The £25m injection from Tepco and Jera comes with option for a further £10m to help scale up company's power storage ambitions
UK energy storage start-up Zenobe has secured £25m of investment from Japanese power giants Tepco and Jera to help accelerate the rollout of its technology and "expand into new markets", it announced yesterday.
The £25m injection comes with an option for a further £10m backing from the Japanese firms, and is the largest direct equity investment in a UK energy storage company to date, Zenobe said.
One of the UK's leading independent owner and operators of battery storage projects in the UK, Zenobe currently boasts 73MW of assets across nine sites where it provides flexible power services to utilities, as well as industrial and commercial businesses.
The company said the investment would help expand its offering to commercial electric vehicle operators, including electric bus fleets. Zenobe is one of a number of firms exploring how energy storage systems co-located with EV fleet charging sites could help ease pressure on the grid, cut emissions, and generate additional revenue streams for fleet operators.
The latest investment comes on top of £45.5m of equity already invested into Zenobe over the past 18 months, as well as over £30m of non-recourse senior debt facilities secured from Santander and Generation IM, the company said.
Nicholas Beatty, co-founder of Zenobe, said Tepco and Jera would bring "unique commercial and technical capabilities" to the firm as well as access to a global supply chain.
"This investment reinforces Zenobe's reputation as an innovator in the energy market," he said. "Together, we'll help energy intensive businesses use power intelligently to reduce costs, improve resilience and minimise environmental impact."
UK clean energy firms appear to have become increasingly attractive to Japanese investors in recent months. Earlier this month, clean energy supplier Tonik secured £10m backing from Japanese firm Mitsui, while Mitsubishi snapped up a 20 per cent stake in OVO and energy storage specialist Moixa recently received a £5m investment from ITOCHU.
Satoshi Yajima, senior vice president of overseas business at Jera, welcomed the latest deal. "Zenobe has a strong track record of successful commercial innovation and application of battery storage, on the basis of its deep understanding of energy storage technologies and customer requirements, as well as leveraging important industry relationships," he said.