CEO Interviewed by Norton Rose Fulbright
New Energy Risk CEO Tom Dickson was interviewed by Partner Todd Alexander of Norton Rose Fulbright, a global law firm offering full business law services, for the podcast Currents, which offers "in-depth discussions on the latest developments in project finance and renewable energy from a legal perspective."
Listen and learn about how New Energy Risk is "enabling project finance and bankability for new technologies through insurance. We go over the void that New Energy Risk is filling, how its product offerings evolve over time, how to scale energy storage, how carbon capture will compare to other industries, trends in capital markets and more."
Listen to Currents Episode 115 here.
NER Releases its 2019 Sustainability Report
New Energy Risk helps mitigate technology risk for innovators addressing global challenges in energy, pollution, and decarbonization. To date, over $2B of project capital has been deployed to scale and commercialize technologies via our proven platform that supports innovation.
We are proud of our clients, who are committed to solving some of the world's most pressing environmental issues. Collectively, they are reducing landfills and building a circular economy, reducing dependence on aging centralized power grids, reducing transportation’s dependence on petroleum, and preventing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
View New Energy Risk's representative client impact today:
https://newenergyrisk.com/ner-sustainability-report-2019/
Want to learn more about our contribution to sustainability efforts? Read our affiliate AXA's Climate Report and find New Energy Risk on page 45.
AXA Publishes its 2020 Climate Report
We are proud to be featured on page 45 of AXA's 2020 Climate Report, recognizing our work with clients addressing some of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world today.
Below is AXA's original press release. Peruse to learn more about the important initiatives of our affiliates.
AXA Publishes its 2020 Climate Report
AXA announced the publication of its 4th Climate Report. This document describes AXA's responsible investment and insurance initiatives in the fight against climate change and measures the Group's progress in implementing the objectives of the Paris Agreement by 2050.
This report meets both a legal obligation established by the French law on energy transition for green and ecological growth, and the approach of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) that AXA has supported since its creation. The report's main indicator, the "warming potential," measures the impact of the Group's investments on global warming and its contribution to the fight against climate change.
At the end of 2019, AXA's "warming potential" was 2.8°C, down compared to 2018 (3°C) and below the market average (3.6°C). This evolution notably reflects the ambitious policy implemented by AXA to align its investments with the objectives of the Paris Agreement by 2050.
"AXA has been a pioneer in taking ambitious measures to combat climate change. Our Climate Report is an essential tool for measuring the effectiveness of the strategy we have implemented. It also shows that we must collectively pursue our efforts to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement, notably in the context of the post-Covid 19 economic recovery." Thomas Buberl, CEO of AXA
"We witness the ground-breaking engagement of AXA in addressing the risks of unabated global climate change. AXA has been in the front of global efforts for years, going beyond thought leadership into corporate action leadership." Christiana Figueres, Founding Partner, Global Optimism & Former Executive Secretary, UN Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC)
This 2020 Climate Report is available on AXA’s website at the following address: https://www.axa.com/en/press/publications/2020-climate-report
Lloyd's Features NER in Report: Renewable Energy Risk and Reward- Risks and Technologies
Renewable Energy Risk and Reward: Risks and Technologies, co-produced by Lloyd's, Imperial College London, and Oxford Energy Associates, features NER on page 10. Scroll to the bottom of this webpage to download the full report.
The text of the NER feature is included here:
Performance insurance solutions for breakthrough technologies
Innovation comes with risk, but that should not stop companies from paving the road to the future. New Energy Risk (“NER”), a California-based MGU, works with pioneers in the new-energy arena to support technology breakthroughs, advancing the critical projects needed to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. To do so, NER structures customised performance insurance products that seek to mitigate technology risk for clients, and their customers and lenders as a result.
NER-developed policies are underwritten and issued by one of the affiliated insurance companies of AXA XL (S&P AA-) and administered by its subsidiary Complex Risk and Insurance Associates, LLC, licensed in California (#0I24307). Policies stand behind the client’s technology performance and ultimately protect project debt-lenders or end-customers from certain losses associated with the underperformance of an asset. By incorporating a double-trigger mechanism—wherein the technology has to perform below a pre-determined, conservative threshold, and the technology provider has to default on performance warranties that match or exceed the insurance terms—the policy seeks to align the interest of developers, customers, and investors with the insurer to provide technology risk transfer to the insurer, without introducing moral hazard or misaligned incentives.
