Clean energy solutions provider egg, which is backed by Liberty Global, has acquired the solar car park construction division of 3ti Energy Hubs.
The acquisition includes 3ti’s enterprise pipeline, proprietary design software, intellectual property, and team.
According to egg, the trading name of Phoenix Renewables, the acquisition will enable it to better deliver on its offer of fully managed solar, storage and EV charging infrastructure for businesses and the public sector.
Egg Solutions offers business electrification services and, along with egg Power forms the brand under which Liberty Global operates its energy transition interests.
Liberty Global also owns public EV chargepoint operator (CPO) Believ, which was launched under a joint venture with Zouk Capital as Liberty Charge in 2020.
According to the companies, 3ti’s solar car park portfolio has already generated a total of over 20GWh of clean electricity. The company was behind the 2.7MW solar car park installed at the Bentley Motors headquarters in Crewe.
For 3ti’s part, the divestment will allow it to continue scaling its solar EV charging hub technology, Papilio3. The technology sees upcycled shipping containers fitted with a 19.3kWp solar array EV to support 12 chargers, deployable at speed due to the minimal groundwork required. It has been used at NHS sites, council carparks and Silverstone racecourse, amongst others.
Director of B2B at egg, Paul Almond, said: “Car parks represent a major untapped energy resource, but complexity and capital costs often delay progress.”
To that end, the government opened a call for evidence earlier this year, signalling a likelihood that it will move to mandate that UK car parks have a solar PV installation, as has been the case in France for some time.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) estimates that supermarkets, retail parks and offices could save up to £28,000 annually by installing solar carports (this figure calculated for an 80-space car park—the size that France mandates must be covered by solar PV) if all of the electricity generated by the solar array was used onsite. The call for evidence seeks additional evidence of the benefits of such an initiative.
The benefits of solar car parks were explored in the last edition of Current±’s EV Infrastructure Report, in an article titled ‘The untapped potential of Solar and Storage EV charging’.
Our publisher, Solar Media, will soon launch a brand-new site dedicated to global EV charging infrastructure developments. Called EV Infrastructure News, the site will track market trends, technological breakthroughs and project developments from around the globe. Please visit and follow the official LinkedIn page to learn more.
