“The energy storage industry should play a proactive role in supporting market development in Southeast Asia, a panel discussion at the Solar and Storage Finance Asia event heard this week, from Aquila Capital regional CEO Alexander Lenz. We speak exclusively with Yaron Ben Nun, CTO and founder of Nostromo, a startup aiming to commercialise a new ice-based energy storage for cooling buildings and Yaron is adamant that it can turn electricity demand for commercial buildings into a powerful tool of the energy transition. US independent power producer Talen Energy has hired developer Key Capture Energy to work on a battery project at one of its coal power plant sites in Maryland, as Talen pursues its new ESG-driven path. Koch Industries, another name more commonly associated with fossil fuels, has invested in zinc-based energy storage company Eos, through its Koch Strategic Platforms investment vehicle. The UK’s Flexion Energy has gained a US$200m+ investment commitment from an infrastructure investment group as it targets development of a 1GW battery storage portfolio and in South Australia, developers Maoneng and SAPGen are seeking permission to construct 465MW of large-scale battery storage, solar-plus-storage projects behind-the-meter and in front-of-the-meter make progress in Hawaii. Finally we round up some news about investors acquiring three US solar and storage developers, which could be a sign of things to come. Don’t forget the APAC region edition of our sponsored webinar series with Honeywell takes place next week (14 July) and you can still sign up by clicking the banner ad above. Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy using the site.”

By Andy Colthorpe