With a team of scientists and insurance professionals, NER has developed a data-driven methodology for evaluating technical risk, bringing a new class of diversified risk to the insurance market. The company’s proprietary modelling uses Monte-Carlo analysis techniques that simulate a range of potential project outcomes to assess uncertainty around performance and reliability of a client technology, including the impact on relevant economics. The result is well-structured and profitable packages delivered in conjunction with insurance partners, and client access to financing that is minimally dilutive and optimally priced.
In only five years, NER’s clients have already deployed over $2 billion in capital, supported by AXA XL’s insurance companies, and their global reinsurers, including various Lloyd’s syndicates. NER’s diverse and global client-base represents a wide range of technologies and industries, from fuel cells and waste-to-value to nuclear medicine, all focused around the mission of mitigating global challenges through smart business. Clients include:
- Fulcrum BioEnergy, a trash-to-biofuel developer building their first commercial facility in the US;
- Bloom Energy, the leading supplier of solid-oxide fuel cells for reliable, resilient, and cost-effective on-site electricity;
- RES Polyflow, an innovative plastic waste-to-fuel technology company building a recycling project in the US; and
- SHINE Medical Technologies, a development-stage company working to become the world’s leading producer of medical isotopes.
Learn more about New Energy Risk at www.NewEnergyRisk.com
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New Energy Risk, SHINE Medical Technologies Partner on Innovative Insurance Solution That Supports Financing of One-of-a-Kind Nuclear Medicine Facility
MENLO PARK, Calif., March 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New Energy Risk (NER), one of the leaders in customized insurance solutions for breakthrough technology projects, today announced that it has provided SHINE Medical Technologies, a development-stage company working to become the world's leading producer of medical isotopes, with an innovative performance insurance program for SHINE's groundbreaking production facility. The insurance solution provided by NER is a key component of SHINE's project financing and execution strategy.
SHINE's patented, proprietary isotope production process uses a safe, cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology to produce a variety of medical isotopes, including molybdenum-99, or Mo‑99, which is relied on for more than 40 million medical procedures every year. Roughly one percent of all Mo-99 in the world decays every hour, so it must be produced continuously. Current production is limited to a handful of government-owned nuclear research reactors, the majority of which are overseas. SHINE's facility will be the first non-reactor producer of Mo-99 in the United States. The facility will be capable of satisfying one-third of global patient need for Mo-99. SHINE's use of fusion technology solves the major problems caused by limited access to nuclear reactors and provides the potential to improve the lives of more than 1 billion people during the next 50 years.
To finance this development, SHINE raised capital from Deerfield Management Company and Oaktree Capital Management L.P., and approached NER, an affiliate of the global insurance group AXA XL, to design a custom performance insurance policy that would mitigate technology risk in this revolutionary project. NER utilized its proprietary technoeconomic analysis to extensively assess SHINE's technology, then developed an insurance product and monitoring schedule that covers the commissioning and output of the facility. This is the first time such a performance insurance product has been designed for a private medical isotope technology.
"2019 was SHINE's best year yet from a project finance and execution standpoint," said Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE Medical Technologies. "New Energy Risk's technology insurance solution was an important element of our success in 2019 and we are thrilled to be partnering with New Energy Risk on this unique approach."
"We're proud to have supported SHINE in their capital raise and are thrilled to apply our bespoke insurance solution for the first time in a critical medical field," said Tom Dickson, CEO of NER. "We are on a mission to partner with breakthrough technologies solving pressing global challenges, and SHINE is among the most impactful and exciting companies we have had as a client."
This project is among NER's growing portfolio of industrial projects that have cumulatively raised more than $2 billion in capital. Apart from the production of medical isotopes, NER's diverse clients have also planned to deliver or process annually: 441 thousand tons of recycled waste, 640 million kWh of energy, 50 million gallons of non-petroleum fuels, and 314 thousand tons of avoided CO2e.
