ENGIE New Ventures, the corporate venture fund of power company ENGIE, announced today its participation in a financing round for UK-based Connected Energy, a company that uses electric vehicle batteries, at the end of their in-car first life, to create energy storage systems.

The new round saw existing investors including ENGIE New Ventures, Sumitomo, Macquarie and others increase their investment in Connected Energy, alongside Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 as a new investor. The round was also matched by R&D grant from Innovate UK as part of the ENGIE and UKRI Clean Growth Innovation Fund.

Johann Boukhors, Managing Director at ENGIE New Ventures, said:

“One of the energy sector’s biggest challenge is to able to store large capacities of electricity as intermittent renewable energy generation becomes more widespread. Connected Energy offers ingenious solutions to answer this need while offering a second life to electric vehicle batteries. Its approach provides a strategic fit with ENGIE’s ambition to accelerate the transition towards a carbon-neutral world.”

Connected Energy’s stationary energy storage technology system, E-STOR, has a modular and scalable design that can be adapted to control any electric vehicle battery pack. Utilizing second life electric vehicle batteries, the technology extends the batteries’ life by 5-10 years, saving energy costs and making better use of renewable energy generation, while helping to stabilize existing electricity grids or to build autonomous mini-grids.

Matthew Lumsden, CEO of Connected Energy, said:

“We almost double the working life of the batteries for vehicles and thereby greatly increase the value created from the resources already embedded in them. Our objective is to provide our end-customers with bankable energy storage systems and our battery supply partners with reliable routes to market for their second-life batteries. With this additional investment we aim to capitalize on our system data to further optimize our technology and continue to scale up our development plans.”