MUKILTEO, Wash., Dec. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- UniEnergy
Technologies (UET), a leading energy storage solution provider,
announced today a strategic equity investment by ORIX Corporation
(NYSE: IX; TSE: 8591), a $19 billion
global financial services company with strong operational alignment
in the accelerating renewable energy and grid resiliency
sectors. ORIX is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with operations spanning 36
countries and 30,000 employees. The initial Series B
investment by ORIX, in which UET's current private equity investor
is also participating, totals $25
million.
With this investment, UET will scale up production and expand
business development and sales in North
America and globally. UET has already commercialized
the leading grid-scale flow battery energy storage solution
available on the market today, the Uni.Systemâ„¢. In operation
at multiple locations for more than a year and half, the deployed
Uni.Systems have discharged back to their respective grids hundreds
of megawatt-hours (MWh's). Customers to date include Avista
Utilities, Energiespeicher Nord GmbH & Co. KG
(with shareholders BWP Braderup-Tinningstedt and Robert Bosch
GmbH), Mission Produce, NY Citywide Administration Services
(NYDCAS), Snohomish Public Utility District, Terna, Viessmann
Group, and an unannounced customer based in California and elsewhere. The investment
will enable UET to leverage this growing market traction and
further gain market share.
In Japan and world-wide, UET
will partner closely with ORIX Corporation. Together, UET and
ORIX plan to make available to utility, commercial &
industrial, and microgrid customers a number of energy storage
system procurement models.
UET's core patented technology is an advanced vanadium flow
battery, with a new generation electrolyte first developed at
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with the support of the U.S.
Department of Energy, Office of Electricity. UET then
improved and commercialized the technology as part of a larger
corporate group now with a total of $300MM invested. UET will
continue to be based near Seattle,
WA, operating a 60,000 square foot engineering &
manufacturing facility scaling up to produce 100 megawatts
annually. Home of Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, and other
leading technology companies, Washington is one of the recognized market
leaders in energy storage in the U.S.
UET's CEO, Gary Yang, said: "With
the strategic investment by ORIX and further funding by our current
private equity investor, UET will now take its business to the next
level. We will scale our production, with installed systems
and orders totaling at present nearly 10MW and 40MWh. We will
expand our business development, sales, and marketing teams, as
well as offer financing capabilities and resources to our
customers, as we meet the large and growing energy storage market
in North America and throughout
the world. UET will continue to focus first and foremost on
meeting the needs of customers and delivering superior value to
them."
ORIX's head of its Environment and Energy Services division, and
Board Member of ORIX Corporation, Yuichi
Nishigori, commented: "ORIX Corporation is a
well-diversified financial institution with total assets of over
USD $90 billion (JPY 11,443 billion), listed on the Tokyo Stock
Exchange as well as NYSE. Among its businesses ranging from
financial leasing to investment operations, organized in six
business segments, Environment and Energy Services is one of the
key businesses ORIX is keen to grow further as a core area in the
future. ORIX is a major developer/operator of large-scale
renewable projects in Japan,
with 800 megawatts of solar capacity and 136 megawatts of wind
capacity in operation or under development. We see grid-scale
energy storage, exemplified by leading flow battery provider UET,
as critical to the integration of renewables and the modernization
of grids worldwide. Our plan is also to reach the distributed
generation business - we are now actively providing battery storage
rental service for household users in Japan. Following its strategic
investment in UET, ORIX will continue to explore further investment
opportunities and to scale up its energy business in the US market
where we have been active since 1981."
About UET
Founded in 2012, UET provides turn-key,
megawatt-scale energy storage solutions that simultaneously deliver
both power and energy for utility, commercial/industrial, and
microgrid applications. Those applications can be combined or
"stacked" to provide maximum value to the customer. UET's solutions
are differentiated by (i) an electrolyte with double the energy
density, much broader temperature range than conventional vanadium,
and 100% recyclability, (ii) a plug & play ISO containerized
design with a compact footprint, (iii) proven, high-performance
large-scale stacks with 15 years of development, 9 years of field
deployment, and hundreds deployed, and (iv) state of the art
controls with DNP3 protocols and power electronics supporting
IEEE1547, the Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Resources
with Electric Power Systems. UET's water-based technology is
operationally flexible, inherently safe, 20 year lifetime,
reliable, and economically compelling. The Uni.Systemâ„¢ is the
largest deployed flow battery in North
America and Europe,
supporting demand charge reduction, peak shaving, renewable
integration, ramping, frequency and voltage regulation, and
microgrid support.
About ORIX Corporation
ORIX Corporation (TSE: 8591;
NYSE: IX) is a financial services group that provides innovative
products and services to its customers by constantly pursuing new
businesses. Established in 1964, from its start in the leasing
business, ORIX has advanced into neighboring fields and at present
has expanded into the lending, investment, life insurance, banking,
asset management, automobile-related, real estate, and environment
and energy-related businesses. Since its first overseas expansion
into Hong Kong in 1971, ORIX has
expanded its business globally by establishing locations in 36
countries across the world. Moving forward, ORIX aims to contribute
to society while continuing to capture new business opportunities.
For more details, please visit our website:
http://www.orix.co.jp/grp/en/.
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SOURCE UniEnergy Technologies