About SHINE Medical Technologies LLC
Founded in 2010, SHINE is a development-stage company working to become a manufacturer of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine. The SHINE system uses a patented, proprietary manufacturing process that offers major advantages over existing and proposed production technologies. It does not require a nuclear reactor, uses less electricity, generates less waste, and is compatible with the nation's existing supply chain for Mo-99. In 2014, SHINE announced the execution of Mo-99 supply agreements with GE Healthcare and Lantheus Medical Imaging. In 2015, with the help of Argonne National Laboratory, GE Healthcare demonstrated that SHINE Mo-99 can act as a drop-in replacement for reactor-based Mo-99. In 2016, SHINE received regulatory approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct its production facility. The company began construction of the facility in the spring of 2019. SHINE has raised more than $350 million from investors and government sources.
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a pioneer of large-scale, breakthrough technology performance insurance solutions. Founded in 2010, the company provides complex risk assessment and serves as a bridge between technology innovators, financiers, and insurers. New Energy Risk has helped its customers raise over $2 billion in financing for commercializing renewable energy and new technology deployments. Insurance policies are administered through New Energy Risk affiliate Complex Risk and Insurance Associates, LLC, CA License #0I24307. To learn more, visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About AXA XL
AXA XL, the property & casualty and specialty risk division of AXA, provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com
Women in Insurance Leadership 2019
From Digital Insurance
Sharon Goldman
For Sherry Huang, the path to becoming an actuary started at an on-campus interview after studying statistics as an undergraduate in Berkeley. These days, as Chief Actuary at New Energy Risk (NER), which helps insure technical risk for breakthrough technologies related to renewable energy projects, she continues to use and evaluate data creatively, by analyzing and pricing transactions of technical performance risk.
“The central theme of all my experiences has been developing data-driven strategies and building a modeling framework to capture patterns and all elements of risk,” she says. Huang built the techno-economic modeling platform the NER team relies on from scratch, coding it in Python herself, integrating it with cloud-based databases, and creating a leading-edge user interface that is flexible in its inputs and allows team members to quickly analyze client risk profiles. She credits an analytics team leader at a client site with helping her understand how to build an effective and passionate team.
The work at NER, an MGA affiliated with AXA XL, is exciting and rewarding, she explains, because the company uses insurance and reinsurance to help address pressing global challenges related to clean technology, in areas such as waste, energy and new battery chemistries. Many clients have technologies that turn waste into products (or “trash to cash”), while others work on innovative, lower-carbon energy storage products.
“Through our underwriting rigor and consistent risk evaluation framework, I help turn risk into opportunities and enable growth for both for our customers and for our insurance partners,” she says. “Together, we are building a more sustainable future.”
Day-to-day, Huang spends her time evaluating clients’ pilot plant performance data together with NER’s science/engineering team, understanding related project economics, market factors and regulations. “Ultimately, I make sure our risk model for each transaction is consistent, comprehensive and transparent, so our insurer and reinsurer partners can rely on the results to deploy their capital,” she explains.
This kind of innovation in the insurance space is bound to continue, she predicts, either based on new technologies or new creative policy coverages that address an existing protection gap.
“I see continuous support on the regulatory and private investment front which will allow more energy technology companies to grow,” she says. “I see the insurance industry continuing to focus on sustainability and closing the protection gap, making a real difference in the global economy in a meaningful way.”
Opportunities abound
Huang believes there’s a commitment to leveling the playing field for women and minorities in both the technology and insurance industries.
“More women leaders are willing to speak out and step up about issues such as pay inequality and the glass ceiling,” she says. “I see a trend of empowerment for women as well as minorities, by male and female leaders alike.”
There is a real recognition of a disproportionate percent of C-suite women leaders and women entrepreneurs and venture-capital investors participating in the start-up world, she adds, pointing to California’s move to require all publicly held corporations headquartered in California to have at least one women director on their board by the end of 2019, causing a shift in the gender balance in the corporate board rooms.
“I believe over time, everyone will recognize that diversity is a key to innovation and profitability, and hopefully we will have a statistically significant data set to prove it,” she says. “I also hope that I can inspire and empower others as my mentors have inspired me.
These lessons stay with me.”
