend battery lifetimes, the CEO of an ultracapacitor maker has said.

German energy giants E.On and RWE have reached an agreement on a major exchange of business activities, promising a significant shake-up of the duo’s energy interests.

Madagascar’s Ministry of Water, Energy and Hydrocarbons (MEEH) has released a list of six pre-qualified bidders for the country’s 25MW(AC) Scaling Solar tender, which is the first to include energy storage in its remit.

VC funding for energy storage projects increased significantly, while debt and public market financing remained “steady” during 2017, Mercom Capital has found.

Stem Inc, self-described as a supplier of “artificial intelligence-powered” energy storage, which deployed a system on average every two days last year, has closed a US$80 million Series D financing round.

Nuclear generation company Exelon and chemical company Albemarle, which has lithium mining facilities, are investigating opportunities in the energy storage space, having partnered with battery energy storage investor Volta Energy Technologies to do so.

Having been subject to discussion for years within the academic sphere, energy storage projects have become a topic of high interest to energy sector focused investors in recent years. Philipp Lobnig of E-nable+, an online platform connecting energy projects with investors, offers his views on the key questions these investors should be asking.

Chris Pritchett of UK law firm Foot Anstey recently served as moderator for the “Developers and financiers debate” at the Energy Storage Conference at the Solar & Storage Live 2017 show in England. Afterwards, Andy Colthorpe caught up with Chris for an in-depth interview on camera.

The amount of VC funding invested in battery energy storage companies in the first nine months of this year has more than doubled from the equivalent period of 2016, according to a report from Mercom Capital.