VC funding for energy storage projects increased significantly, while debt and public market financing remained “steady” during 2017, Mercom Capital has found.

ESS Inc, among several companies looking to commercialise a flow battery energy storage technology, has netted US$13 million in a Series B funding round from investors that include global chemical company BASF.

The amount of VC funding invested in battery energy storage companies in the first nine months of this year has more than doubled from the equivalent period of 2016, according to a report from Mercom Capital.

The amount of energy storage investment that came from VC (venture capital) funding more than doubled in the first half of 2017 compared to last year, a new report has found.

Welcome to Part 2 of our in-depth talk with Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in companies and start-ups that offer both rewarding financial returns and positive social impacts. As well as being one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity, to utility-scale solar tracker company NEXTracker to Off-Grid Electric, which deploys solar in rural Africa; to others in energy storage like Advanced Microgrid Solutions and Primus Power, Pfund is extremely well-placed to offer a quick Q&A ‘masterclass’ in energy storage investing.

Flow battery maker Primus Power was leader of the charts in VC funding in the first quarter of 2017, securing US$32 million from a range of investors, according to Mercom Capital’s latest report.

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.

Mercom Capital Group’s latest report showed how energy storage companies brought in US$125 million in venture capital (VC) funding in Q2 2016, double that of the previous quarter. Year-over-year funding this second quarter roughly matched last year’s Q2 output, which had US$126 million in 13 deals.

Andy Colthorpe and Ben Willis profile some of the companies and technologies making waves in the fast-changing world of stationary energy storage, in a feature article which originally appeared in the seventh issue of PV Tech Power.

Involvement from billionaire Peter Thiel in Stem’s Series C indicates a shared belief among investors that “distributed, intelligent storage is going to absolutely revolutionise the electric grid over the coming decades”, the company’s marketing director has said.