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New Energy Risk Welcomes Strategic Hires to Drive Growth & Streamline Client Experience
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- New Energy Risk, an affiliate of global insurer AXA XL, announced the appointments of Dr. Matt Lucas as Managing Director, Business Development and Dvorit Mausner as Director of Execution. The strategic additions of Dr. Lucas and Ms. Mausner come at an exciting time in New Energy Risk's evolution, as the company surpassed $1.99B in aggregate transactional value supported by its technology performance insurance solutions.
Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk, remarked that "as we look toward the future, New Energy Risk seeks to expand its business and associated benefits to novel technologies across new sectors and geographies, and provide support for a greater variety and size of projects. Matt and Dvorit joining our team is a pivotal moment for New Energy Risk as we expand into new technology sectors.
"As the renewable energy sector continues to explode, technology providers are increasingly looking to New Energy Risk to help take revolutionary technologies from development to deployment and commercial scale," Mr. Dickson added. "By bringing on Matt to lead business development and Dvorit to streamline operations, we expect to better serve an increasing number of clients with a more efficient process."
In his new role, Dr. Lucas will lead New Energy Risk's expansion into new technology sectors, geographies, and products. He brings both technical and commercial experience at large corporates and startups to New Energy Risk. He was previously a technology scout for a large corporation, then had operating experience in multiple hardtech university spinoffs, and exposure to public policy advising in the nonprofit sector. Dr. Lucas received his PhD from UC Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering.
Ms. Mausner will support the streamlining and management of the entire client experience. She brings experience scaling six previous operations across the for-profit, academic, and non-profit sectors. She has previously directed engagement for international fundraising and behavior-change campaigns and revitalized a 6,000 sq ft science makerspace. Ms. Mausner is also co-founder and partner of Temescal Brewing in Oakland. Most recently, she designed a pre-seed carbontech startup accelerator. Ms. Mausner studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a business certification from the Wharton School, a Master's in Philanthropy and Social Justice, and a Bachelor's in the Biological Basis of Behavior.
New Energy Risk has also promoted other personnel. Sherry Huang is now Chief Actuary, and Brentan Alexander assumes the role of Chief Commercial Officer in addition to his existing role of Chief Science Officer.
Visit the www.newenergyrisk.com/team to learn more about Dr. Lucas and Ms. Mausner, and to connect with New Energy Risk via [email protected].
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a leading provider of performance risk solutions for breakthrough energy technologies and a pioneer in the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. The company was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as a bridge between technology innovators and insurers. Since then, New Energy Risk has supported project finance transactions in aggregate value of over $1.99 billion for renewable energy and new technology deployments. New Energy Risk is an affiliate company of AXA XL. To learn more, visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About AXA XL
AXA XL provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com
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New Energy Risk Backs $260M Plastics-to-Fuel Plant with Innovative Insurance Solution
New Energy Risk Backs $260M Plastics-to-Fuel Plant with Innovative Insurance Solution
SAN FRANCISCO — April 22, 2019 — New Energy Risk, the leader in customized insurance solutions for renewable technology projects, has provided RES Polyflow, a leading plastics-to-fuel technology company, with a performance insurance program for its ground-breaking Ashley, Indiana plant. The project will be the United States’ first commercial-scale plastics-to-fuel project. Once completed, the facility will convert 100,000 tons of plastic into 18 million gallons of fuel and six million gallons of wax annually. By working with New Energy Risk (NER), RES Polyflow has reduced the overall cost of project capital, increased the certainty of execution, and made the bond offering more attractive to investors.
To finance this deployment, RES Polyflow and its parent development company, Brightmark Energy, raised an aggregate amount of $260 million, including $185 million in Indiana green bonds, underwritten by Goldman Sachs & Co. To streamline the financing, the companies approached NER, an affiliate of the global reinsurance group AXA XL, a division of AXA, to design a custom performance insurance policy that would mitigate technology risk for financiers interested in investing in this revolutionary project. NER used a systematic, data-driven approach to extensively assess the company’s technology, then developed an insurance product that covers the overall waste conversion process of the plant.
