Australian clean energy investment firm Providence Asset Group has acquired a major equity stake in local energy-tech software business Evergen, injecting $3 million and joining current backers AMP Capital and Artesian as leading shareholders.
As part of the terms of the agreement, Providence Asset Group will invest a further $3 million into Evergen through the Providence Smart Future Early Stage Venture Capital Fund. Alan Yu, co-founder of Providence Asset Group, will also join Evergen as a director, while Evergen has been appointed as the global software partner for Providence’s LAVO and H2Store hydrogen batteries.
LAVO is the world’s first household hydrogen energy storage system and is being developed by Providence alongside the Hydrogen Energy Research Centre at the University of NSW.
Providence and UNSW’s Hydrogen Energy Research Centre recently signed a 10-year joint research and collaboration initiative which is intended at developing more efficient and cost-effective energy storage solutions.
Providence’s LAVO system uses patented metal hydride technology to store hydrogen equivalent to up to 60kWh, enough to power the average household for around three days.
Evergen’s Intelligent Control software will provide the digital customer experience for LAVO, maximising performance and allowing the devices to be arrayed as a Virtual Power Plant alongside more traditional lithium-ion batteries.
The H2Store batteries are set to be deployed on Providence solar farms in the coming years, and Evergen’s software will optimise these into Virtual Power Plants.
“This investment and strategic alignment marks the next chapter in Evergen’s evolution,” said Ben Hutt, CEO and Managing Director of Evergen.
“Our alignment with the team at Providence to accelerate the transition to renewables and do this at scale both in Australia and elsewhere in the world, is very strong.
“We’ve been waiting for hydrogen batteries, and the LAVO and H2Store products are world-class and unique in what they can deliver for consumers, businesses, and the system as a whole.
“It’s still early for this technology, and current Lithium Ion batteries will be essential for many years to come, but in the long-term hydrogen can be better for the environment.
Evergen describes its mission as being “to kill a coal-fired power station in 10+ countries by powering the transition to a resilient, renewable, decentralised energy system of the future.”
Evergen also teased news that they are involved in several “significant projects underway with a number of utilities that will be announced in coming months.” This includes managing a fleet of over 5,000 household batteries by Christmas, as well as several multi-megawatt projects set to come online in 2021.
“Our investment and partnership with Evergen marks our commitment to accelerating hydrogen solutions and making small scale hydrogen batteries and associated products available worldwide,” said Yu.
