Finnish Cactos raises €26 to finance energy-as-a-service using first and second life ESS

The ESS company Cactos based in Muhos, Finland has raised over €26M in its Cactos Fleet Finland Limited Partnership to finance the growth of its battery energy storage system portfolio with OP Finland Infrastructure LP and the Finnish Climate Fund as lead investors. The aim is to raise a total of €70M with €35M in equity and €35M in debt. All of the capital is to be invested in energy stoarage systems over a period of two and a half years and with an expected operational period of approximately ten years.

Cactos today have two different energy storage units, Cactos One Classic unit made from second-life Tesla EV batteries and the Cactos One Cardo which uses first-life lithium iron phosphate batteries. All units are automated by the Cactos Spine cloud system. In December 2023, the company owned approximately 50 Cactos One battery energy storage units, and thanks to the latest financing, its portfolio will grow to more than one thousand units in the coming years.The largest system currently owned by the company is a 2.5 MWh Cactos One energy storage system installed in a logistic center in Tuusula, Finland.

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The latest capital raise of Cactos is particularly interesting from a battery lifecycle perspective as it enables the company to own and operate energy storage systems in contrast to only build and sell them. With the LP structure the investors are basically investing in the coming revenues generated from the systems rather than investing in Cactos as a venture. That energy is monitised rather than the systems also mean that Cactos is completely in charge when it comes to how the lifecycle of batteries should be optimised. With experience in second life applications there is even possibilties to reshuffle the growing portfolio based on battery performance, new use cases (potential for long duration ESS for instance), battery prices etc.

What's also notable is how Cactos is lining up in the long line of second life specialists that bascially become energy storage companies with second life as one option alongside a growing offer of systems using new batteries. This is something we have seen in companies like Aceleron, Big Battery, Batteryloop and ECOSTOR. The original idea to capture value from old batteries is overtaken by the opportunities for the actual application, stationary energy storage. Drivers of this change is decreasing battery prices but also lower availability of end-of-life batteries to use, compared to many companies' expections.