RES Polyflow’s plastics-to-fuel pyrolysis process sustainably recycles waste that has reached the end of its useful life — including items that cannot readily be recycled, like plastic film, flexible packing, Styrofoam, and children’s toys. The Indiana plant superheats and then converts plastic into ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha blend stocks, as well as commercial grade wax. In the future, the output could be turned back into plastic, creating the world’s first circular technology for plastics.
“New Energy Risk’s technology insurance solution was a critical factor in completing the financing for this project,” said Jay Schabel, President of Brightmark Energy’s plastics division and of RES Polyflow. “We have worked closely with New Energy Risk to assess the technical aspects of our project and design an innovative insurance solution. NER’s involvement successfully lowered our capital cost and served to raise bondholder interest in the project.”
“We’re proud to have supported Brightmark and RES Polyflow in their capital raise and are excited to see their leading plastics-to-fuel technology convert plastic waste into millions of gallons of low-carbon fuels,” said Tom Dickson, CEO of New Energy Risk. “Brightmark is leading the way in providing a technology solution to the world’s plastic waste problem, while replacing traditional fossil fuels in the process. We look forward to continue supporting their work in the years to come.”
This project is the latest in a string of industrial renewable projects New Energy Risk has supported. In total, NER has now supported $1.6B in renewable project financing, which will lead to over 500,000 tons of waste processed into 50M gallons of biofuel every year.
About New Energy Risk New Energy Risk is a provider of performance risk solutions for breakthrough energy technologies and pioneer in the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. The company was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between technology innovators and insurers. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $1.6 billion in financing for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About AXA XL
AXA XL, a division of AXA, provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com.
New Innovative Insurance Instruments Will Accelerate Project Development And Deployment For TRI Biorefineries
BALTIMORE, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — ThermoChem Recovery International, Inc. (TRI), the Baltimore-based gasification technology company at the forefront of commercializing biorefineries, is pleased to announce that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with New Energy Risk (NER) that can help accelerate project development, increase profitability, and provide certainty of execution.
After completing due diligence on TRI’s suite of biorefinery-enabling technologies, NER, a leading provider of performance risk solutions for breakthrough technologies and affiliate of global insurance company, AXA XL, is prepared to provide various insurance solutions to biorefinery owners and projects which utilize TRI’s equipment and technology.
TRI has named New Energy Risk and AXA XL as its preferred supplier of technology performance insurance for TRI customers and projects.
“With NER taking the lead on providing solid insurance options to owners using our technology, we have eliminated a key obstacle to making commercial-scale biorefineries profitable and replicable,” said Dan Burciaga, President and CEO of TRI. “NER studied TRI’s 20-year track record of accomplishments and recognized a great opportunity to help make our projects more bankable. This is a great development for us, and for the whole industry.”
TRI is a leading provider of steam reforming gasification systems suitable for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), woody biomass, agricultural residues and other waste feedstocks. Its systems have been selected for and deployed on various commercial North American projects including the Fulcrum Bioenergy Project Sierra Biorefinery in Nevada and Norampac black liquor gasification, a division of Cascades Paper. Additionally, TRI’s multi-feedstock, fully-integrated biorefinery in Durham, North Carolina has run for over 13,000 hours, successfully producing syngas that is particularly well-suited to generating Fischer-Tropsch liquids and upgrading to ASTM-certified fuels.
Burciaga said, “New Energy Risk understands this sector, and they understand our technology. What’s more, they know the types and levels of risk mitigation our project owners and investors need in order to get these projects over the finish line and to get steel into the ground.”
“Our business is in backing technologies with demonstrated reliability,” said Jon Cozens, Chief Commercial Officer at New Energy Risk. “We find the rigor to which TRI has developed and proven its technology to be one of the most thorough we’ve found, and over the last several years TRI has been associated with many of the highest quality projects New Energy Risk vetted. We look forward to accelerating the deployment of the TRI technology and providing assurance to owners and investors that the TRI technology will perform.”
