Renewable energy supplier Social Energy has received a significant investment from fund manager CarVal Investor to grow its business and enter new markets.
The company uses artificial intelligence and virtual power plant technology to optimise its customers’ solar-connected battery storage, monitoring energy usage and managing storage and distribution to minimise customer bills. The investment will allow the company to expand its offering to include other smart electrical products such as hot water takes and electric vehicles.
Additionally, Social Energy will use the investment from the Australian investor to expand globally, including into continental Europe, North American and Asia. This follows the British company entering the Australian market in November 2020 thanks to a partnership with Duracell.
Richard Smith, CEO of Social Energy, said the investment was an “exciting development” that would allow the company to move onto the next stage of its story.
“We are delighted to have a partner on board who is heavily focused in the renewable sector and has complementary businesses across the globe,” he added.
“CarVal’s expertise will be invaluable in scaling the business and we are excited about taking Social Energy to new markets, as well as growing our existing operations in the UK and Australia.”
Social Energy currently has over 6,000 customers, but said there is ample opportunity to grow its customer base with a million homes in the UK and 2.5 million in Australia that already have solar panels.
In the UK, the company has used its fleet of customer batteries to trade Fast Frequency Response, becoming the first company to gain a fully domestic contract. Using its AI platform for managing technology like this can help provide additional revenue streams for customers by meeting the growing need for flexibility.
CarVal Investors’ funding was completed in December 2020, and will see Stuart Lammin, principal at CarVal Investors, join the board of Social Energy with immediate effect.
Lammin said they were delighted to have completed the investment and were “very much looking forward to helping to support their ambitions over the coming years”.