Energy storage specialist Moixa has raised £2.5m to invest in its growth strategy, including a 2020 target for the creation of a UK virtual power plant comprising 100,000 home batteries.
The plant will aggregate an overall storage capacity of 250MWh in order to provide balancing services to National Grid.
To help achieve this goal, Moixa secured £1m of funding from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to open a regional sales and delivery centre in the city.
An additional £1.5 million in equity investment will support product trials in Europe, the US and Asia. £500,000 of the equity funding comes from Japan’s largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Moixa plans to pilot its battery system in Tokyo later this year.
Moixa announced its expansions plans at the Housing 2017 conference in Manchester. Commenting on the news, Simon Daniel, Moixa’s chief executive said: “Smart home batteries are transforming our electricity system, saving money for households and communities and supporting a cost-effective, reliable, low-carbon network.
“We are developing solar plus storage solutions for social housing that will help councils tackle fuel poverty and we look forward to collaborating with Greater Manchester and supporting the low carbon energy transition in the Northern Powerhouse region.”
Moixa is among the largest players in the UK’s rapidly evolving energy storage market. It has installed nearly 1,000 systems in the UK with a combined nine million hours of operation.