sonnen Closes New €60 Million Financing Round and Adds Shell Ventures as New Investor
sonnen is pleased to announce the closing of its latest financing round of €60 million, led by Shell Ventures and significantly supported by all existing investors. The investment enables sonnen to expand its strategy of rapid international growth and to further enhance its pioneering position as the “utility of the future.”
Wildpoldsried, May 23, 2018 - As a world leader in smart, residential solar storage solutions, sonnen will be able to leverage this financing to strengthen its lead and accelerate growth in markets such as the United States and Australia.
“Growing faster than the energy storage market and establishing new technologies such as energy sharing and our virtual battery pool requires continued investments. We’re very happy to receive the backing of all our investors and the commitment of a major global player like Shell to follow our vision of clean and affordable energy for everyone,” said Christoph Ostermann, CEO of sonnen.
Alongside the investment, sonnen and Shell’s New Energies division have launched a strategic cooperation agreement in areas that offer synergies between the two companies. This partnership will include innovative integrated energy propositions, enhanced EV charging solutions and the provision of grid services that are based on sonnen’s virtual battery pool.
“The great team at sonnen has succeeded in building a market-leading position in residential storage,” said Brian Davis, VP Energy Solutions at Shell. “This investment enables us to combine Shell’s power business activities with sonnen’s high quality, innovative products and business model to enhance our consumer energy offerings. This is in line with our strategy to partner with leading companies to deliver more and cleaner energy solutions to our customers.“
Owners of the sonnenBatterie can not only cover their energy needs with clean and self-produced energy but can become part of the virtually connected sonnenCommunity platform for sharing their self-produced energy with other members. The energy pool of the sonnenCommunity is carefully balanced to manage supply and demand, providing financial benefits such as annual amounts of free energy. Additionally, sonnen can connect the storage systems of the sonnenCommunity, forming a large, virtual battery pool that offers grid services like balancing power or load shifting.
sonnen first launched the sonnenCommunity in 2016 in Germany. In 2017, sonnen introduced the strategy in Australia, followed by the first US-based sonnenCommunity in Jasper, Arizona.