Sales of battery storage units to residential households in Germany are booming, but it’s the value of services the batteries can provide, rather than the hardware itself that offers a long-term economic opportunity, a Siemens representative has said.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of the recognition of behind-the-meter storage so far this year has been the acquisition of Sonnen by oil major Shell. CEO Christoph Ostermann spoke to Andy Colthorpe about why home storage uptake could be on a worldwide series of inflection points.

Shell is to acquire German battery storage manufacturer sonnen in a bid to accelerate its home energy services position.

Batteries in private households will be now able to perform the “same tasks as a conventional power plant”, across the whole of Germany, the CEO of Sonnen has said, following a ruling that opens up grid services markets to the company’s devices.

Steven Marshall, the Premier of South Australia, has welcomed the start of assembly-line work at Sonnen’s new factory in Adelaide, while rival Tesla’s virtual power plant (VPP) in the state is beginning its second phase of development.

Installations of sonnen’s latest hybrid battery storage units are underway, alongside new residential solar arrays, as part of a Local Energy Market (LEM) being built by one of the UK’s largest energy companies to test the capabilities of a virtual marketplace of distributed energy resources.

Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.

PV manufacturers Hanwha Q Cells and Sunpower have both signed deals to bring home energy storage to residential solar customers in Europe and in the US respectively.

Shell, which has just participated in an investment round for sonnen, is one of the big players in the incumbent energy industry that “really acts” on clean energy, rather than just talking about it, sonnen’s CEO has said.

Shell has continued to scale-up its interest in distributed energy by participating in a €60 million (US$70.23 million) investment round by German battery storage firm sonnen.