Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.

After securing a US$225 million financing facility, US solar developer 8minute Solar Energy has said the “vast majority” of projects in the company’s pipeline “are solar-plus-storage”.

Stem Inc has won out in a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) to manage a 345MWh fleet of commercial and municipal energy storage systems in Los Angeles, California.

SPONSORED: EDF are one of the largest aggregators of distributed flexible assets in Europe with significant presence in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium. Chris Regan, Head of Energy Trading Services, speaks to Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe about EDF’s view on battery storage and optimisation, the impacts of the pandemic on this market and what the future could look like.

QCELLS has invested AU$5 million (US$3.45 million) in SwitchDin, an Australian distributed energy resources (DERs) software company that offers capabilities including virtual power plant aggregation and microgrid-forming.

The contract is for the 35MW hybrid York solar farm designed and constructed by developer GRIDSERVE, which was completed late last year.

Battery energy storage deployed at Cleve Hill, the largest solar farm planned in the UK to date, will be installed and operated in line with a safety plan agreed with local fire services and the national Health and Safety Executive.

The European Union’s European Investment Bank (EIB) has affirmed its commitment to supporting a “pan-European battery industry”, while plans of the UK’s first full cycle battery cell gigafactory have been unveiled.

From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.

Merchant energy storage has become an investable asset class in the UK, a provider of battery optimisation services has said, with the market moving away from an emphasis on contracted revenue streams for supplying grid services.