#8 Energy Storage News & Views

Welcome to the 8th edition of my Energy Storage News & Views, a bi-weekly newsletter where I will be sharing the latest developments in the world of Energy Storage and an update on things here in the Energy Storage and Grid practice at Hyperion Executive Search.

This edition is a little delayed but for good reasons. Last week was the annual Smarter E Europe event in Munich, otherwise known as Intersolar and EES Europe (we need to settle on one name from now on haha). I attended along with David Hunt Wolfgang Kick Josef Hauser This has been a 'must attend' event for us over the years as it's one of the world's biggest exhibitions for Solar, Storage, and E-Mobility with 19 halls of exhibitors and over 100,000 visitors over the 3 days.

I've been going for the past 4 Smarter E events and each year it's bigger and better when it comes to Energy Storage presence. The amount of companies exhibiting was staggering - yes there was a lot of the bigger well, established players there but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of European SMEs and exciting start-ups on show too. This is definitely the decade of Energy Storage, but as I discussed with a number of people at Smarter E, it does also make you think about over saturation - there's no way so many companies can have a piece of the pie so there's likely to be some casualties along the way, as we saw with solar in the past.

All in all though, it was a fantastic event as always and a wonderful opportunity to have valuable face to face time with existing clients, new companies, and many candidates and industry contacts (many for the first time!). Special mention to Canadian Solar EMEA GmbH who stood out with their football themed t-shirts and live screening of the Germany v Hungary game at the event (great idea!) and to Evyon and CEO J?rgen S?rg?rd Erdal who certainly stood out from the crowd with his Evyon-themed suit (pictures below!). In the age of virtual meetings and LinkedIn, this face to face contact seems rare nowadays but it's what Hyperion has been built upon since day 1 and that will never change.

I'd well and truly smashed the 50,000 step by Friday lunchtime when I headed home, which made me feel a bit better after indulging on bratwurst and steins for a few days!

July marks the 10th birthday for Hyperion Search Ltd . That's 10 years of dedication to the clean energy and mobility transition, 10 years of helping our clients find the very best talent solutions for their businesses, and 10 years of fun! I'm very grateful have just passed my 3rd anniversary with the company and I've loved every day working here so far.

A special congratulations must go to our Founder and CEO David Hunt for reaching this milestone and a huge thank you to him and Ross Hoare & Wolfgang Kick for the continued visionary leadership and guidance you give us all.

Keep your eye on the Hyperion socials for some more 10 year celebrations in the coming weeks! ??

Recruitment News

On the recruitment front, our team has just placed a new Managing Director in the emerging Smart Metering sector in Germany. Kudos to Wolfgang Kick Hristiyana Indzhova and Josef Hauser on this one!

We've also secured a couple of new searches including a Senior/Lead Battery Scientist for a nex-gen battery anodes scale-up client, and an International Commercial Director for the new C&I ESS division of a corporate industrial machinery client. You can see both roles listed below.

As discussed with a few of you at Smarter E last week, the C-level and Director-level recruitment landscape has dipped a little, although our team has completed the MD Germany mandate (mentioned above) and a CEO mandate in Poland in Q2.

We're finding many companies are sitting tight with their executive recruitment, with fundraising a little slower at present and some major political elections imminent. Many are instead focusing on mid-senior tier hires who can drive sales or execute on existing project or product delivery, in the short-term. We're optimistic this will pick up again in the second half of the year with economic improvements and more geopolitical clarity.

When it comes to technology, there's an increasing interest in top sales people in both HW and SW for the ESS market. This is broad, with emerging interest in the relatively "untapped" C&I market. Key markets include UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Here are some of our key assignments...

Industry News

BESS is on the rise!

I mentioned the sheer volume of Storage players at Smarter E last week, so there's no surprise that analysis is showing that BESS capacities will soar over the next 4-5 years. Here's a recent post of mine, summarising the findings of this analysis by SolarPower Europe

CATL showcase more details on their "zero degradation" Tener ESS product

CATL demonstrated its new Tener ESS solution for C&I applications. When the Chinese giant launched this in April, their claims on "zero degradation" were greeted with a lot of scepticism as I covered here.

Some of their Executives discussed the technology features in a Q&A at Smarter E Europe last week and there seems to be more optimism around what they've achieved here. If it is indeed accurate then this will be a gamechanger for ESS. Let's see!

Love this feature on CATL's Tener product and superfast charging integration by the FullyCharged.SHOW & Everything Electric with Imogen Bhogal at last weeks' Smarter E event in Munich.

