EDF has set its sights on becoming a European leader in energy storage after announcing plans to invest €8 billion (~£7 billion) in deploying 10GW of new projects by 2035.

Already this year we’ve been able to learn directly about the energy storage market in Europe from the Energy Storage Summit in London at the end of February and Energy Storage Europe in Dusseldorf, which just took place last week. Andy Colthorpe summarises what he’s seen and heard.

Australian real estate developer Mirvac looks set to put a sizeable amount of solar-plus-storage into brand new homes in Sydney and Brisbane, with help from the national Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Speakers at Energy Storage Europe were confident, despite a few reservations, that Germany’s new government which grants Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term in office will be good for the environment and for renewable energy.

The UK’s first listed fund for energy storage is setting out to raise £100 million (~$139 million) for investment in battery projects, with a seed portfolio of an estimated 18MW/20MWh already arranged.

The economics of solar-and-storage in the UK are being proven, according to Anesco, the developer of one such project.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a loan request from Northvolt that will see the bank provide a financing facility of up to US$64.8 million to support Northvolt’s pilot demonstration facility.

London-headquartered oil and gas company BP has announced plans to invest US$500 million (£358.5 million) in low carbon businesses each year as it looks to further embrace the low carbon transition.

African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has invested in Starsight Power Utility, a Nigeria-based energy services company providing solar-diesel-battery hybrid and efficient cooling and lighting solutions to its commercial and industrial clients.

We continue with the second part of our feature interview with clean energy entrepreneur and financier Jigar Shah of Generate Capital. We’ve just left off discussing the risk profile of various investors and how the industry is gradually drawing attention from more traditional sources of capital, from the early adopter-venture capital mentality we have seen to date.