Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.

VC funding for battery energy storage companies in the first half of this year has already exceeded 2016’s total and looks on the way to bettering 2017, with US$539 million raised across 29 deals.

Shell, which has just participated in an investment round for sonnen, is one of the big players in the incumbent energy industry that “really acts” on clean energy, rather than just talking about it, sonnen’s CEO has said.

The US government Department of Energy is funding research into storing energy for periods of between 10 and 100 hours, announcing last week that “up to US$30 million” will be available through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

1414 Degrees, an Australian startup manufacturing thermal energy storage systems using a proprietary silicon storage medium is preparing to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and build a 200MWh ‘module’ at a renewable energy facility.

Flow battery manufacturer VIZn Energy has confirmed that nearly all its employees have been “furloughed” amid financial difficulties, but denied that the company has exited the business altogether.

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.

The Australian Capital Territory, the country’s federal district and home of national capital Canberra, is supporting the planned roll-out of 36MW of customer-sited batteries by funding a further AU$3 million (US$2.39 million) in rebates.

Energy storage provider Connected Energy has secured £3 million (US$4.13 million) of investment from Macquarie Group and ENGIE to fuel its growth plans in the UK and abroad.