US renewables developer Pine Gate has cut two deals this week with two different forms of energy storage – both chemical replacements for lithium ion batteries – each with different advantages – proving that developers everywhere are now on the search for alternative chemistries. This is the firing gun to a landgrab for alternative chemistries to lithium for multiple reasons – the most important of which is the huge accelerating scale of the electric vehicle industry, making it likely to leave grid energy storage as an after-thought – and the other reasons being technical such as repeated thermal runaway problems with lithium. The two breakthrough orders are four and five year agreements, one with EnerVenue, for 2.4 GWh for its…