Japan's Orix invests in US energy storage start-up UniEnergy

Japanese financial services group Orix Corp (TYO:8591) on Monday said it had acquired a stake in UniEnergy Technologies LLC (UET), a US start-up specialising in large-scale energy storage systems.

Orix has purchased preferred voting shares giving it 10% of the voting rights in the holding company that owns 100% of UET.

In a separate statement, UET said that the initial Series B investment by Orix, in which UET's current private equity investor is also participating, totals USD 25 million (EUR 22.9m). The company will use the funds to scale up production and expand business development and sales in North America and globally. Based near Seattle, Washington, UET will be scaling up to produce 100 MW annually, according to its announcement.

UET has commercialised a next-generation vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) into a utility-class system. The company was set up in 2012 by two researchers who developed a next-generation vanadium electrolyte while working at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). It is licensing the electrolyte technology from PNNL.

Orix joins a Chinese manufacturer of vanadium energy storage systems which has held a stake in the start-up since its founding. UET is eyeing future expansion in the Chinese and Japanese markets in partnership with its shareholders, the Japanese company said.

Orix said that the US market for large-scale energy storage systems was forecast to top USD 1 billion in 2019, surging nearly eightfold from 2014. Due to the expansion of renewable power generation, large-scale energy storage systems are increasingly being installed to stabilise power supplies. Large energy consumers are also increasingly using large-scale energy storage systems to reduce peak demand charges, Orix notes.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.916)

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