sonnen Closes New €60 Million Financing Round and Adds Shell Ventures as New Investor

WILDPOLDSRIED, Germany, May 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.

About sonnen

The sonnen group is the worldwide market leader for smart energy storage and operator of the largest energy sharing platform. As one of the fastest growing companies in Germany and Europe, sonnen has received numerous international awards for its technology. In a ranking of the "Top 50 Smartest Companies 2016" by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), sonnen was listed alongside Amazon, Facebook and Tesla. Investors in the Bavarian company include the US technology corporation General Electric. sonnen already supplies over 120,000 people globally with energy. sonnen operates the sonnenCommunity, which is a decentralized energy platform for sharing self-generated energy.

About Shell Ventures

Shell Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Royal Dutch Shell plc ("Shell"). Continuing Shell's tradition in venture capital since 1997, Shell Venture's investment focus covers the full energy spectrum from O&G to renewable energy technologies and digital solutions. Shell Ventures co-invests with other corporate investors, venture capital funds and angels in both early stage and late stage (growth capital) companies. It supports Shell's New Energies business, which was created in 2016. Shell New Energies focuses on two main areas: new fuels for transport, such as advanced biofuels, hydrogen and electric mobility; and power, which includes low-carbon sources such as wind and solar as well as other solutions such as storage. Within the power portfolio, New Energies is actively pursuing investments that meet the needs of commercial, industrial and residential customers. 

Find out more at: http://shell.com/newenergies

SOURCE sonnen