Gravity-based energy storage company Energy Vault added US$191 million to its existing cash reserves when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in February.
The Swiss-American startup is developing a novel energy storage technology based on gravitational energy. Although it had previously said shortly before listing that it hasn’t yet perfected its grid-scale energy storage system (ESS) product, EVx, the company said more recently that construction work has begun on a 25MW/100MWh project in China.
According to its quarterly financial results which it announced a few days ago, a licensing agreement from Atlas Renewable – a US company specifically set up to create connections between the US and Chinese renewable energy industries – drove Q1 2022 revenues of US$42.9 million.
Versus a GAAP net loss of US$20.1 million largely relating to the cost of its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II, its GAAP operating income was US$20.8 million for the quarter.
Its transaction with Novus Capital which took the company public included US$50 million private investment into public equity (PIPE) commitments from each of Atlas Renewable and Korea Zinc. Energy Vault ended the quarter with US$303.5 million cash and cash equivalents.
Energy Vault also noted that it is in discussions with Indian state-owned power producer NTPC and Enel Green Power regarding possible deployments in India and the US respectively. An 18MW/36MWh project in Texas with Enel is expected to break ground in September, the company said.
It is also developing software solutions under its energy management platform division to which it has appointed energy storage and cloud computing industry veteran John Jung as head and also made a number of key executive and advisory board hires over Q1.
“We made significant progress on our growth strategy this quarter as we signed several new agreements and MOUs with world-class customers who also chose to make large investments in Energy Vault, including with Korea Zinc and Atlas Renewable, which expanded our footprint in Australia and China, where we broke ground on our first EVx deployment in March 2022,” CEO Robert Picconi said.
The company expects to make further announcements on deployments for EVx and its software platform Energy Vault Solutions in the US, China and Australia during 2022, Picconi claimed.