Foresight Group, one of the top five asset owners in UK solar, is expecting to close its first battery storage acquisition in the coming weeks as it looks to complement its existing infrastructure portfolio.

A “first-of-its-kind” project financing deal will bring 50MW of Tesla Powerpacks online in California, Macquarie Capital, the investing and advisory arm of global finance corporation Macquarie Group has said.

The government of Victoria in Australia plans to invest AU$20 million (US$15.2 million) in large-scale energy storage initiatives across the state to reach 100MW by the end of 2018.

Last year was a “seminal year” for energy storage, where the technology moved from “dream to reality”, according to impact investor Nancy Pfund, one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity.

Financial services giant Morgan Stanley has anticipated that the US energy storage market will grow faster than current consensus expectations, while Deloitte has earmarked the technology for exponential growth – although not perhaps this year.

Listed funds in the UK which own a significant portion of the country’s utility-scale solar PV assets are not currently convinced by battery storage’s feasibility, but remain primed to deploy the technology at scale when the time is right.

Energy storage deployments in emerging markets could grow 40% annually over the next five years, from 2GW today to 80GW, but barriers include the lack of access to low-cost capital, a new report from the International Finance Corporation has found

Project funding for energy storage jumped to US$820 million in 2016 from just US$30 million in 2015, while Sonnen was revealed as the energy storage company to raise the most VC funding this year.

A corporate venture fund set up by oil and gas company Statoil has invested in North American energy storage developer Convergent Energy + Power.

An open fund for solar energy and energy storage in various emerging markets has been launched by Franck Constant, the co-founder of Sonnedix Group and director of Sithe Pacific, Energy-Storage.News’ sister site PV Tech revealed today.