While lithium-ion continues to dominate big project announcements worldwide, three providers of long-duration non-lithium battery technologies have claimed various milestones in commercialisation.

Germany company Voltstorage, claiming to be the only developer and maker of home solar energy storage systems using vanadium flow batteries, raised €6 million (US$7.1 million) in July.

Lithium battery cells will be rolling off a production line at a 16GWh-capacity factory in France in 2023, with manufacturing startup Verkor then planning to scale up to 50GWh “in line with market dynamics”.

Funding into battery storage companies fell dramatically in the first half of 2020 compared to last year’s equivalent period, according to the latest reporting from Mercom Capital.

While the renewable energy industry has suffered significant blows such as loss of employment during the COVID-19 crisis, venture capital (VC) funding into the battery energy storage sector in the first quarter of this year nonetheless saw a significant increase over the previous year’s equivalent period.

In the past couple of weeks, national and state government organisations in Australia have announced various stages of development for solar projects with a range of advanced and innovative storage solutions attached.

European Commission greenlights €3.2bn research plan by seven major states to turn continent into global battery hub even as it signals it is ready to block imports on environmental grounds.

UK battery storage firm Zenobe has secured £25 million (US$32.93 million) in funding from Santander as it looks to continue its growth.

The UK pledges US$250 million for global energy storage as France and the Netherlands announce US$100 million for solar initiatives.

A £55 million (US$67.8 million) fund has been earmarked for five projects in the UK looking at developing the next generation of battery storage technology.