Andy Colthorpe and Ben Willis profile some of the companies and technologies making waves in the fast-changing world of stationary energy storage, in a feature article which originally appeared in the seventh issue of PV Tech Power.
Involvement from billionaire Peter Thiel in Stem’s Series C indicates a shared belief among investors that “distributed, intelligent storage is going to absolutely revolutionise the electric grid over the coming decades”, the company’s marketing director has said.
GE’s investment in Sonnen shows a shared belief in online trading of energy and other digitally-enabled services as the fastest potential drivers of a profitable energy storage industry, according to a Sonnen director.
GE Ventures, the venture capital arm of US-headquartered multinational engineering group GE, has invested in German energy storage hardware and services provider Sonnen.
Mercom Capital Group’s Q1 2016 report reveals 50% drop in VC funding for battery and storage companies compared to last quarter’s figures.
A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.
US residential installer SolarCity has closed US$150 million of financing to fund the deployment of commercial solar and storage systems.
Recharge A/S, an investment fund specialising in renewables, will take a 50.1% stake in a €24 million (US$26.7 million) micro grid on a remote Portuguese island that could prove the validity of such projects as an asset class.
Energy storage could have a ‘highly critical’ role to play in emerging economies, Aloke Gupta of Imergy Power Systems says. Gupta, who was previously with California’s Public Utilities’ Commission, the state’s regulator, talks about the uses and applications of micro-grids, from his vantage point of view as a flow battery and storage system maker.
The Japanese city in which the manufacturing bases of lithium-ion battery makers including Panasonic, Hitachi Maxcell and GS Yuasa are located will play host to the world’s biggest energy storage battery and system testing facility to date.
