Consortium Investing $50 Million In Younicos

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

Originally published on the ECOreport.

First Solar, Grupo ECOS, and an undisclosed sustainable investment-focused private equity firm are in a consortium investing $50 million into Younicos, a German energy storage company that says it is possible to use a 60% renewable mix on the grid.

Younicos Will Receive $50 Million

According to GTM Research, this is the largest investment that an independent energy storage provider has received in 2015.

“As the promise of storage continues to evolve, we are eager to understand how it will broaden our own power plant offerings. This is an important investment in continuing and potentially accelerating the shift of our energy landscape to renewables,” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar’s Chief Technology Officer.

The Swiss company Group ECOS perceives energy storage as “a key market driver for renewables,” which may also be of use in its Latin American holdings.

“This capital infusion is growth financing. It will give us the ability to make the necessary operational investments as we scale up our business. As previously stated, we’re planning to significantly grow our workforce. With an attractive brand and a compelling vision, we feel that we’re well suited to continue to attract the best and the brightest,” said Younicos spokesperson Philip Hiersemenzel.

He added, “This investment is, of course, also a huge vote of confidence — in the disruptive potential of energy storage markets in general, and Younicos position to leverage both our pioneering experience and the sophistication of our software in particular.”

About Younicos

Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!

Younicos was founded in Berlin, during 2005, and currently has 150 employees in Germany and the USA.

The company made headlines last year when it announced that, using battery storage, the grid could use a 60% renewable mix with current technology.

Some of the new projects Younicos announced this year are:

• control software & energy management intelligence for  a fully automated 2-megawatt (MW)/2.7 megawatt-hour (MWh) energy storage system for the regional utility DREWAG in Saxony
• an agreement with Duke Energy Renewables and Samsung SDI to provide design, engineering, construction, software integration, and testing services for the repowering of the 36 MW Notrees Battery Storage facility in Texas.
• a turnkey 1 MW battery storage system OCI Solar Power in San Antonio, Texas
• “Smart Power Flow” — which involves the commercial trial of a  200 kilowatt / 400 kilowatt-hour vanadium redox flow battery in Bavaria.

“Of course, we’ve recently also announced the Y.Cube, a plug-and-play system that meets the needs of today’s energy market with an optimized all-in-one-solution,” said Hiersemenzel.

A Very Promising Pipeline

“What’s more, we successfully launched our consulting unit, which has already won several projects around the world and is helping write energy storage roadmaps for islands as well as for large model regions in Europe – and are helping large industrial energy users leverage energy storage.

“Overall, we have a very promising pipeline, i.e. projects we’ve identified and will either bid on or otherwise seek to develop. It’s the fundamental nature of any business that we will not win ALL of these. Some may materialize fully later, some earlier. Given this uncertainty, I can’t give you a direct estimate of our revenues next year, but only that the opportunities in this space are HUGE – and up for the taking. That’s exactly what’s so exciting for our old and new investors.”

Photo Credits: Younico’s Y-Converter; Announcement of Smart Power Flow in Bavaria; Younico’s Y-Cube — all courtesy Younicos

Related: Is This Company Set To Monopolize A Critical Energy Storage Sub-Sector?

→ See more Younicos stories on CleanTechnica.