As society moves away from centralised fossil fuel generators to increasing shares of distributed renewable energy resources, the idea that customers’ homes could become host to virtual power plants (VPPs), joining the dots between electricity supply and demand across the grid, has gradually gathered traction. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Suleman Khan CEO of Swell Energy, which has raised nearly half a billion dollars in financing for solar-plus-storage VPPs in 14,000 homes across California, New York and Hawaii.
A US Navy shipyard is getting an upgrade to its microgrid system from Ameresco that guarantees reliability and considerable energy savings over the lifetime of the project.
Swell Energy, a provider of distributed energy storage systems headquartered in Southern California, is seeking to develop four virtual power plants (VPPs) by mid-2023, through aggregating 100MW of solar PV with 200MWh of battery storage capacity at customer sites.
London Stock Exchange-listed investor Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has raised £120 million (US$159.86 million) to finance six new energy storage projects.
Barriers to financing for energy storage could hold back the growth of solar in the US, while an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for standalone energy storage should be introduced, the audience heard as our publisher Solar Media hosted the Solar and Storage Finance USA event last week.
Northvolt has now raised in excess of US$3.5 billion of financing towards its aim of establishing 150GWh of advanced battery manufacturing facilities in Europe by 2030.
Northvolt has now raised over US$3 billion to support its plans to become a major player in the European battery manufacturing space, including US$1.6 billion in debt financing which it announced today.
The UK energy storage sector is forging ahead after a landmark year in 2019 which saw maturing business models further the asset class’ role in the country’s energy system.
In just the past few days, nearly US$500 million has been committed to downstream activity in the battery energy storage space, with AES Distributed Energy raising US$341 million of debt financing and EsVolta US$140 million of borrowing.
Solar industry players target opportunities in the residential energy storage market in the US and elsewhere with the rollout and launches of new products.
