oil giants are competing to buy battery companies - home energy storage
Shell, the oil giant, announced today its acquisition of a German energy company.
Store the startup program Sonnen.
Earlier, the oil group's risk arm invested $70 million in the company last year.
Founded in 2010, Sonnen said it has installed 40,000 battery packs in homes around the world (paywall).
Since it began, the cost of these units has dropped by 80% due to the decline in lithium prices
Made of ion batteries.
Shell's acquisition has boosted Sonnen's ability to compete with companies such as Tesla, Samsung and LG in Europe, the United States and Australia, where rooftop solar installations are increasingly popular.
With a battery pack large enough to store solar energy, some families don't have to pay for electricity at all.
Sonnen has an advantage over Tesla in a key area.
It uses lithium. iron-
It is known that phosphate batteries are cheaper and more durable than nickelcobalt-
Tesla's manganese batteries for electric cars and home energy-Storage system.
Family Energy anyway
The storage market is growing less quickly than many expected.
The upfront costs of these systems are still high, which makes Sonnen explore alternative business models.
In 2018, the company received permission from the German network operator TenneT to connect tens of thousands of families.
Battery system as part of a "virtual power plant.
"That means, in theory, Sonnen can run a set of these batteries together like a power plant, balancing the network when demand surges.
Consumers who choose the Sonnen program can get cash from the grid services offered by their home batteries.
The company is also trying blockchain technology to manage energy transactions between households.
"We are not trying to replicate what others have done in the past --
"We want to provide customers with what they want in the future," Shell's Brian Davis told Green technology media . ".
"In a sense, we are trying to create future utility.
Shell's "new energy" division has become a utility that can deploy Sonnen's batteries to enhance services.
Prior to this, Shell also acquired Greenlots and New Motion, electric-
Car charging companies in the United States and Europe.
Sonnen also said it has developed its own power technology.
Now, car charging will be part of Shell's growing portfolio in this area.
Although we think oil is a commodity, it is basically the energy stored.
In this sense, the interest of large oil companies in batteries is not surprising.
In last May BP invested in StoreDot, a start-up for Israel electric power.
It says the car battery can be charged in less than five minutes.
In 2016, total bought the battery company Saft for $1. 1 billion.
Sign up for our free Daily newsletter, Quartz Daily Brief, to learn about the most important and interesting news in the world.