Centrica has boosted its presence within the global energy market with the acquisition of Restore, the demand response aggregator manging 1.7GW of peak load from industrial and commercial customers across European countries and the US.
The Belgian-headquartered company will form part of Centrica’s international Distributed Energy & Power unit, which offers optimisation and energy services to large energy users under the Centrica Business Solutions banner.
The acquisition will add Restore’s demand response aggregation capabilities to this division, which generates revenue for businesses by using capacity from the assets of over 150 of Europe’s largest energy users to bid into ancillary service tenders.
The £62 million acquisition means this proposition will be added to Centrcia’s customer offer and builds on the previous acquisitions of Panoramic Power, Neas Energy and ENER-G Cogen.
Jorge Pikunic, managing director of Centrica Distributed Energy & Power, said: “I am delighted to welcome Restore to Centrica. This acquisition is an important step forward in the delivery of our strategy, expanding on our offer to business customers to help them take control of their energy and gain competitive advantage.
“Restore’s proprietary technology and track record with large I&C customers will add to our optimisation capabilities and enable growth opportunities as global markets for flexibility continue to evolve.”
The deal will also further expand Centrica’s geographic footprint into new European markets, with Restore working with customers across Belgium, the UK, France, Germany and America.
Restore’s co-founders Pieter-Jan Mermans and Jan-Willem Rombouts, said: “There is clearly a momentum in the market right now so we are thrilled to be working with Centrica to further scale the go-to-market of Restore’s software solutions and demand response services in the UK, North America and other international markets.”
Centrica has spent much of this year expanding its offer across a range of energy services after selling off its last UK combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) in June. As recently as October, the company invested in blockchain start-up LO3 Energy following an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Grid Edge to fund the development of cloud-based energy management software.
This commercial activity comes amidst efforts by Centrica to understand the energy-related issues facing UK businesses, with a recent study suggesting that UK businesses are at an increased risk of power-related failures that could endanger employees and profit margins.
For more information, download the full edition of Centrica’s Resilience Report from our resource library, here.
