UK-based energy storage and smart grid specialist Moixa will today announce it has secured £2.5m in new investment in support of its plans to build a ‘virtual power plant’ based on 100,000 domestic batteries.
The announcement will be made at the Housing 2017 conference in Manchester, where Moixa will confirm it has secured a £1m funding facility from Greater Manchester Combined Authority to support the development of a new regional sales and delivery centre in the city.
The new office will focus on offering solar and storage products to private customers and pursuing multi-thousand unit deployments with social housing clients.
The company will also confirm that it has secured £1.5m in new equity investment, including £500,000 from Japan’s largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and £500,000 from First Imagine! Ventures.
As part of the deal Moixa is now working on plans to pilot it battery systems in Japan, alongside Tepco and a number of other partners. Further trials in Europe and the US are also planned for the next 12 months, the company said.
The company, which last year launched a trial in Barnsley to integrate solar panels and its energy storage system, is aiming to aggregate a fleet of domestic batteries, which can then act like a back-up power plant to help balance the grid.
It is aiming to install 50,000 batteries in the UK by 2020 and manage a further 50,000 batteries through its smart grid software, creating a virtual power plant with up to 250MWh of capacity.
“Smart home batteries are transforming our electricity system, saving money for households and communities and supporting a cost-effective, reliable, low-carbon network,” said Simon Daniel, CEO of Moixa, in a statement.
“We are developing solar plus storage solutions for social housing that will help councils tackle fuel poverty and we look forward to collaborating with Greater Manchester and supporting the low carbon energy transition in the Northern Powerhouse region.”
The latest investment round was also backed by Lady Barbara Judge CBE, chairman of the Institute of Directors and Athene Capital, who will now sit on Moixa’s international advisory group as it starts to consider export markets.
She said Moixa was “well positioned to seize opportunities in a rapidly emerging global market”.
“It has unrivalled experience in the UK, strong partnerships with key players, and is working at the cutting edge pioneering the use of smart batteries in virtual power plants to cut costs and carbon in our electricity system,” she said.
The company is aiming to promote the financial benefits of a solar and storage package for customers, noting that solar panels that are integrated with a storage systems can cut domestic energy bills in half while also allowing customers to access a £50 a year ‘GridShare’ payment for contributing to Moixa’s virtual power plant.
Source: businessgreen.com