More uncertainty for European battery manufacturing

This week's news has been dominated by BMW's decision to cancel their €2 billion battery cells order from Northvolt, with many believing this is down to delays in NV's production schedules. BMW and NV are both saying it's a mutual decision to enable NV to focus on nex-gen cell development for new EV models in the long-term. Whatever the reasoning, it is another blow for European cell manufacturing, with NV being the shining light of the European batteries. It's important to consider that Northvolt still has several other key supply agreements with Fluence, Scania, Volvo, and VW Group etc.

Along with Northvolt, there have also been further doubts raised over the future of several planned battery factory developments. Most recently, ACC (backed by Auto giant, Stellantis) paused it's plans for plants in both Germany and Italy, after their €4.4 billion capital injection back in February.

Highview Power lands significant capital to start construction of large-scale LDES site

This funding (see below) enables Highview to immediately start building the first large-scale project (50MW/300MWh) for liquid air energy storage (LAES) technology, near Manchester, UK. Highview also has plans for four further UK facilities (2.5GWh) over the coming years. There have been strong calls for Government support for LDES technologies (including my own) and Highview have demonstrated exactly the type of project the proposed "Cap and Floor" scheme, which is still under consultation, could be perfect for.

Significant moves in major BESS projects in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is emerging as a new player in BESS, after many years playing catch up. I covered some of the previous challenges to Storage deployment in the country back in April. See here

BESS developers Lion Storage and Giga Storage are helping to change the narrative. Lion has now receiving their permit to construct its first 347MW / 1.5 GWh BESS project which is set to become operational in 2026 while Giga Storage should begin construction on it's 300MW/1.2GWh later this year.

Significant steps forward for the Dutch ESS market indeed!

Deals

It's been a strong few weeks for Batteries, Battery Materials, and Software companies when it comes to investment.

Highview Power - ￡300 million (Debt) - To immediately start building the first large-scale project (50MW/300MWh) for liquid air energy storage (LAES) technology, near Manchester, UK.

Sila Nanotechnologies - $375 million (Series G) - A huge raise to fund the completion of the construction of their US factory for mass production of their silicon anode material for next-generation battery technology

Inobat - €20 million (Series C) - Investor Amara Raja Mobility has increased it's stake in Inobat (alongside industry giant, Gotion), to help the company continue to scale it's product development and proposed plans for Gigafactories in Slovakia and Serbia.

Echion Technologies - ￡29 million (Series B) - To execute its go-to-market strategy for it's niobium-based anode material and reach industrial production scale.

Libattion - €14 million (Growth) - To fund their first battery upcycling / repurposing factory, the largest in Europe.

E-Zinc - $31 million (Series A2) - To continue their Zinc battery technology development and to deploy their next major pilot projects.

UNIGRID Battery - $12 million (Series A) - To accelerate and scale up its advanced sodium battery production to meet MWh-scale orders from e-mobility and stationary ESS customers.

SiTration - $11.8 million (Seed) - To support engineering work for their li-ion battery recycling mineral recovery technology and team growth as they build and deploy pilot and demo units at mine and metal refining sites.

VoltR - €4 million (Pre-Series A) - To industrialise its processes, to develop it's pilot plant for sustainable lithium batteries, drive further R&D work, and grow the team in France.

Entroview - €1.5 million (Seed) - To further develop and improve their battery diagnostics software, to grow their team, and to scale operations in France.

CeLLife Technologies - $10 million (Late VC) - To support the battery measurement and quality control software company's expansion into the Swedish and German markets, as well as further development of its cloud-based SaaS model.?

Princeton Nuenergy - $30 million (Series A) - To further commercialize their lithium-ion battery direct recycling process and support the construction of their first standalone, full-scale direct battery recycling advanced manufacturing facility.

Insights

UK ranked in the the top 3 BESS markets.? The UK has been ranked the 3rd most attractive BESS market in the world by the EY Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI), with only China and the USA (no shocks there) ahead of it. Australia, Germany, and Italy make up the top...?Read more .?

Could EU Tariffs be Next? We all saw the tariff announcements from the US recently, with Chinese EVs, batteries and parts, and solar modules all being hit with significant tax hikes if imported from China. I covered this in a previous Insights piece.? Well this week,...?Read more

VW and Rivian - a match made in heaven? A big bang in the car industry: Volkswagen is joining forces with US electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian to develop car software and plans to invest up to five billion dollars in the project. The Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer and Rivian intend...?Read more

Combating EV bottlenecks with talent.? We face bottlenecks in most walks of life but when it comes to the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, there's a complex and bureaucratic labyrinth in the face of progress - particularly frustrating for businesses eager to...?Read more .?

Focus H2 investments on the Demand Side.?Some pretty stark findings in this analysis by BloombergNEF.? Governments around the world are set to miss their combined 2030 clean hydrogen targets by half, primarily due to a lack of demand off-take. Only 12% of announced clean H2...?Read more .?

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Another edition coming soon!

David