Swiss institutional investment group SUSI Partners has agreed to finance C$120 million (US$94.56 million) of commercial and industrial (C&I) sector energy storage projects by Canadian project developer/owner NRStor.

Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS), an investor and would-be asset owner in the UK, has raised more than £50 million (US$66.18 million) of outside investment, setting its sights on making energy storage project acquisitions in Britain.

Panellists at the opening day of Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Southeast Asia event in Bangkok warned that investors who come on board quickest are going to gain a huge advantage as solar-plus-storage starts to become viable at scale.

While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.

Narada Power, which makes batteries and complete energy storage systems as well as acting as a project system integrator, is establishing a subsidiary for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries.

Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will help finance the country’s first “unsubsidised large-scale grid-connected battery”, co-located with a wind farm in South Australia.

An Indian state-owned energy services and energy efficiency company is set to invest in 14MWh of grid-scale storage in Canada through a joint venture (JV) with UK company EnergyPro Limited (EP).

A project demonstrating the integration of energy storage onto grid networks in Hubei, China, will see the first phase of a 10MW / 40MWh project built by Pu Neng, a vanadium flow battery manufacturer.

ZEN Energy’s newly appointed chairman has said he believes there is a “great future for energy-intensive industries in Australia,” as his company approved a 1GW plan for dispatchable renewables aimed at South Australia’s commercial and industrial sector.

Having been subject to discussion for years within the academic sphere, energy storage projects have become a topic of high interest to energy sector focused investors in recent years. Philipp Lobnig of E-nable+, an online platform connecting energy projects with investors, offers his views on the key questions these investors should be asking.