Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the investment climate in various renewable energy sectors appears to be outperforming the pre-Covid levels of last year. Corporate funding for battery storage, smart grids, and energy efficiency has risen a whopping 75% this year.

Mercom Capital Group LLC, a clean energy communications and consulting firm, has analyzed cash flows in those market segments and observed a substantial increase in funding despite the global health crisis.

Investment this year to the end of September totaled $4.7 billion in corporate funding for battery storage, smart grid, and energy efficiency companies. The same period of last year brought $2.7 billion. The Covid-related uncertainty in the first quarter was perhaps reflected by the fact some $3.2 billion of that $4.7 billion was invested in the last quarter, a rise of 165% on the investment seen in Q2.

The impressive third-quarter figure appears to show investors moving into storage, smart grid and efficiency companies, as the first six months of the year brought only minimal backing in the segment. The July-to-September return was up 777% on the same period of last year, which attracted $365 million.

Venture capital funding, including private equity and corporate venture capital, rose 78% from the second quarter to Q3 with $1.1 billion spread across 22 deals in July-to-September, compared to $605 million in 26 deals in the previous three-month window. In year-on-year terms, the third-quarter VC figure was up 249% from the $309 million raised in 17 deals in July-to-September last year.

Venture capital funds of $1.9 billion have flowed into energy storage in the first nine months of the year, down from the $2.1 billion seen in the same period of 2019.

Tesla has broken yet another record. This time it’s for energy storage installations. Tesla’s storage business deployed 750 MWh in Q3. Tesla noted in its Q3 earnings update that the production of its Megapack continued to ramp up at Gigafactory Nevada. Production volumes more than doubled in Q3 2020 compared to Q3 2019.

The demand for Tesla’s smaller Powerwall, made for homes, not only remained strong but is also growing. Tesla pointed out that many of its customers include a Powerwall with their solar installations. Tesla is also seeing “accelerating interest” in the Powerwall due to concerns around grid stability in California, where most of its buyers live.

Tesla believes that its energy business will ultimately be as large as its vehicle business.

Meanwhile, it has created a strategy of low-cost solar priced at $1.49/watt in the US after the US tax credit is applied, something CleanTechnica spoke with Tesla CEO Elon Musk about last month, and this is having an impact. For more on that matter, read: “Elon Musk Explains Why Tesla Solar Power Is So Cheap — CleanTechnica Exclusive.”

Tesla’s total solar deployments more than doubled in the third quarter versus the second quarter — to 57 MW. Solar Roof deployments have almost tripled.

Tesla also recently demonstrated a 1.5-day Solar Roof install. Installation time is one of the key areas of Tesla’s focus to accelerate the growth of this program. Tesla provided photos of its 1.5-day Solar Roof install in the quarterly report. The photos were taken at 7:30 in the morning, at noon, and at 2:00 pm the following day. Have a look:

The Groupe Renault is continuing its commitment to sustainable mobility by acting on the electric ecosystem as a whole. With the Advanced Battery Storage project in France and the SmartHubs project in the UK, it is initiating two major projects in Europe using second-life battery technologies. The common objective is to manage the gap between electricity consumption and production in order to increase the share of renewable energies in the energy mix. The aim is to maintain the balance between supply and demand on the electricity grid by integrating different energy sources with intermittent production capacities.

The Georges Besse factory in Douai is home to the first Advanced Battery Storage installation, delivered by NIDEC ASI, an integrator partner and storage solution provider. This project is part of the Groupe Renault’s strategy to develop an intelligent electrical ecosystem in favour of the energy transition. This new project is based on the observation that the slightest discrepancy between consumption and production triggers disturbances that can compromise the stability of the frequency of the domestic network. Stationary energy storage thus makes it possible to regulate and stabilise the network by charging the batteries when demand is low, then reinjecting the energy contained in these batteries back into the network as soon as demand is high.

Advanced Battery Storage is based on electric car batteries compiled in containers and targets an installed capacity of nearly 50 MWh at several sites in France. The Douai site has a total installed capacity of 4.7 MWh using second life batteries, as well as new batteries stored for future after-sales use.

The Advanced Battery Storage project is being carried out in partnership with the Banque des Territoires, the Ecological Transport Modernisation Fund managed by Demeter and the German startup The Mobility House. It demonstrates the Group’s ability to anticipate environmental issues and provide opportunities to innovate with new services.

The SmartHubs project with Connected Energy is located in West Sussex, UK. Second life batteries from Renault vehicles will be operated alongside other technologies as part of a local energy system to help provide cleaner, lower cost energy for use in social housing, transport, infrastructure, private homes and local businesses. The second life batteries will be incorporated into Connected Energy’s specially designed E-STOR systems.

POWERGEN+ returns this week with sessions featuring experts discussing the latest and greatest in state regulation and renewable policies, community solar, hydrogen adoption and energy storage options.

The monthly virtual series, enacted during this era of social distancing due to COVID-19, offers the same level of power sector industry content which normally happens at the live event. POWERGEN+ is free to register and sessions are available both live this week and archived for one year.

Registrants can see individual sessions or attend all of them, if they want. Go here to choose.

POWERGEN International is still scheduled for March 30-April 1 in Orlando.

In the meantime, parent company Clarion Energy is working on building virtual sessions with learned veterans in the utility, OEM, service and alternative energy fields. The sessions happening Wednesday and Thursday are focused on the clean energy side of the power generation equation.

On the first day, a group of state and national regulatory leaders will detail how their jurisdictions handle renewable energies and integration as an economic development issue. Later in the day, high-level contributors from National Grid, U.S. Light Energy and Standard Solar will show the path they took to developing major community solar projects in New York.

On Thursday, sponsor Nel Hydrogen will underline key factors in why stored and deployable H2 can help both grid resiliency and zero-carbon goals. The second session panel that day, moderated by Energy Cast host Jay Dauenhauer, will include Rye Development, GE and National Grid Renewables (formerly Geronimo Energy) and give the overview and challenges of various energy storage resources.

Both days will be kicked off by welcome messages from Clarion Energy leaders and keynote addressed from renewable and hydrogen sector leaders. The Wednesday keynote speaker will be Robert Jackson, director for solar PV projects for renewables developer Ameresco, while Thursday morning’s keynote will be from David Bow with Nel Hydrogen.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is preparing to build four new battery energy storage systems that will boost the district’s energy resilience and cut operational costs by optimizing solar power and reducing peak load at its facilities.

The agency’s board of directors voted recently to authorize $2.2 million to design the battery systems at water treatment plants in Granada Hills, La Verne and Riverside’s Temecula Valley as well as a pump station in Lake Forest.

With completion expected in mid-2022, the projects will allow Metropolitan to store excess power to use during peak periods. The energy storage systems will be built with a microgrid configuration, meaning they can be connected to the larger electricity grid, or function independently to continue powering the facilities during a grid outage.

The projects at Metropolitan’s Jensen, Weymouth, and Skinner plants, along with its OC-88 pump station, also are in line with Metropolitan’s Energy Sustainability Plan, which identifies ways to contain energy costs, move toward energy independence and reduce price volatility through cost-effective alternative energy projects.

The projects are estimated to cost $11-12 million. However, through energy savings and incentives from the California Public Utilities Commission, Metropolitan is expected to recoup its costs within three years.

The four Metropolitan sites identified for the energy storage systems were selected because of their on-site solar power generation, their location within high-threat fire districts and/or their location in low-income/disadvantaged communities, conditions for approval for the CPUC incentives.