The Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel, Dharmendra Pradhan, along with Minister of Energy, Israel, Yuval Steinitz, announced the launch of a joint venture (IOC Phinergy Limited) between the Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Phinergy, an Israeli start-up company specializing in hybrid lithium-ion and aluminum-air and zinc-air battery systems. Based on domestically available aluminum, the joint venture plans to manufacture Aluminum-Air systems in India. The new Indo-Israeli JV also intends to develop fuel cells and indigenous hydrogen storage solutions for promoting green mobility.

The Pune-based forging giant Bharat Forge has formed a new company, Kalyani Powertrain Power Limited (KPPL), to undertake electric vehicle business initiatives. The newly formed subsidiary will look at organic and inorganic opportunities in the EV space. As an initial step to form a wholly-owned subsidiary, the company decided to acquire the company within the Kalyani Group company. KPPL aims to conduct scientific, technical, and other electric mobility research, including electric powertrain transmission systems and other areas.

EV experience platform, BLive, raised $1 million as part of the follow-on capital Pre-Series A round. The funding was a combination of debt and equity and was led by LetsVenture, Mumbai Angels, JITO, and Credit Wise Capital. Founded in 2018 by Samarth Kholkar and Sandeep Mukherjee, BLive offers unique, experiential, guided tours on electric bikes to promote India’s sustainable tourism.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced nearly $24.5 million to support domestic manufacturing improvements to build a resilient electricity infrastructure and address the climate emergency. The funding opportunities will back research and development (R&D) for the materials and technologies needed to expand the grid with new, clean-energy sources to deliver affordable electricity to disadvantaged communities and help to reach the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Volvo Group Venture Capital AB, the Volvo Group’s investment arm, has invested in Driivz, an EV charging software company, which has developed a platform for managing large charging networks for electric vehicles (EVs). The Driivz platform functions as an operating system for EV charging networks and is used by the operators of charging points, EV fleets, and other players in the EV space. The platform is scalable, making it highly flexible and allows it to be customized to meet customers’ needs. The company has a growing number of customers in the utility, oil and gas, automotive industries, and charging network operators.

Better Energy, an independent power producer based in Denmark, and Centrica Energy Trading have agreed to a long-term 10-year PPA for renewable solar power. The power will be procured from two new solar parks being developed in Denmark by Better Energy as part of the agreement. The two new solar parks are expected to produce 112 GWh per year, and this output will be handled and traded by Centrica in the next decade. Both projects will be implemented without the use of state subsidies.

Sunlight Financial, a residential solar financing firm, announced that Tech CU, a Silicon Valley-based credit union, will invest nearly $2.5 billion in residential solar and storage systems sold and installed by Sunlight partners over the next three years, expanding on a long-term partnership between Sunlight and Tech CU. Sunlight Financial offers a comprehensive suite of 5- to 25-year solar loans for a wide range of residential property types.