Dive Brief:

• Enbala Power Networks has signed a deal to provide Germany battery firm Sonnen with its distributed energy aggregation and control platform.

• Under the strategic alliance the partners will offer utilities the ability to use energy storage to balance distributed renewables and traditional generation on the grid.

• The partners say the alliance will allow utilities to participate in energy markets and have greater energy autonomy and will create opportunities for virtual power plants and for applications such as renewable firming, voltage management and frequency regulation.

Dive Insight:

As the competition heats up for market share in the energy storage sector, battery makers are forming alliances with software companies as ways to enhance the connectivity and value of their batteries.

Sonnen, which is taking on Tesla in the U.S., has now teamed up with Enbala Power Networks. The company has a head start from its home market of Germany, where it is already selling a community approach to storage that involves aggregating and controling many behind-the-meter systems. 

Enbala’s smart grid technology connects utilities, system operators and customers in order to make the electricity system more flexible and reliable.

Enbala, like other companies in the space, is attracting the interest not only of battery makers but utilities looking to invest in storage companies as a way to enhance the reactivity of their distribution systems and improve their ability to collect data in order to analyze customer usage.

The integration of the Sonnen's batteries with Enabala’s Symphony distributed energy aggregation and control platform gives Sonnen a packaged approach to provide an overall storage solution to customers.

In a similar move, Tesla in January teamed up with SolarEdge Technologies, a manufacturer of inverter technology that manages and monitors solar energy generation, consumption, and storage.

“Enbala and Sonnen are combining our advanced technologies to intelligently manage distributed resources and assets on the utility grid – a critical solution to increasing grid stability and unlocking new revenue streams for sonnen’s residential and commercial customers,” Boris von Bormann, CEO of Sonnen, said in a statement.