About TRI
Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, TRI is a global leader in steam reforming, an ultra-clean and high-efficiency gasification technology well-suited to a range of biorefinery and power generation applications. TRI’s proprietary process converts cellulosic feedstocks (including post-sorted Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), bark, forest residuals, agricultural waste, energy crops and low rank coals) into a synthesis gas (“syngas”) which can be converted into biofuels, biochemicals and power. TRI partners with world-class technology and EPC providers and licenses its proprietary technologies — including feeder, gasification and gas clean-up systems — as well as provides specialized equipment and engineering services to the global renewable energy sector.
About steam reforming gasification Steam-reforming gasification is the first stage in the biomass-to-liquids process that converts woody biomass and other solid feedstocks into premium fuels. Gasifiers convert carbon-containing materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This is achieved by reacting the material at medium temperatures (>700 °C), without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. The syngas is then cleaned and the carbon monoxide to hydrogen ratio adjusted if necessary to meet the specifications needed for input to chemical catalytic reactors, for example the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process.
http://tri-inc.net/steam-reforming-gasification/
About New Energy Risk
New Energy Risk is a provider of performance risk solutions for breakthrough technologies and pioneer in the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. The company was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between technology innovators and insurers. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $1 billion in financing for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, visit www.newenergyrisk.com.
About AXA XL
AXA XL provides insurance and risk management products and services for mid-sized companies through to large multinationals, and reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally. We partner with those who move the world forward. To learn more, visit www.axaxl.com
Source provided by: ThermoChem Recovery International, Inc. (TRI) Jan 29, 2019, 07:00 ET
More Money Flows to Flow Batteries: ESS Nabs $13 Million Funding Round
More Money Flows to Flow Batteries: ESS Nabs $13 Million Funding Round
The company wants to expand its annual iron flow battery production to 900 megawatt-hours.
Iron flow battery maker ESS raised $13 million in a Series B round, expanding the pool of cash available to upstart alternative storage companies.
The money will go to automate and expand the manufacturing facilities where the Oregon company makes its containerized long-duration storage product, the Energy Warehouse. If all goes according to plan, the improvements will raise the six-year-old company’s annual output to 900 megawatt-hours.
That’s significant for the small field of long-duration contenders challenging lithium-ion’s dominance in the energy industry today.
Flow battery makers like ESS tout the relative safety of their ingredients compared to lithium-ion, with its flammability and rare earth metals. The alternative chemistries also provide long-duration storage, maintaining high levels of discharge well beyond the 4-hour mark typical of lithium-ion systems today.
The challenge is that little market opportunity exists for 8 hours of storage, and customers and investors tend to be leery of a technology that’s even newer and more exotic than the mainstream batteries.
The new round of funding suggests that at least some investors are changing their minds.
The Series B brought back original investors, including Pangaea Ventures. But it also welcomed new investors global chemical company BASF, Cycle Capital Management, Presidio Partners Investment Management and InfraPartners Management.
“After conducting extensive research across a range of battery technologies, designs and developers, we’ve concluded that ESS offers a superior combination of low-cost, clean, safe and long-life chemistry; scalable architecture, and management experience,” BASF Venture Capital Managing Director Markus Solibieda said in a statement.
ESS closed its Series A in October 2015, raising $3.2 million from Pangaea Ventures, Element 8 and other angel investors. At that time, the company had also been awarded roughly $4.5 million in grants from ARPA-E, the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, and Oregon Best.
This summer, VP of Business Development Bill Sproull told GTM that the near-term strategy is to use demonstration projects to raise awareness about the technology, and to work with EPCs and project developers to get units in the field around the world.
But, Sproull said, ESS is already getting revenue from its demo projects. “We have not had to donate systems to anyone,” he said.
Flow batteries more broadly have made some headway over the past several months.
NEXTracker, a leading solar tracker vendor, recently relaunched its flow battery product and confirmed that it had deployed some units, without saying how much capacity.
Vanadium redox flow battery maker Vionx launched a third-party performance insurance product backed by New Energy Risk. This offering reduces the trust barrier for customers — instead of relying on a young company with a miniscule balance sheet to back a 20-year product, the burden shifts to an established insurer. ViZn Energy similarly developed a third-party insurance product.
Flow battery contender Primus Power secured a $32 million equity raise in April to fund global expansion to Europe, China and South Africa. That brought total equity funding to $94 million, plus another $20 million in government grants.
Originally published at www.greentechmedia.com.