Enecsys to use £25m fundraising to grow Cambridge and scale up manufacturing
 |
| Energising: Enecsys technology can increase the power of and efficiency of solar power |
The growth plan includes Cambridge, home to 40 of Enecsys' total staff, though the main expansion will be in the US at its California facility, a market Enecsys is eager to enter.
The money will be used to increase in R&D to drive down unit costs and scale up manufacturing. The company is already the first to market with solar micro inverter technology in Europe and wants to be number two in the US.
The Poland assembly plant will grow, as will Cambridge, Bad Homburg in Germany and Redwood Shores, California. Enecsys components are manufactured in the Far East and it has also opened a new Taiwanese operation as a result of its growth plan.
As well as being one of the first companies to market with micro inverters, Enecsys believes its technology carries several competitive advantages including a life-span that matches that of the photovoltaic (PV) module and the ability to increase energy yield by between five and 20 per cent.
Solar inverters are used to convert DC power from the PV cells into AC power for the electricity grid. Conventional devices use 'string' inverters to support a large number of panels, but are generally less efficient and their malfunction can effect the whole panel, unlike micro inverters which support one or two modules.
Micro Inverters can, however, be harder to maintain, which is why Enecsys has, for what it claims is the first time, eliminated components that limit inverter life.
The company will continue to work on re-engineering the inverters to drive the cost down further and will use the Series B money to hire staff that can do that.
The Enecsys IP is based on patented technology developed at the University of Cambridge. The company has previously raised £8.5m, but has no plans for any more according to CEO, Henrik Raunkjaer.
This last round was led by Climate Change Capital Private Equity who invested £11m and claims it is the largest fundraising round closed this year by any European cleantech company.
Climate Change Capital was joined on the round by existing Enecsys investors, Wellington Partners, NES Partners (formerly known as Bankinvest New Energy Solutions) and Good Energies.
"The ability for Enecsys to provide high performance, cost effective micro inverters with the reliability and life expectancy to match that of solar modules fundamentally changes the economic model of solar PV and will play an important role in growing the market for this clean power source," said Simon Drury, a partner at Climate Change Capital who joins the Enecsys board.
