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Volvo Group is through its business area Volvo Energy investing in the UK-based, second-life battery energy storage specialist Connected Energy, participating in a round also involving other existing and new investors.
Volvo's investment is approximately SEK 50M ($4.83M) for which the heavy vehicle group will own 10 per cent of the Newcastle-based ESS developer, bringing the post-money valuation to around $48M.
Connected Energy is one of the true pioneers in using batateries in their second life for energy storage solutions with several MWh scale systems deployed. The company has primarily been working with Renault through which it has sourced batteries from the models Zoe and Kangoo. Existing investors include Engie New Ventures, Macquarie, and the Low Carbon Innovation Fund. These are now joined by Volvo Energy, Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc., the Hinduja Group, Mercuria and OurCrowd. Sumitomo is not mentioned as an investor anymore.
Volvo Energy is a business area within the Volvo Group where both activities around the batteries in their first life, such as charging and battery management, are developed, alongside everything that happens post life such as remanufacturing, reuse and recycling of the batteries. Besides Connected Energy Volvo Group has been working with Batteryloop deploying second life bus batteries in residential energy storage solutions.
More about the investment here.