SunEdison, the US solar project developer, has acquired a number of key staff from its take-over of Solar Grid Storage in March, Tom Leyden, the chief executive of Solar Grid Storage — a start-up that specialises in packaging lithium-ion batteries and inverters with commercial solar PV projects — became vice president of energy storage deployment in SunEdison’s Advanced Solutions group In all SunEdison will acquire a project development team, four existing projects, and roughly 100MW of project pipeline of Solar Grid Storage.

Under SunEdison’s ownership the company will expand into new US markets as well as overseas.

Tim Derrick, general manager of SunEdison Advanced Solutions, said: “Our strategy is to increase the value of the solar and wind projects that we finance, develop, own, and operate by improving their availability and ability to interact with the grid.

“With this acquisition, we have added the capability to pair energy storage with solar and wind projects, thereby creating more valuable projects and positioning ourselves as a leader in the rapidly growing energy storage market.”
While SunEdison may be the first big solar company to buy its way into the storage business, analysts predict that it won’t be the last. Many analysts note the natural synergy between companies such as SunEdison and the energy storage market and forecast more deals in 2015.

The deal with Solar Grid Storage is the first pairing of a solar generator with a storage firm since Jerry Brown, governor of California, called in January for an increase in the state’s renewable energy goal to 50% by 2030 from 30% by 2020.